The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c23.20

v1.c23.20

³ The ordeal by Dharma and Adharma consists in painting pictures of Justice or Right and Injustice or Wrong (abstract divinities) upon two leaves, one picture being white, the other black. The two images are then worshipped and invoked with sacred verses, and, after the leaves have been sprinkled with perfumes and the five products of the sacred cow, they are rolled in balls of earth and set in a jar without the accused observing them, who then extracts one and ‘if he draws Dharma he is acquitted.’