show that the arable land was already held in severalty. sex. are no thieves, adulterers, calumniators, robbers, murderers, (after death) attains the world of Indra. In the family laws, the institution of marriage Abuse, assault, theft, violence, including manis improved by prohibiting purchase of a wife, and slaughter and robbery, and sexual crimes, such as declaring a contract of marriage, if once concluded, adultery, rape, seduction, and forbidden intercourse, to be irrevocable. Nevertheless, the position of are regarded as the five principal crimes. Theft women is one of absolute inferiority to the male and robbery seem to obtain special attention. A Thus a wife is liable to be chastised by her thief appearing before the king with flying hair, husband; and, even when he is unfaithful to her, holding a club in his hand, and proclaiming his she must worship him like a god. A woman is deed, is purified of his guilt, whether he be slain or declared to be never fit for independence, and pardoned; but, if the king does not strike, the has to live under the perpetual tutelage of her guilt falls on him. Cattle-lifting appears to have father, husband, and sons. Polygamy is allowed, been specially common, and the village to which and seems to have been very common in rich and the robbers were tracked was made answerable. noble families. Infant-marriage is recommended, The principle thus laid down has remained an and the re-marriage of widows prohibited or dis- effective part of the law down to our day, and couraged. As regards proprietary right (strīdhana), elaborate rules are still in force in Kathiawar for women are said to be incapable of holding any pro- following up the track from village to village, the perty (except their stridhana, or peculiar property); Talukdar of the last being held primarily responnor can they inherit, under the early law of suc- sible. Stolen property in general must be restored cession at least, which was subsequently modified by a king to its owner, according to Manu; and a so as to let the widow in as an heir, with certain ruler is even bound to make good the loss occasioned restrictions, on failure of male posterity. All by his negligence. The king is required to cause family property is supposed to be held in common taverns, shops, festive assemblies, old gardens, by a sort of joint ownership (joint family), the forests, and other places of retreat to be guarded by father or manager being regarded as a head companies of soldiers, in order to keep away thieves, partner. The family members are kept together and to find out thieves with the aid of clever reby the sacred oblations offered in common by its formed thieves, and destroy them. The notion of living head to its deceased members (see INHERIT- theft and robbery is extended very far, so as to ANCE [Hindu]). After the father's death the include cheating of every sort, forgery, bribery, sons divide his property equally, or with a jugglery, dishonest dealing in judicial proceedings, specific deduction for the eldest son; or the eldest false gambling, etc. To steal gold belonging to a succeeds to the whole estate, the others living under Brahman is regarded as particularly punishable; him as under their father. Twelve different kinds but it is in the law of abuse and assault, of homiof sonship are recognized, each of the secondary cide, and of adultery, that the gradation of punishsons succeeding in default of his superior in rank, ments according to the caste of the offender and whilst the real legitimate son excludes them all of the offended comes out most clearly. Thus a from inheriting. The passages in the law-books low-caste man must suffer death for an intrigue extolling the possession of a son for spiritual pur- with a guarded Brahman woman, as a safeguard poses, as saving his father from hell, generally of caste purity, whereas adultery with a woman of relate to the real legitimate son. The gross usages inferior caste is punishable only with a fine. Fines relating to the affiliation of the subsidiary sons are inflicted equally on Ksatriyas and Vaisyas were discouraged by the legal writers, and no who defame one of a higher caste, while the Sudra doubt the existence of these usages throws an un- offender incurs corporal punishment. Fines are favourable light on the constitution of the family the most common form of punishment, but there in ancient India. Thus there is the kṣetraja, or are many other forms (see CRIMES AND PUNISHson begotten by levirate (niyoga); the gūḍhaja, or MENTS[Hindu]). Barbarous cruelty, the prevalence secretly born son of an adulterous wife; the of the lex talionis, and want of system characterize sahodha, or son of the pregnant bride; the kānīna, the Indian as well as other primitive