A FUTURE FOR THE PAST? 27
interchangeable terms? In France, the word patrimoine, or patrimony, is often used as a better word for heritage, with its suggestion of inheritance. Definitions of the national heritage may vary widely, but a heritage subject concerns the nation in its collective sense rather than the benefit to a single person or family.3 While the property might well be sustained through efforts of one family, the fiscal regimes introduced by successive governments defines that aspect of the heritage as having a greater than personal value, and thus is seen as desirable to sustain for future generations.4 Evidently, all these concepts have a perceptible European bias. Are there comparable usages in indigenous writings of India?
The Vinaya Pitaka passage quoted above refers to Rahula asking for his dayajja^ which has been translated into English as inheritance, an element that is common to all terms, viz. heritage, patrimony, property, legacy, etc.5 Significantly, all have their genesis in the European feudal order and all were initially related to the possession of land and its passage through hereditary succession. In the extant writings in English language, none of these terms is known before the 13th century.6
The usage in Sanskrit texts of both the pre-Panini and post-Panini phases is generally confined to daya, riktha, auddharika and occasionally adbikara as well. Of these, day a is clearly the earliest as it occurs in the Rgveda. It is also evident that all these words convey the connotation of different forms of property which are inherited from father or form part of the family possessions.7
The related words in Pali, in one sense, are not too many- basically, they are confined to dayajja and dhana. However, in certain other respects they seem to be more expansive. For example, while patrimony is pitudayajja or petrikadhana; heritage is not confined to the paternal descent but also includes mata-pettika-dhana, the inheritance from the mother. Similarly, legacy has an added connotation of an extraordinary/ special/exceptional wealth - the term used being avenika-dhana. More significantly, from the point of view of our immediate concern, connotations of dayajja make it very clear that Pali usage is concerned with aspects other than material interests as well. Thus, we read about kamma-dayada and dhamma-dayada. The former implies one who inherits his own deeds while the latter stands for spiritual heir as opposed to material (amisa) heir. Possibly, these non-brahmanical and non-Sanskritic connotations are the earliest and perhaps also the closest to such elements of the present-day understanding of "cultural heritage"