Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c8.23

c8.23

The tendency to prevent an occupation and prescription of the family property by a stranger is connected with the original indivisibility of the same (§ 23) and may be observed even to-day in the customary law of the South.² For this reason the family property is lost only after 100 years of adverse possession and even then only if the possession is uninterrupted ("Nywedbhogy"=Nirav-adhibhoga?; if possession is interrupted ("Suwedh-bhogy"=Sāvadhibhoga?) the occupier has to hand over the property occupied by him to the legitimate owner, though however he receives compensation ³. He who buys mortgaged immovable property from the mortgagee may, after 60 years, consider it as his own free property, excepting where the original proprietor has repeatedly raised his claim and thereby has prevented its being lost to himself⁴. Even the expression Khil has been preserved in the modern dialects to signify fallow land (=Khila). In the third year after bringing it under plough it is called Kṣet=Kṣetra ⁵. The rights of the absent heir is carefully preserved particularly in the Punjab, yet after returning home the heir has to make good the expenses of his relatives ⁶. For the Śāsanas see § 35.