codes. Death or unmarried damsel's son; the krita, or purchased is prescribed by Manu for aggravated theft, for son; the apaviddha, or deserted son. The more harbouring robbers, swindling, and kidnapping, recent writers do not acknowledge as legitimate in for certain cases of adultery and insult-in short, the present age of sin (Kaliyuga) any but the true for a great many more crimes than under more son, procreated in lawful marriage (aurasa), and balanced systems. Death by torture was the the adopted son (dattaka) (see ADOPTION [Hindu]). punishment of a dishonest goldsmith, and mutilaThere is diversity of opinion as to whether a tion that of the destroyer of a boundary-mark— widow may be allowed to adopt, with the assent of which shows how great was the alarm at their her husband given shortly before his death, this offences. When we find that a red-hot iron spike being the only case in which a sort of testamentary ten fingers long is to be thrust into the mouth of a power of the owner of property is recognized. A low-born wretch for reviling a Brahman, we are father may, indeed, distribute his property among reminded that the composers of these law-books his sons during his lifetime; but, in doing so, he were Brahmans. Although the judges, like the can exercise discretion only as to his self-acquired jurists, were generally Brahmans, it appears doubtproperty, the ancestral property being held by ful whether the privileges claimed by the sacerfather and sons in common, according to the joint- dotal class and incorporated with legal rules were family principle. actually accorded to them. Many of their rules belong to the moral sphere, and go beyond what we recognize as the proper province of the penal law. Excessive drinking is punished as a crime in itself, not only as a breach of public order. Gambling is viewed in the same light. There are rules for securing chastity and sexual purity. Hospitality is considered a duty to be enforced by law in certain cases. The practice of magic rites and incantations meant to destroy life is punishable by a fine. Every one must be strictly kept to the employment of his own caste. Matrimonial duties and family relations are elaborately regu Passing to criminal law, we find the suppression of crime recognized as a sovereign and a sacred function. There are hardly any survivals left of the right of private war and of the wergild (see BLOOD-FEUD (Hindu]). The removal of thorny weeds (kantakasodhana), i.e. the suppression of criminals, is regarded as one of the principal duties of a ruler. Legal offences are also moral sins, and kings, by punishing the wicked and protecting the virtuous, obtain their own absolution. Punishment is personified as a god (see CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [Hindu]). A king in whose dominions there men and veracious men may resemble liars, or documents may be forged. If human proof should fail, divine test is to be resorted to, of which there are many kinds, such as the water and fire ordeals, the ordeal by poison, the ordeal by hot metal (a gold coin has to be taken out of a vessel filled with boiling oil and butter), the ordeal by drawing lots, and the ordeal by sacred libation. The deities are invoked to supervise these proceedings, and are believed to establish the innocence or guilt of the accused. In less important cases, oaths are to be administered, the accused swearing by the head or feet of a Brahman, or of his wife or son, or of an idol, and his innocence being established if within a certain period he should not meet with an extraordinary calamity, such as an illness, or the loss of a son or of his fortune. The custom of performing ordeals has survived down to very modern times; and oaths by an idol, a Brahman, etc., are even now in vogue, an accident happening to the person afterwards being considered to prove his guilt. The decision of the judge in a suit is to be stated in writing, and a copy of it is to be handed to the victorious party. When lawsuits are decided properly, the members of the court are cleared from guilt. But where justice, wounded by injustice, approaches, and the judges do not extract the dart, then they also are wounded by that dart of injustice' (Narada, p. 17; Manu, viii. 12). lated. The proper province of moral obligations for liars may have the appearance of veracious and delinquencies, however, is the ecclesiastical law, with its long lists of offences and religious penances and austerities (see EXPIATION AND ATONEMENT [Hindu]). Punishment and penance may be combined, as when the slayer of a milchcow or of a bull (these being sacred animals) has to pay a fine first and do penance afterwards, or when, in cases of sexual criminality, the king inflicts punishment and the sin committed