History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

. 218 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. v.

The Panchayet was the court of justice, and its decisions, being invariably given after great deliberation, and without fear or favour, were never disputed by the contending parties. Any one refusing to obey the decision of that tribunal was excommunicated from the caste, and his co-religionists held no further intercourse with him. He was not invited to their feasts, religious ceremonies, or marriage festivals. He could not attend either funeral processions or the firetemples; nor, if he died while in this state of diserace, could he receive the rites of Parsi burial. Priests were prohibited from performing any religious ceremonies in his family. In fact all intercourse between the person excommunicated and his countrymen was completely broken off. So great, therefore, was the penalty of excommunication that the Parsis seldom failed to accept without demur the decision of their governing body.

This state of affairs seems to have continued until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the Panchayet of Bombay found that it could no longer rule the Parsi community with its old authority. Under the earlier system offenders were punished by being beaten with a shoe; but it was found almost impossible to enforce this mode of punishment when the Parsis passed under British rule. The Panchayet therefore, about the year 1778, petitioned the governor of the time, Mr. William Hornby, for legal authority