THOMSON, Reginald.

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A Manual of Hindu Law, on the basis of Sir Thomas Strange and illustrated by Decisions from the High Court Reports. First edition of this scarce guide to Hindu law, online searches locate just four copies world-wide, BL, Oxford, Yale and Freie Universität, Berlin. The author, Reginald Thomson, B. L. Madras (Chennai), served as a pleader in the zillah, or district, court at Tinnevelly (Tirunelveli). The Manual was intended as a critique and update of the work of Sir Thomas Strange (1756-1841), Chief Justice of Madras between 1800 and 1816, whose pioneering Elements of Hindu Law had appeared in 1825.In his introduction, Thomson states that "there can be no question that a reliable handbook of Hindu law is a want generally felt, but particularly in the Mofussil", the rural districts of the country. While hesitating to accuse Strange of incompetence, he feels that the Chief Justice's unquestioning reliance on the opinions of Pundits - "Hindu Law-Officers whose duty it was to advise the English Judges when needful on questions of Hindu Law" (Hobson-Jobson) - whose expositions of the law Thomson considered "worse than useless", was a damaging influence on his work. Their opinions "were conflicting, and amid the chaos of conflicting sophistries, the truth became obscured", his Manual is intended to provide clarification, "a book of ready reference".. The work contains chapters on property, marriage, guardianship, adoption, inheritance, partition, wills, contracts, Malabar law, and t

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