is expiated by a penance. Should an offender fail to perform the penance prescribed for his offence, he is at once expelled from his caste by the ceremony of ghatasphota, the breaking of the water-pot-a ceremony which is performed down to the present day in such cases. Punishment by itself is also supposed to have a purifying effect, as in the abovementioned case of a thief who appears before the king of his own accord and is struck down by him. Judicial procedure is simple and patriarchal. It presents the open court method of investigating accusations for crime, the king, attended by learned Brahmans, entering his court of justice every morning, and there, after having seated himself on the judgment-seat and having worshipped the gods, undertaking the trial of the causes brought before him. The king has to fast for one whole day if a criminal deserving punishment is allowed to go free, and for three days if an innocent man is punished. The more recent law-books mention a number of other members of a court of justice besides the king-the king's domestic priest, his chief judge, who may also represent him if absent, his ministers of State, the assessors of the court, who are required to state their opinion of the case unreservedly and in accordance with the dictates of justice, the accountant, the scribe, the beadle. Gold and fire are used in the administration of oaths and ordeals, and water for refreshment. In giving a decision, the king must attend to local | usage, written law, and the practice of the virtuous, if not opposed to local, family, or caste usages. Villages, tribes, and castes have also tribunals of their own, corresponding to the modern Pañchayats; but from these an appeal to the king is possible. There is no essential difference between the trial of civil and criminal suits, except perhaps that the character and other qualifications of a reliable witness are not examined so strictly in criminal cases as in civil ones, and that the defendant in a criminal case cannot be represented by a substitute. The litigants must always be heard in person, and the king or the judge watches their countenances and their conduct carefully. Witnesses are watched in the same way, the depositions of witnesses being regarded as the most important part of the evidence. Certain persons are not admissible as witnesses on account of their personal relations with the litigant parties, or on account of age, dignity, sex, devotion to religion, moral or personal defects. There are also some provisions as to the number of witnesses, as that there shall not be less than three. In the event of a conflict of testimony, that of the majority generally prevails. The witnesses are solemnly adjured to speak the truth; and, if they should happen to meet with a calamity within seven days after making their deposition, this is held to prove its falsehood. Perjured witnesses are severely punished, and have to endure fearful pangs in a future existence, and destroy their own relatives through their wickedness. Perjury, however, is tolerated where an accused person may be saved from death by it. The later law-books give special prominence to documents, and make written prevail over oral evidence, the plaint and the answer of the defendant having, likewise, to be stated in writing. The trial is to be conducted discreetly and skilfully, The sources of the sacred law, according to Manu (ii. 6, 12), consist of the whole Veda, the Smṛti, or tradition, the customs of holy men, and self-satis faction (where there is no other guide). The four Vedas, together with auxiliary literature, all of which is believed to be eternal and inspired, are confined to the consideration of religious rites, and contain very little about secular law, though they are considered the fountainhead of the whole law. Dharmaśāstras or Smṛtis are the real sources of law from a legal point of view. The term Smrti means literally recollection,' and is used to denote a work or the whole body of Sanskrit works in which the sages of antiquity set down their recollections of the divine precepts regarding the duty of man. In reality, the earliest law-books were composed in and for the Brahmanical schools study. ing the various parts of the Veda, and have been preserved as portions of the manuals of Vedic lore used in those schools, or as independent works. Such compositions are the Dharmašāstras or Dharmasutras of Apastamba, Baudhāyana, Gautama, Vasistha, Vișnu, and some others. They are composed in the aphoristic Sutra style, either entirely in prose or, more usually, in mixed prose and verse. Some of these works are supposed to have been written in the 5th or 6th cent. B.C., or even earlier, but they may have undergone many changes since then. Their contents are