in the present Mahabharata the seasons are said to begin with Sisira, which corresponds with the months beginning with Magha. This line has been pointed out by Dixit himself. It is श्रवणादीनि ऋक्षाणि ऋतवः शिशिरादयः ॥ ( Mahabhr. Asvamed ch. 44). Here not only the seasons begin with Sisira but also the Nakshatras begin with Sravan, a time which as already stated has been calculated to be about 450 B.C. In short, during the interval from 2000 B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era various systems prevailed, the last being Sravanadi Nakshatras, Sisiradi seasons and Maghadi months. In Parashara Grihya Suttra on Margashirsha Purnima there is prescribed a sacrifice to the year and with that to the season Hemanta naturally enough. To my mind the historical inference which may be derived from the line in the Bhagavadgita under considreation, viz., Aratai: मार्गशीर्षोऽहभृतूनां कुसुमाकर: is that the line may be assigned to the time when the Vedanga Jyotisha was not written which treated the months as beginning with Magha and naturally enough the seasons as beginning with Sisira. Being written before the Vedanga Jyotisha the Gita line still keeps touch with the order of the seasons in the Vedic literature, while it brings in the new names of the months beginning with Margashirsha. That line thus may be taken to date between 2000 B.C., and 1500 B.C., assigned by Shankar Dixit to the end of the Vedic literature and the Vedanga Jyotisha.

dates

I have said before that I cannot explain why the order of months beginning with Margashirsha came into vogue. I may, however, hazard a guess. In every country some seasons are very marked and impress the popular mind. In Vedic times when the Aryans were beyond the Indus

and

the Himalayas, perhaps in the plains of Middle Asia, the sarat or autumn was most marked. The year therefore was measured by the return of this season and this word therefore came to mean a year also. In India, of course, the rainy season is the most important season and naturally enough in later Indian literature the name of the year is Varsha or the rainy season. In fact, Emperor Akbar instituted a new year beginning with the rainy season in India, and this is called the Fasli or the Mrigasal. So in my opinion in certain very hot parts of India like Sindh and Western Punjab, the cold season is the most impressive. There the rains are not of much count, the inun

dation of rivers doing most useful work and the rain being also scant. The hot season is oppressive and hence the cold season ushered in by Margashirsha is most enjoyable and impressive the winter crop also being the most valuable. It is hence that in these parts the year may easily have begun with Margashirsha. This is only a guess and I put it before the reader for what it is worth.

There is one more observation to make in this connection. I find that in Amara Kosha the months have also been given as beginning with Margashirsha. Of course, naturally enough Amara gives the seasons as beginning with the corresponding season, viz., Hemant. The months are given from the line मार्गशीर्षे सहा मार्ग श्राग्रहायणकव

are

(1st Kanda, Kala Varga) the seasons given from the Hemanta in the line षडवोग कार्तिकको हेमन्तः शिशिरो स्त्रियाम्) and the whole is wound up by the line षडमी ऋतवः पुंसि मार्गादीना : (ditto). Now it is not only interesting to compare this line with the line of the Bhagavadgita under consideration, but it is also interesting to note that Amara counts the seasons as beginning with Hemanta and the months as beginning with Margashirsha against the present practice adopted by Indian

astronomers not later than the Siddhantas. He may, therefore, have lived before Aryabhatta and other astronomers, or lived in those parts of India where the months continued to be counted from Margashirsha as mentioned by Albiruni.

Lastly, I must state that the dates I have accepted are those assigned by Dixit. Western scholars do not assign these dates. They seem to hold that no dates are deducible either from the names of Margashirsha and so on, or from the solstice in Dhanishta mentioned by the Vedanga Jyotisha. Even if this be so, my inference remains true that these lines of the Bhagavadgita place it after the Brahmanas and before the Vedanga Jyotisha and the Nirukta. As I said in the beginning we can, in the present state of our imperfect knowledge about dates before Buddha, treat particular works as preceding or following other works and in this way we can, with tolerable certainty, assign the Bhagavadgita a position in point of time between the Upanishads and the Vedangas.

