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Vishnu-smriti (Vishnu sutra / Vaishnava Dharmasâstra)
Law of Debt
VI.
1. A creditor shall receive his principal back from his debtor exactly as he had lent it to him.
2. (As regards the interest to be paid), he shall take in the direct order of the castes two, three, four, or five in the hundred by the month (if no pledge has been given).1
3. Or let debtors of any caste pay as much interest as has been promised by themselves.
4. After the lapse of one year let them pay interest according to the above rule, even though it have not been agreed on.
5. By the use of a pledge (to be kept only) interest is forfeited.
6. The creditor must make good the loss of a, pledge, unless it was caused by fate or by the king.
7. (The pledge must) also (be restored to the debtor) when the interest has reached its maximum amount (on becoming equal to the principal, and has all been paid).2
8 But he must not restore an immovable pledge without special agreement (till the principal itself has been paid).3
9. That immovable property which has been delivered, restorable when the sum borrowed is made good, (the creditor) must restore when the sum borrowed has been made good.
10. Property lent bears no further interest after it has been tendered, but refused by the creditor.
11. On gold the interest shall rise no higher than to make the debt double;
12. On grain, (no higher than to make it) threefold;.
13. On cloth, (no higher than to make it) fourfold;
14. On liquids, (no higher than to make it) eightfold;
15. Of female slaves and cattle, the offspring (shall be taken as interest).
16. On substances from which spirituous liquor is extracted, on cotton, thread, leather, weapons, bricks, and charcoal, the interest is unlimited.
17. On such objects as have not been mentioned it may be double.4
18. A creditor recovering the sum lent by any (lawful) means shall not be reproved by the king.5
19. If the debtor, so forced to discharge the debt, complains to the king, he shall be fined in an equal sum.
20. If a creditor sues before the king and fully proves his demand, the debtor shall pay as a fine to the king a tenth part of the sum proved;
21. And the creditor, having received the sum due, shall pay a twentieth part of it.
22. If the whole demand has been contested by the debtor, and even a part of it only has been proved against him, he must pay the whole.6
23. There are three means of proof in case of a demand having been contested, viz. a writing, witnesses, and proof by ordeal.
24. A debt contracted before witnesses should be discharged in the presence of witnesses.
25. A written contract having been fulfilled, the writing should be torn.
26. Part only being paid, and the writing not being at hand, let the creditor give an acquittance.
27. If he who contracted the debt should die, or become a religious ascetic, or remain abroad for twenty years, that debt shall be discharged by his sons or grandsons;
28. But not by remoter descendants against their will.
29. He who takes the assets of a man, leaving or not leaving male issue, must pay the sum due (by him);
30. And (so must) he who has the care of the widow left by one who had no assets.
31. A woman (shall) not (be compelled to pay) the debt of her husband or son;
32. Nor the husband or son (to pay) the debt of a woman (who is his wife or mother);
33.. Nor a father to pay the debt of his son.
34. A debt contracted by parceners shall be paid by any one of them who is present.
35. And so shall the debt of the father (be paid) by (any one of) the brothers (or of their sons) before partition.
36. But after partition they shall severally pay according to their shares of the inheritance.
37. A debt contracted by the wife of a herdsman, distiller of spirits, public dancer, washer, or hunter shall be discharged by the husband (because he is supported by his wife).
38. (A debt of which payment has been previously) promised must be paid by the householder;
39. And (so must he pay that debt) which was contracted by any person for the behoof of the family.7
40. He who on receiving the whole amount of a loan, promises to repay the principal on the following day (or some other date near at hand), but from covetousness does not repay it, shall give interest for it.
41. Suretiship is ordained for appearance, for honesty, and for payment; the first two (sureties, and not their sons), must pay the debt on failure of their engagements, but even the sons of the last (may be compelled to pay it).
42. When there are several sureties (jointly bound), they shall pay their proportionate shares of the debt, but when they are bound severally, the payment shall be made (by any of them), as the creditor pleases.8
43. If the surety, being harassed by the creditor, discharges the debt, the debtor shall pay twice as much to the surety.
Footnotes
1. Colebrooke loc. cit. seems to have translated a different reading.
2. Colebrooke loc. cit. connects this Sûtra with the next. My rendering rests on Nand.'s interpretation.
3. Nand. cites as an instance of an agreement of this kind one made in the following form, 'You shall have the enjoyment of this or that mango grove as long as interest on the principal lent to me has not ceased to accrue.'
4. Nand. infers from a passage of Kâtyâyana that this rule refers to gems, pearls, coral, gold, silver, cotton, silk, and wool.
5. The 'lawful means' are mediation of friends, and the four other modes of compelling payment of an unliquidated demand (Nand.) See M. VIII, 49.
6. 'The particle api indicates that he must pay a fine to the king besides, as ordained by Yâgñavalkya.' (Nand.)
7. Regarding these two Sûtras see Jolly, Indisches Schuldrecht, in the Transactions of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, 1877, p. 309, note.
8. In the first case the agreement is made in the following form, 'I shall pay so and so much to you, in the way agreed on.' In the second case the sum is not divided between the sureties, and each of them liable for the whole debt therefore. (Nand.)
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