mainly religious, but the positive law is also treated in them, and they are very useful for tracing the gradual development of legal institutions in India. From these aphoristic treatises we pass to the versified works, composed in the sloka metre, such as the celebrated Code of Manu, the Magna Charta of Brahmanism; the Code of Yajnavalkya, distinguished for its concise and systematic treatment of the whole law, in three books, on ächāra, i.e. religious rites and duties, vyavahāra, ie, jurisprudence, and prayaschitta, i.e. sins and their atonement; and the Code of Narada, unique in its being confined to jurisprudence alone, which it treats with great fullness of detail. The opening verses of the Code of Manu narrate how Manu, the descendant of Brahmā, gave the great sages an account of the creation, and afterwards transferred the task of expounding the Institutes of the Sacred Law, which he had learned from Brahmā, to Bhṛgu, one of his ten mind-born sons. There is an ancient proverb that 'all Manu said is medicine,' and another maxim stating that 'a smrti or rule of law that is opposed to the sense of Manu's Institutes is not approved.' The great number of learned Commentaries composed on the Code of Manu, from the 8th or 9th cent. downwards, also testifies to the very particular authority early assigned to this codification of the religious and secular law, which may have originated in the first centuries A.D., if not earlier. There are also many Smrtis which have not been preserved in a separate and complete form, and are known to us only from the passages of law cited in the Sanskrit Commentaries and Digests; but the authenticity of these texts is somewhat doubtful. The mythological poems called Purānas are also cited a great deal, particularly on the subject of vows, gifts, and other parts of the religious law, though they are said to be inferior in authority to the Smṛtis. The Commentaries and systematic works on law, being posterior in time to the Smṛtis and Purānas, have gradually come to supersede them in authority, especially the celebrated Mitākṣarā, a Commentary on the Smrti of Yajnavalkya composed by the ascetic Vijñānesvara, c. A.D. 1100, at Kalyanapura, in the Deccan. The Smrtichandrika of Devanna-bhaṭṭa, the Sarasvativiläsa of king Rudradeva, the Viramitrodaya of Mitramiśra, the Mayukhas of Nilakaṇṭha, and other learned compositions are used concurrently with the Mitākṣarā in the several provinces; in Bengal alone the Dayabhaga of Jimutavahana has superseded the Mitākṣarā as far as the law of inheritance is concerned. Customs which are, like written codes, considered a source of law have to a certain extent been embodied in the codes. Recent collections of customs were instituted by the British Government-e.g., A. Steele, The Law and Customs of Hindu Castes, London, 1868; C. L. Tupper, Punjab Customary Law, Calcutta, 1881; C. Boulnois and W. H. Rattigan, Notes on Customary Law as administered in the Courts of the Punjab, Lahore, 1876. LITERATURE.-W. Stokes, Hindu Law Books, Madras, 1865; G. Bühler and J. Jolly, translations of Sanskrit law-books in SBE, vols. ii. vii. xiv. xxv. xxxiii.; M. Monier-Williams, Indian Wisdoms, London, 1876; R. West and G. Bühler, A Digest of the Hindu Law3, Bombay, 1884; J. D. Mayne, Hindu Law and Usages, Madras, 1900; G. Sarkar, Hindu Law2, Calcutta, 1903; V. N. Mandlik, Hindu Law, Bombay, 1880; J. C. Ghose, The Principles of Hindu Law, Calcutta, 1903; J. Jolly, History of the Hindu Law, Calcutta, 1895, and Recht und Sitte (=GIAP ii. 8), Strassburg, 1896. J. JOLLY. LAW (Iranian).-The term daēna, the later din, which is commonly and conveniently translated 'law,' is perhaps the most characteristic and best known term in the Avestic system. It also indicates the religion itself; in fact, in accord with the entire mentality of the ancient Iranians, as of so many other Eastern peoples, there was no distinction between religious and civil law. Another term which may be translated 'law' is data, and in the Pahlavi treatise, the Dinkart, we read the assertion, Airāno dato dino Mazdayasno (Dinkart, ed. Peshotan B. Sanjana, Bombay, 1874ff., ch. 28), which we may render, the Mazdean religion is the law of Iran.' As Geiger remarks, it is highly probable that with the ancient Iranians, as with other IndoEuropean peoples, the early form of judicial process was the simple one of a village council of elders. His surmise, that in the word vicira (the origin of the modern Persian vazir, or, as we say, 'vizier') we have a Gathic term for judge,' does not seem to be tenable, although vicira certainly bears the meaning of deciding.' In the later Avesta the term tkaesha, sometimes with the qualificative dātōrūza, giving or administrating law' (Ys. ix. 10), certainly indicates