(Concluded)

HE Hindu Law of Property is too well known to require any description in its harshness towards women. Except in the small portion of India, where Dayabhaga Law prevails, the woman is mostly debarred from holding any property except what is her Sridhana, The principal doctrine of Hindu Law that thus operates in derogation of the right of woman is the doctrine of Joint Family Property. Every male member is by birth an heir, and a woman is no heir at all. Again, the presumption in Hindu Law is, that a family is joint unless proved to be separate, and until that is proved the coparceners take the property to the exclusion of the widow or widows. The capacity of a Hindu to give interviews or to bequeath by a will is also limited, but those limitations are going to be removed by the Bill which the Hon'ble Mr. Setalwad has brought before the Supreme Legislative Council. That Bill, however, does not purport to help the Hindu out of the clutches of the Law of Coparcenary, and in that sense is not going to help the woman in any substantial way.

The particular item of property that this article seeks to deal with, is the Policy of Life Insurance. It is a patent fact that almost every educated Hindu effects a Policy on his life. That is a very easy measure of saving, and, to the Hindu of moderate means, the only means of saving something, under the tremendously increased cost of living Insurance Policy has in it many other facilities, inasmuch as early death is provided against. The educated Hindu's main desire is either to provide for himself in his old age, or, in case of his early death, for his widow.. In some of the departments, the Policies are even com

pulsory. Life Policy is, perhaps, the all in all of the educated Hindu of the middle class.

On account of his desire that his wife should get the benefit of the Policy after his death, he assigns the Policy to his wife. He thinks that the Policy being assigned to his wife would necessarily be a trust in favour of his wife, and so long as she lives, nobody would be able to touch the moneys under the Policy. His wife would be beyond the clutches of his coparceners and the entanglements of the coparcenary. He dies in

blessed ignorance of what is going to happen after his death. The coparceners come to the deceased's house, perhaps do the necessary religious ceremonies, and claim the moneys secured by the Policy. Either the Insurance Company pays or refuses. Refusal is followed by a suit by the coparceners and what is the result?

See a case reported in I. L. R. 35 Mad., at page 165. There the Policy was most clearly expressed to be meant as a trust in favour of the assured's wife. The heirs (who were neither wife nor all the children nor children merely) sued the Company, who contended that the Policy was a trust. The Court disallowed the contention. The judgment is as follows: :

Beyond obtaining the Policy, Nagayya took no steps to create any trust in favour of his wife and children with respect to the Policy. The decision in Cleaver v. Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association (1892) 1. Q. B. 147, is exactly applicable to this case, and shows conclusively that the Policy was part of the estate of Nagayya, and that his heirs were entitled to the payment of the money on his death.

This legal proposition, having once found its place in the Madras High Court, secured a footing in Bombay. The learned pleader, who opposed the widow in the Bombay case, relied on this

time when they formed part of the Roman Empire; traces the revival and growth of national feeling in the nationalities under the sway of the Sultan, and the wars by which these at last became separate independent states; and describes their subsequent development and their national aims and aspirations.

As the Introduction mentions, the authors of this volume have not worked in conjunction. Mr. Nevill Forbes has written the sections dealing with Serbia and Bulgaria; Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee has written on Greece; Mr. D. Mitrany on Rumania, and Mr. D. G. Hogarth on Turkey. The different parts have been written at slightly different times also. Thus Mr. Forbes' account of Bulgaria was written before it was known that Bulgaria was going to join the Central Powers and her old enemy Turkey. There is perhaps sometimes a difference in tone on the part of different authors when they are referring to the same events, but we have not noticed any serious discrepancies. In fact, the only important mistake we have noticed is Mr. Toynbee's statement, on page 167, that "the Athanasian Creed drafted by an 'Oecumenical' Conference of Bishops under the auspices of Constantine himself, was the last notable formulation of ancient Greek philosophy." Mr. Toynbee is evidently thinking not of the Athanasian but of the Nicene Creed.

It is impossible in a short review even to indicate all the points of special interest in this volume.. Incidentally it brings out with clearness the ethnological and geographical difficulties in the way of the solution of the Balkan problem, the age-long hostility between the different nationalities, the sinister influence of the policy of Austria and Germany. The sections dealing with Rumania and Turkey are the freshest in the book, but all are well done. The chapter on Rumania and the Present War" supplies the material for as good an answer as is possible to the question

66

so often asked as to whether Rumania will take part in the war.

