The Commentary of Father Monserrate 3.1
The Commentary of Father Monserrate (Hoyland) 3.1
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3.1.1
The King's severity towards errors and misdemeanours committed by officials in the course of government business is remarkable, for he is most stern with offenders against the public faith. Hence all are afraid of his severity, and strive with all their might to do as he directs and desires. For the King has the most precise regard for right and justice in the affairs of government. In accordance with Musalman practice cases are decided by a double process before two judges. However by the King's direction all capital cases, and all really important civil cases also, are conducted before himself. He is easily excited to anger, but soon cools down again. By nature moreover he is kindly and benevolent, and is sincerely anxious that guilt should be punished, without malice indeed, but at the same time without undue leniency. Hence in the cases in which he himself acts as judge the guilty are, by his own directions, not punished until he has given orders for the third time that this shall be done. During the campaign against the king of Chabulum, twelve deserters to the enemy were captured in an ambush near the Bydaspes and brought before the King. He pronounced judgment upon them; some were to be kept in custody in order that their case might be more thoroughly investigated, whilst some were convicted of treachery and desertion and handed over for execution. One of these latter, as he was being hustled off by the executioners, begged for a chance to say something.
3.1.2
'O King,' he said, 'order me not to the gibbet, for nature has bestowed upon me marvellous powers in a certain direction.' 'Well,' said the King, 'in what direction do you thus excel, O miserable wretch?' 'I can sing beautifully.' 'Then sing.' The wretched fellow then began to sing, in a voice so discordant and absurd that everyone began to laugh and murmur, and the King himself could scarcely control his smiles. When the guilty man perceived this, he put in, 'Pardon me this poor performance, O King. For these guards of yours dragged me along so roughly and cruelly, on a hot and dusty road, and pummelled me so brutally with their fists, that my throat is full of dust, and my voice so husky that I cannot do myself justice in singing.' The King rewarded this witty saying with such signal grace that for the sake of this one man he pardoned both the fellow himself and his companions.
3.1.3
The following are the ways in which the guilty are punished. Those who have committed a capital crime are either crushed by elephants, impaled, or hanged. Seducers and adulterers are either strangled or gibbeted. The King has such a hatred of debauchery and adultery that neither influence nor entreaties nor the great ransom which was offered would induce him to pardon his chief trade commissioner, who although he was already married had violently debauched a well-born Brahman girl. The wretch was by the King's order remorselessly strangled. Although Muhammad did not forbid unnatural crimes, yet Zelaldinus punished those who are guilty of such crimes by savage scourging with leather thongs.
3.1.4
There are two ministers of justice, one primary, and the other for appeals. There is also a chief magistrate. Judgment is delivered only verbally, and is not recorded in writing. Ordinary criminals are kept under guard in irons, but not in prison. Princes sentenced to imprisonment are sent to the jail at Goaleris, where they rot away in chains and filth. Noble offenders are handed over to other nobles for punishment, but the base-born either to the captain of the despatch runners, or to the chief executioner. This latter official is equipped even in the palace and before the King with many instruments of punishment, such as leather thongs, whips, bow-strings fitted with sharp spikes of copper, a smooth block of wood used for pounding the criminals sides or crushing to pieces his skull, and scourges in which are tied a number of small balls studded with sharp bronze nails, (this latter weapon must I think be the one called by the ancients the scorpion). However no one is actually punished with these instruments, which seem to be intended rather to inspire terror than for actual use. For the same reason various kinds of chains, manacles, handcuffs and other irons are hung up on one of the palace gateways, which is guarded by the afore-mentioned chief executioner. The other three gateways are guarded by the chief doorkeeper, the chief trainer of gladiators, and the chief despatch-runner respectively.
3.1.5
It is the duty of the orderlies to manage the water-clocks and to strike the time on bronze gongs. These water-clocks consist of a brazen vessel filled with water, and a hollow bronze cone of such a size that exactly a quarter of an hour is taken for the water to fill it through a small hole in the bottom. This cone is placed on the top of the vessel filled with water, and the water runs in through the hole in its bottom. When the cone is full, it sinks, and thus shows that a quarter of an hour has elapsed. Everything that goes on in the palace is regulated by this clock. At fixed hours, namely before dawn when the cocks begin to crow, and in the evening, a barbaric din is kept up for the space of a full hour by means of trumpets, bugles, drums, rattles, bells and the like. Amongst the despatch-runners are certain couriers who in one day can run on foot as far as a horseman can ride at full speed. They are said to have their livers removed in infancy, in order to prevent their suffering from shortness of breath. They practise running in shoes made of lead, or train themselves by repeatedly lifting their feet and moving their legs (whilst remaining standing still in one place) till their heels touch their buttocks. When their leaden shoes are removed, they are seen to be magnificent runners, by the help of whose swiftness the King can very rapidly and regularly obtain news or send orders on any matter touching the peace of his realm. And this realm is indeed a vast one.
3.1.6
On the north and in the direction of the Circius it is bounded by Mount Imaus (which is now called by its inhabitants Cumaunius), by the river Indus, and by the Paharopanisus. In the south its limits are the Gangetic gulf and various inland regions which adjoin the territories of Narsinga and Bisnaga to the north of the Pandae. Further west its southern boundary is found by Ariacum, which lies next Goa, and Cuncanum, which is now called Canaia, and the country of the Sedani, who live close to Xeulum and are called Deccanici. In the west it is bounded by the coast of Gedrosia and the Indian Ocean, and in the east by the regions of the Emodi which extend far towards the sunrise, and by the great estuary of the Ganges, which flows from the same mountains as the Jomanes, but from a different fountain-head and by a different course. However I must remind the reader that my task is not a general description of India, but merely an account of the empire of Equebarus. Of late he has added to that empire, partly by force of arms and partly by voluntary surrender, most of Gedrosia. Hence it may well be believed that the circuit of the whole of his dominions is more than 20,000 miles, and that they lie in the heart of what the ancients called 'India within the Ganges,' the land which according to the historians of antiquity, was reached by Alexander the Macedonian, and which was first evangelized, according to the Christian Fathers, by St. Bartholomew. St.
3.1.7
Thomas is said also to have lived in the coastal district. This empire is very beautiful and healthy, although in many places not well provided with fruit trees. On account of the diversity of the climate in different parts it produces many and various types of crops. Thus in the southern area or zone (as geographers would call it), the same crops are found as in the maritime district (near Goa). But the farther one goes towards the north the more similar does one find the staple products to those of Europe, though indeed the following are the only representatives of the long list of European fruits and trees which grow in India with real exuberance (and these only on the Himalaya range), viz. the grape, the peach, the mulberry, the fig (in a few places), and the pine tree. The whole country bears pomegranates in abundance. The Cotonian apple, the pear and similar fruits are imported from Persia. Rice, wheat, millet and pulse are produced in great quantities. Amongst a great number of non-fruit-bearing trees, I recognised as European only the plane, though there are willows in Indoscythia. In many places in the neighbourhood of the Indus flax and hemp are sown. The plant which is commonly called 'bangue,' and which when used as a drink produces intoxication and stupefaction of the mind and senses, has leaves very similar to those of the hemp-plant. It does not however grow on one stalk only, but has a low stem, from which spring a number of other branches, like a bush.
3.1.8
Indigo and opium are largely grown in the south, and bring no small profit to the royal revenues. Indigo is a plant from which a juice is extracted yielding a blue dye when it hardens. The vernacular name means (as in Persian also) 'blue,' but the Portuguese have added a letter, calling the plant 'anilum' instead of 'nilum.'