the judge. In the passage just quoted it is especially applied to Urvākhshaya, the son of Thrita, who is considered apparently as a kind of Iranian Numa. According to Geiger's view, the priestly code, which we know as the Vendīdād, represents only that portion of legislation in which the priesthood reserved for themselves jurisdiction, or else added ecclesiastical penalties to those of the secular tribunal.' There are distinct traces in the Avesta of blood vendetta, and, still more, of wergild; indeed, the prescriptions for the latter are fairly full (see Vend. iv. 44). Such usages were no doubt pre-Zoroastrian. The legislation contained in the Vendidad, agreeably with the underlying principles of the system, does not make any real distinction between what we should call civil jurisprudence and religious or ritual law. If we accept J. H. Moulton's theory of the Magian element in later Zoroastrianism (Early Zoroastrianism, London, 1913, lectures vi., vii.), then the whole ritual legislation must be attributed to this, as he maintains, non-Aryan race. In the code, however, moral, ritual, and civic, even hygienic, crimes and their respective punishments are mingled together. As we should expect from the fundamental and traditional love of truth and hatred of falsehood which, even by the testimony of their Greek foes, always characterized the ancient Iranian people, the highest value is attached to the observance of contracts (mithra), and breach of contract is severely condemned, even when towards unbelievers. Contracts are said to be confirmed in six ways-by word of mouth, by handgrasp, or by the pledging of a sheep, an ox, a man, or a piece of land, respectively (Vend. iv. 2 ff.). Crimes of personal violence are carefully graduated according to the seriousness of the injuries done and the number of times committed, the penalties being fixed on a sliding scale of (apparently) scourgings. Capital punishment, curiously enough, is prescribed, not for taking life, but for performing irregularly and without sufficient knowledge certain priestly functions. The ordinary unit, so to speak, of corporal chastisement for all kinds of crimes is upazana, which is generally translated 'stroke' or 'blow' with a horsewhip or scourge. A difficulty arises from the enormous number of these units which are prescribed for certain crimes, rising to hundreds and even thousands, which it would be quite impossible for any human being to bear. As, however, there was apparently a scale of monetary equivalents for corporal chastisements, it may be that these impossible numbers are simply meant as a guide to fix the amount of such wergild. As a matter of fact, far more serious punishments are assigned to what we should consider slight ritual or ceremonial transgression than to crimes of violence. In the opinion of Spiegel and Geiger, these upāzana may possibly mean simply blows with an instrument for the slaying of noxious insects and other creatures of the Evil Spirit, whose destruction was supposed to atone for a certain degree of crime. As the Vendidad was exclusively a priestly code of the Magians, it is self-evident why transgressions of religious precepts are most severely punished. If the penalty consisted only in the delivery of slain khrafstras, it might of course reach very high sums. It is probable that, quite early, persons could be relieved of their obligation by the payment of money compensation to the priest. The scourge could never have assumed such dimensions without provoking opposition' (Geiger, Ostiran. Kultur, p. 459). Be this as it may, the system of an equivalent fine in money for successive degrees of corporal punishment seems to have subsisted down to Sasanian times, inasmuch as in the Pahlavi treatise, Shāyast lã-Shāyast (lit. licet non-licet '), which is the standard text of later Mazdean casuistry, in its comment on the above-quoted 4th Fargard of the Vendidad, the scale of lashes for various degrees of violence, rising from five to two hundred, is given with equivalents in dirhams and stirs (Gr. Spaxuń, σтaтhp), which originally were said mythically to represent the weights in the golden scales of Rashnu, the Spirit who weighed the deeds of the dead, but which later on were translated into real monetary values (see E. W. West, SBE v. [1880] 239–242 ; C. de Harlez, Introduction à l'Avesta, Paris, 1881, pp. ccxxviii, cexxix). In the case of one crime mentioned in the vision of Arță-i Viraf, the penalty would appear to amount to about £2000. The fact that in the Avesta and the subsequent Pahlavi literature practically no distinction is made between moral sins and legal crimes, between ecclesiastical and civil jurisprudence, accounts for the fact that we have really no civil code in the Sacred Book, and