The Status of Minors according to Classical Hindu Law

Summary

Defintion of Minority

The text which has been used most often to define minority in classical Hindu law is a passage from the Nāradasmṛti (1.35), which Jolly translates as follows:

A child is comparable to an embryo up to the eighth year. A youth, who has not yet reached the age of sixteen, is called Pogaṇḍa.

According to the generally accepted interpretation of this passage, minority ends at the time when the young man reaches his sixteenth year, and the Sanskrit technical term for a minor is pogaṇḍa (e.g., Kane 1933: 297: “‘pogaṇḍa’ means a minor who has not attained the 16th year”). Although this interpretation is basically acceptable, a number of remarks are necessary to avoid possible misunderstandings.

Remark 1.

The first remark concerns the accuracy of Jolly's translation. Although its Sanskrit original does not seem to present any major difficulties, it shares at least one feature with most other Sanskrit texts: they lend themselves to translations into modern Western languages, which, without being positively incorrect, do not accurately convey the meaning of the Sanskrit original. Jolly's interpretation of NS 1.35 is a fair example of this kind of translation. In reality Nārada says:

Up to the age of eight years a child (śiśu) is similar to an embryo; up to the age of sixteen, he is a boy (bāla), and is also called pogaṇḍa.

Even this translation needs to be interpreted to the reader who has no access to the Sanskrit text. Nārada states, first, that until he is eight years old, a śiśu has no more rights or duties than he had as an unborn embryo.