How to Cite

Khatiwoda, Rajan, Cubelic, Simon and Michaels, Axel: The Mulukī Ain of 1854: Nepal’s First Legal Code , Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2021 (Documenta Nepalica: Book Series, Volume 2). https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.769

Identifiers

ISBN 978-3-96822-035-2 (PDF)
ISBN 978-3-96822-034-5 (Hardcover)

Published

06/10/2021

Authors

Rajan Khatiwoda, Simon Cubelic, Axel Michaels

The Mulukī Ain of 1854

Nepal’s First Legal Code

The Mulukī Ain of 1854—the law code with constitutional features drafted at the initiative of Prime Minister Jaṅga Bahādura Rāṇā—is the foundational legal text for modern Nepal. It covers almost every aspect of public, criminal, private and religious law, ranging from the organisation of the state and courts to murder and other delicts, the workings of the caste system and the joint family, matters of purity and penance, customary law, widow-burning and witchcraft. As such, the Mulukī Ain is a unique source not only for the political, social and economic life of 19th-century Nepal, but also for the place of traditional Hindu jurisprudence in South Asian legal cultures.

Rajan Khatiwoda is chief coordinator at the Nepal Heritage Documentation Project at Heidelberg University, Simon Cubelic is research fellow at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Axel Michaels is Senior Professor of Indology at Heidelberg University. Their research focuses on the intellectual history of legal and political thought in Sanskrit and Nepālī, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Media coverage

Michael Hutt, in: Himalaya Volume 41/1 (2022), 137.

Chapters

Table of Contents
Pages
PDF
Front matter
Contents
v–x
Patrick Olivelle
Foreword
xi
Saubhagya Pradhananga
Foreword
xiii
Preface
xv–xvi
Abbreviations
xvii
Introduction
1–81
Translation
83–854
Glossary
855–871
References
873–882

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