Schisms in the History of Hindu Law

Abstract It has been well documented that the marriage, inheritance, and succession laws of Hindus as a religious community in India are a product of British colonial intervention and engagement with Sanskritic legal traditions. However, what has been relatively ignored are the writings and the views of colonial administrator James Henry Nelson on the lack of a Brahmanical Hindu law in the Madras Presidency. Nelson's controversial viewpoints brought him into confrontation with Justice Lewis Charles Innes, a Madras High Court judge. The elements of this confrontation lays bare the fractured nature of Hindu law and its dependence on colonial legal conceptions. This article sheds light on the jurisprudential basis of this debate and concludes by looking at the consequences for Hindu law as a legal entity.