History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.228.9

v4.c63.228.9

II. 24 and similar texts. Some lay emphasis on possession and others on title. There are at least three explanations. Aparārka (pp. 631-632), Kullūka and Raghunandana take the literal sense and say that on 20 years' adverse possession there is loss of ownership (i. e. there is *svatvahāni*)⁴⁶¹. The 2nd explanation is that the meaning of Yāj. II. 24 is that after 20 years' enjoyment by a stranger, if the owner brings a suit and relies on a document in his favour, he runs the risk of being unable to prove his ownership barely on the strength of the document, since it is possible to argue that, even though he had a document, by his silence he acquiesced in the stranger taking possession and tacitly consented to it. Therefore all that Yāj. II. 24 means or recommends is that an owner should not be negligent (*upekṣā*) or should not remain silent when a stranger takes wrongful possession. This view was first started by Viśvarūpa among extant writers and it approaches the modern idea of requiring vigilance in the assertion of ones' rights⁴⁶²; that is there is only loss of the suit (*vyavahārahāni*). This view lays emphasis on a verse attributed to Nār. and the word *vyavahāra* in it and in Manu VIII. 148 and Nārada IV. 80, where the word means lawsuit also, the idea being that the sages declare only what would happen or be decided by the judges in a law court and do not intend to say that the decision would be just or righteous from the higher or the moralist's point.