History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.859.3

v4.c63.859.3

252-253) states that in disputes boundaries should be settled in accordance with the visible and concealed signs described above, by reliance on long former enjoyment and by the constant flow of water and that if there be doubt even after observing the signs then the dispute has to be decided on the evidence of witnesses. Witnesses could either depose to the marks of boundaries or to the boundaries themselves. Those who could not point out the marks but were to define the boundaries themselves were to follow a certain procedure. Manu VIII. 254 states that the witnesses should be asked about the marks of boundaries in the presence of the litigating parties and groups (or families) of the villagers. The witnesses on being asked were to trace, point out and settle the boundary unanimously, being clad in red garments, wearing red chaplets and being exhorted to depose truly by their spiritual merit⁹⁰¹ and carrying clods of earth on their heads, by reference to mounds or depressions, coals, bones and chaff (buried underground, in a vessel ), embankments, anthills, platforms of stones or bricks (Manu VIII. 255, 256, Yāj. II. 151, Nār. XIV. 4-6 ). Vas. 16. 13, Kauṭ. III. 9, Yāj. II. 150, Manu VIII. 258, 260, Nār. (XIV.