Vyavaharamayukhah of Nilakantha: Translated into English with Explanatory Notes and References to Decided Cases

The Vyavaharamayukha of Nilkantha is a work of paramount authority on Hindu Law in Gujerat, the town and island of Bombay and in northern Konkan. Even where, as in the Maratha country and in the District of Ratnagiri, the Mitaksara is the paramount authority, it occupies a very important, though a subordinateplace. The first English translation of the Vyavaharamayukha was published in 1827 by Borradaile. About fifty years ago the late Rao Saheb V.N. Mandlik brought out  a scholarly translation of the Vyavaharamayukha, that was a great improvement on Borradaile’s work, both in the accuracy of the translation and the method of its presentation. 

In 1924 Mr. J.R. Gharpure of Bombay, brought out a translation of the Vyavaharamayukha. In this translation he generally follows the late Rao Saheb V.N. Mandlik, though here and there improvements are made; but he does not translate the section of the work on ordeals, nor does he cite even a considerable body of decisions of the High Courts that have a direct bearing on the text of the Vyavaharamayukha.

In the translation here presented, the whole of the Vyavaharamayukha has been rendered into English. The text chosen for translation is that contained in the edition of the Vyavaharamyukha published by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute at Poona in 1926. The pages of the text has been indicated at the bottom of the pages of the translation. In this translation, explanatory notes have been added in order to elucidate the meaning of the author. References to the pages of the notes in the Poona edition where the Vyavaharamayukha has been exhaustively annotated have also been given in appropriate places for those who want to make a deeper study of the original and the translation. The Vyavaharamayukha is written in continuous prose, except where quotations in verse (which are numerous) are cited from ancient works and sages. In the present translation quotations in verse have been clearly indicated by the method of beginning them in a separate line and by lessening the size of the lines of the translation of verses by a few letter spaces as compared with the rest of the work.

An exhaustive synopsis of contents, an index of cases and Law Reports and a general index which also contains in italics important Sanskrit words will, it is hoped, add to the usefulness of this edition of the translation of the Vyavaharamayukha.