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

CHAP. V.] LAW OF PROPERTY.

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The Panchayet having been thus reduced to the state of a body without any real power or vitality, and there being no recognised code of laws regulating the rights of inheritance, as well as questions of marriage and divorce among the Parsis, confusion and disorder arose in the community whenever there was a clashing of interests between the parties concerned. The Parsis seem never to have possessed the code of laws which their prophet had devised for them. It is said to have been lost with other religious books on their expatriation. In their early sojourn in India they probably depended upon ordinary and recognised principles of justice and equity, and if any dispute arose regarding succession to property or rights of inheritance, their Panchayet, as we have said before, gave a final decision.

Tt is evident, nevertheless, that the ancient usage was to divide equally among all the children the whole of the property, whether personal or landed, of an intestate person, and this course, having been followed from generation to generation, became the common law of the community. No questions were ever raised respecting the right of dividing landed property by will.

So long as they agreed among themselves, and kept their disputes from being taken into the authorised courts of justice, this usage was strictly adhered

to. But when litigious persons discovered that dis-