Mr. Hogarth's treatment of the rise and fall of the Turkish, or, as he would prefer to call it, the Osmanli power, appears to us to be the most original thing in the volume. He emphasises the importance of the fact that at first the Ottoman Empire was but a continuation of the Byzantine Eastern Roman or Greek Empire. "It is a vulgar error to suppose that the Osmanlis set out for Europe, in the spirit of Arab apostles, to force their creed and dominion on all the world. Both in Asia and Europe from first to last, their expeditions and conquests have been inspired palpably by motives similar to those active among Christian powers, namely, desire for political security, and the command of commercial areas. Such wars as the Ottoman Sultans, once they were established at Constantinople, did wage again and again with Knightly Orders or with Italian Republics, would have been undertaken and fought with the same persistence by any Greek Emperor who felt himself strong enough." Mr. Hogarth sees the seeds of the decay of the Osmanli Empire in the militarism of the great Sultans of the sixteenth century. He traces the decline of the Ottoman power, and shows how its dissolution in the nineteenth century was averted only by the jealousies of the European powers. He concludes his sketch with an interesting chapter on the future. While refusing to pose as a prophet, he points out various difficulties which will have to be faced in the event of the Turkish problem coming up for solution. Mr. Hogarth considers that the possession of Constantinople has been the source of the secular prestige of the Osmanlis in the near East. They retain in a measure "the traditional prestige of the greatest Empire which ever held it. They stand, not only for their own past, but for whatever still lives of the prestige of Rome,

Theirs is still the repute of the imperial people par excellence, chosen and called to rule. That this repute should continue, after the sweeping victories of Semites and subsequent centuries of Ottoman retreat before other heirs of Rome, is a paradox to be explained only by the fact that a large part of the population of the near East remains at this day in about the same stage of civilization and knowledge as in the time of, say, Heraclins." He thinks, therefore, that if the Osmanlis lost Constantinople while Asia Minor would remain faithful, the Arab-speaking parts of the Empire would seek to become independent. This he seems to consider a doubtful benefit, for while Turkish government is bad, Arab selfgovernment, he thinks, would be worse. However that may be, it is interesting to note that Mr. Hogarth's prediction is already beginning to

be fulfilled by the revolt in Arabia and the loss of Mecca by the Turks.

The volume is supplied with three maps, one of which the ethnological map of the Balkan Peninsula--is sufficient to show the difficulties in the way of a satisfactory settlement of the problem of nationality. Throughout, the authors write in a sympathetic manner while not disguising the mistakes and the failings of the different peoples. We shall conclude with a quotation from the Introduction which shows their attitude :--" If our sympathies are not all the same, nor given equally to friends and foes, none of us would find it possible to indite a Hymn of Hate about our Balkan peoples. Every one of these peoples, on whatever side he is fighting to-day, has a past worthy of more than our respect and interwoven in some intimate way with our history."

HE following is the Government of India's despatch, dated Simla June 30, 1910, to Lord Morley. The Despatch is signed by the Earl Minto, Gen. Sir O'M Creagh, Hon. J. O. Miller, Hon. Sir S. P. Sinha, Hon. Sir G. Fleetwood Wilson, Hon. Sir B. Robertson, and Hon. J. C. Jenkins:

My Lord, in reporting for your lordship's information the action which we propose to take on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Decentralization which concern the depart.ment of revenue and agriculture, we stated that there were two questions of considerable importance and complexity in regard to which we proposed to address you separately as we were not prepared to accept the Commission's proposals. One of these questions is the recommendation in paragraph 252 of the Commission's Report, that the general principles of assessment such, for instance, as the proportion of the net profits on the land which the Government shall be entitled

to take, and the period of settlement should be embodied in provincial legislation instead of being left to executive order as is now the case outside Bombay. We are strongly opposed to this proposal on grounds both of general principle and of practical policy, and it will be necessary for us to lay our views before your lordship at some length.

2. In the discussion of this question we are hampered by the fact that the Commission have given no reasons for putting forward their proposal which, as we shall show, involves an entirely new departure in our revenue policy. Nor does it appear from the record of the evidence taken by the Commission that the proposal was recommended to them by any of the witnesses whom they examined or that they made any attempt to elicit opinions on the subject. We are thus under the disadvantage of not knowing the precise considerations which influenced the Commission in making the recommendation or what objects they had in view,