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THE JAINA LAI
legislative act to assure the Hindu and Musalman subjects of Great Britain that the private laws, which they severally hold sacred and a violation of which they would bave thought the most grievous oppression, should not be superseded by a new system, of which they could have no knowledge and which they must have considered as imposed on them by a spirit of rigor and intolerance" [Quoted in preface to Digest of Hindu Law by Colebrooke (17 December 1796, Mirzapur), p. v-vi].
The Statute 21, G. III, c. 70, laid down for the Calcutta Courts that the law applicable should be the law of the parties or that of the defendant. For Madras and Bombay similar rules were made (37 G. III., C. 142). By an elementary principle of analogy, in the spirit of Sir William Jones's dictum, a similar provision would apply to Jainas. Indeed, no such express enactment is passed by the Government, but the Courts tacitly recognise the justice of this. Their difficulty has always been to discover the Jaina Law. And as none was forthcoming, the conclusion was irresistible that it was non-existent. Two causes fed this error. One was the pious horror (not yet quite defunct) of the Jainas at their books being handled or read by non-Jainas. The other was the self-seeking propensity of human nature. It is almost always in the interests of one party to a litigation to assert that he is bound by
