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

258 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. V.

Subject to these observations, the Commission reported that such usage as had been hitherto regarded as law by the Parsi community was generally against the right of females to inherit any portion of the property of a male Parsi dying intestate. The fair result of the evidence on that point was, that in such cases by usage Parsi widows and daughters had generally (except in Bombay during some years) been held entitled only to maintenance, and not to a heritable share.

The second question decided by the Commission was —

What, if any, are the rules to be found on this point in the sacred books of the Parsis, or in any of their authoritative writings 4

On this point, after referrme to some ancient Pehlevi works on the Parsi belief, and quoting the opinion of Dr. Haug, a high authority on the religion of the Parsis, which was to the effect that the sacred did

not contain any explicit directions as to the mode

writings of the Parsis—z.e. the Zend Avesta

in which property was to be distributed among the relations of a man or woman dying without a will, but that 1t was not according to the spirit of the old Zoroastrian law to exclude women from the right of inheritance; and after referring to the evidence of Mr. Naorozji Fardunji, the able and active secretary of

the Parsi Law Association, who produced before it the