in spite of its name the Pahlavi Dāṭistān-i Dīnik ('law-code of religion') is purely a treatise of moral theology. Fragments of what may be called civil legal codes exist in one or two Pahlavi treatises mentioned by West. Thus what he styles 'the Social Code of the Parsis in Sasanian times' contains information about slaves, partners, and joint proprietors, 'decisions of the leaders of professions and agreement and disagreement with their decisions,' the laws of property, the income of wives, annuities, mortgage, care and adoption of children, infallibility of officials,' etc. One provision regarding a man with two wives may be quoted: 'Each wife separately is joint proprietor with the husband, but the wives are separate proprietors as regards one another; and it is not allowable for a wife to alter that joint proprietorship, but it is for the husband' (GIrP ii. [1904] 117). There can be no doubt whatever that civil codes, tribunals, and judges must have existed under all the successive Iranian dynasties, under the supreme authority of the king. It will be remembered that twice in the OT the laws of the Medes and Persians are specially referred to in identical terms. In Dn 615 it is said to be the law of the Medes and Persians' that no decree made by the king may be altered; and in Est 119 there is mention of the law of the Medes and Persians,' which may not be altered, apparently even by the king himself. As regards the punishment of crime, it is well known that throughout history, and even to the present day, penalties of gruesome cruelty magistrates. It has been remarked by more than one writer that the horrible punishments detailed in the Inferno of Arta-i Viraf are almost certainly reproductions of the dreadful tortures inflicted in the Sasanian courts and tribunals, and a further suggestion has been ventured that some echo of the same may not improbably be found in the grim punishments of Dante's Inferno. have been characteristic of Persian rulers and LITERATURE.-W. Geiger, Ostiränische Kultur im Altertum, Erlangen, 1882, bk. iii. ch. vii. § 46, Das Recht,' also Eng. tr. by Darab Peshotan, 2 vols., London, 1885; other authorities as quoted in the text. L. C. CASARTELLI. LAW (Japanese).—I. The laws of ancient Japan, as of all ancient peoples, were those of custom. Though their details have been lost, it is evident that the two fundamental principles of Imperial sovereignty, and of the family system-were firmly established even in early days. The Imperial House considered itself the head of the whole race, and governed accordingly, while each clan, under its own head, called omi or muraji, was represented at the court, holding its office by inheritance from generation to generation. Within each clan the law of custom was followed, the clansmen seeming to have rendered unquestioning obedience to their chief. This period of authority derived from custom extended from pre-historic times to about A.D. 600, and may be regarded as a time uninfluenced by foreign ideas, in which were laid the foundations of those later laws most uniquely Japanese. 2. The oldest code mentioned in Japanese history is the constitution formed by the regent, Prince Umayado (Shotoku Taishi), in the 12th year of Empress Suiko (A.D. 604). This consisted of seventeen articles, and is commonly known as The Seventeen Article Constitution. Whether, however, this constitution should be called a positive law or merely a political principle is a question discussed but not settled by Japanese historians, since it was issued in the name of the Prince and not of the Empress. In the tenth year of Emperor Tenchi (A.D. 671) a code of laws, said to have consisted of twentytwo volumes, was formed; but the entire code was lost, and its contents are unknown. In the fourth year of Emperor Mommu, Prince Osakabe and Fujiwara Fuhito were charged with the duty of codification; and in the following year, the first of Taiho (701), the work was completed. This entire code, consisting of eleven volumes of general law concerning government organization, adminis tration, and private relations, and six volumes of criminal laws, was promulgated and enforced the same year, and is known as the Taiho Code. It also has been lost. In the second year of Yoro, in the reign of Emperor Gensho (718), Fujiwara Fuhito and others were again ordered to revise the statutes. The revision consisted of ten volumes of general law and an equal number devoted to criminal law. Though called by the name 'Yoro,' this was nothing more than a revision and supplement of the by the latter name. Taiho Code, and is, therefore, commonly known The part of this code on general law has been perfectly preserved, but the part on criminal laws has been lost, with the exception of four chapters. This is the oldest lawbook in Japan. not that Chinese law was adopted as a whole, These laws were marked by Chinese influencebut the best Chinese principles were added to Japanese laws already existing. The Taiho laws, the nation for about five hundred years, until 1190. with many revisions and supplements, governed There are many commentaries, chief among them being Ryo-no-Gige, Ryo-no-Shuge, and Ryo-Sho. The first of these was officially edited in the tenth year of Tencho in the reign of Emperor Ninna (833), and is recognized as of the highest authority. the individual Shoguns issued laws for the govern3. With the establishment of the feudal system, ment of their vassals; and, as the authority of the Shoguns increased, the territory within which the Taiho laws were enforced decreased until, with the establishment of the Shogunate government at Kamakura under Minamoto Yoritomo (middle of 12th cent.), it was limited to places directly under the control of the court. A remarkably simple code of feudal laws consisting of only fifty-one articles was formed by Hojo, the executive head of the Shogunate, on the 8th of August, in the first year of Teiei, in the reign of Emperor Gohorikawa. It is known as the Teiei-Shikimoku, and accorded so well with the spirit of feudalism that it remained effective until the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1867). The characteristic of this code is its rejection of Chinese influence and its adaptation to the maintenance and development of a unique Japanese feudalism. In the days of the Taiho laws, the whole country was under direct government supervision; but during the feudal period only a little territory remained under such control, by far the larger part being held as arrière-fiefs. In the earlier period, the children of a family shared equally in the inheritance of property, but under feudalism the eldest son took precedence. 4. With the fall of the Kamakura Shogunate (1334) its successor, the Ashikaga, continued to enforce the principles of the Teiei-Shikimoku; but the laws were revised from time to time until the articles numbered two hundred and ten. The Kenbu-Shikimoku, of seventeen articles, was issued during the time of the Ashikaga Shogunate; but the affairs of the country became disorderly, and neither the law of the court nor the will of the Shogunate was executed. Many feudal lords declared their independence; and some among them issued their own regulations or family laws, of which those of the Shingen, Ouchi, Chosokabe, Hojo, and Asakura families remain intact. For two hundred years, until the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603), the country passed through what is known as the dark ages, and no new laws of permanent value were enacted. 5. In the eighth year of Keicho in the reign of Emperor Goyozei (1603), Tokugawa Iyeyasu pacified the whole country and established his government as Shogun in Yedo (now Tokyo). Two hundred and sixty-five years of peace followed. The Tokugawa family tried to govern the country according to already existing customs, and, as far as possible, avoided the making of written laws. But, as time passed, the number of simple statutes increased, and they were codified in what is known as the KwajoRuiten. This code was divided into two parts, the first dealing with laws of ceremony, of administration, and of personal relations, while the second contained the criminal laws. As the criminal law comprised a hundred articles, the people of the time termed it Tokugawa's Code of the Hundred. Secrecy was a governing principle of the Tokugawa Shogunate; these articles, therefore, were not published, but privately distributed among feudal officers for information and guidance. As a result, these laws, though of comparatively recent date, are not in all points clearly understood. 6. The uncertainty concerning these laws of the Shogunate is increased by the fact that at the time of the Restoration in 1867, when the authority which had been exercised by the Shogunate was restored to the Imperial House, they were entirely inapplicable, being in reality family and not national in their nature, and they were, accordingly, completely set aside. During a period of some seven hundred years the Imperial House had had no real voice in the government, and possessed no laws which could at once be enforced. As a temporary measure, certain Chinese laws were revived and articles from the Taiho Code were revised. Contact with Western nations and a study of their civilization showed the necessity of laws in harmony with the modern world; and in the fifteenth year of Meiji (1882) the criminal code was promulgated. This was followed, in the twenty-second year (1889), by the proclamation of the Constitution, and, in the thirty-third year, (1900), by the civil code. Auxiliary laws of procedure have been issued on the models of Western nations; but all these, together with the standard codes, recognize and enforce the two fundamental principles which from the first have characterized Japanese law: the sovereignty of the Imperial House and the family system. LITERATURE.-N. Hozumi, The New Japanese Civil Code, London, 1904; R. Masujima, 'Modern Japanese Legal Institutions,' in TASJ xviii. [1890]; V. Pappafava, Das Notariat in Japan, Germ. tr., Innsbruck, 1905: J. H. Wigmore; 'Materials for Study of Private Law in Old Japan,' in TASİ XX. [1892]. TAMAKICHI NAKAJIMA. LAW (Jewish). The important signification which Judaism from earliest times has attached to the law is outwardly indicated by the fact that the religious vocabulary of the Jews presents no fewer than seven synonyms for this conception: hoq (also huggah), the most comprehensive expres sion for law, the laws of nature being also indicated by it, mishpaṭ, 'êdūtḥ, miṣvāh, piqqūd, tôrāḥ, and the term dath, which is borrowed from Persian. The legal portions of the Pentateuch are: Ex 121., 20-23, 2531, 34 f.; Lv 1-8, 11-25, 27; Nu 5-10, 18f., 277-11, 28-80, 35 f.; Dt 4-27. The usual division of the laws into legal, ritual, and moral is not supported by the sources; such a distinction is nowhere expressed, nor can such a division be made with regard to their contents. On the contrary, one and the same law is often both legal and moral-e.g., the numerous social laws; and just as often the basis adduced for the legal and ritual laws elevates them to moral laws. An outward distinction is impossible because all laws without distinction are regarded as divine commands. All commands are of divine origin, since God represents law and morality in idea. This conception is the constant element in Jewish religion at all stages of its evolution, which we can still partly trace in the original documents. However much law may have varied in its connotation at different times, it was always regarded as an expression of the divine will; and he who professed to belong to the Jewish community must not only acknowledge the one God, but also conform to all His laws unconditionally. Disobedience to the commands of God was equal to heresy, just like idolatry and superstition, and was described as 'profanation of the divine name.' Judaism was from the beginning more a religion of doing than of believing, and, therefore, it has laid the main emphasis on the legal rather than on the mystical element. The constitution of Judaism, accordingly, is not a number of articles of belief, but ten commandments; and the revelation at Sinai is represented not as a communication of secret doctrines, but as a proclamation of the divine will; Moses is not a metaphysician, but a lawgiver. The Pentateuch, as we have it to-day, does not present one uniform system of legislation, but a composite body of laws from several sources of very different times; and, in spite of all their work, critics have not entirely succeeded in assigning the single laws to a particular source or even to a particular time. The oldest laws (esp. Ex 21-23) exhibit a considerable degree of harmony with the old Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, but a dependence of the one on the other must not be assumed. In comparing the two systems of law, apart from the great progress in single laws, we are struck by a difference in principle, viz. the intimate union of law and morality which characterizes Jewish legislation (cf. e.g. Ex 2220-26 239. 12 and esp. Dt, e.g. 515 1017-19 159-11 2415). The discourses of the prophets from the middle of the 8th cent. onwards already presuppose a law, which they recognize as binding and whose nonfulfilment they censure. Frequently, however, they polemize against the law; they declare the whole system of worship worthless and even hated of God, when the nation does not practise justice and morality. But the elevated moral exhortation of the prophets was little understood and still less followed. It was too abstract to exercise a decisive influence on the life of the people. It had first to be made practicable in a social legislation, adapted to different cases and circumstances, and transformed into a rule of conduct for the individual. In this way Deuteronomy took its rise; it is a product of the prophetic teaching, and places social justice at the heart of religion, while it restricts the sphere of worship to a great extent, and, in particular, recognizes only one place of worship. After the return from the Exile and the building of the second Temple, the order of worship in all its details was appointed in the 'Priests' Code,' although its constituent parts are, it is true, of an |