The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c23.42

v1.c23.42

In his capacity as judge the king tries cases himself or appoints a priest in his stead (Vishṇu, III, 73); but this latter provision is a later trait, though found in the Sūtras. The earlier rule is that the king himself shall try cases daily and have built for that purpose a special hall as part of his palace in the inner city, and even, as we saw in the Sūtra period (*v. sup.* p. 241), act as executioner. The fact that the king has also the pardoning power is implied in the provision that if the thief come before the king and the king smite him or let him go he is thereby purified¹, a provision which also brings up the intricate question of the relation between legal punishment and religious penance. For many of the legal punishments for gross crimes are set down not as such but as religious expiations, and it is said that the king has to see to it that these religious obligations are fulfilled. In some cases without doubt punishment as a matter of law began as a matter of priestly religious law. The business of the king as judge was not unremunerative, as every debtor who was tried and convicted paid a tenth of the sum involved into the royal treasury (Vishṇu, VI, 20). According to Manu (VIII, 59), if plaintiff or defendant is found guilty of falsification in regard to a contested sum, twice the sum itself shall be paid as a fine (to the king). The king's chaplain has an important place in the court of justice; he is chief of the councillors who as a body may include members of other Āryan castes. If a deputy act for the king, later authorities state that he should carry a seal-ring of the king as sign of authority (Bṛihaspati, I, 3). The right of appeal is also admitted in later law-books, which assume that a case may come up first before a family, or corporation, when if the judgment is questioned the case may be tried by assemblies (of co-inhabitants or castes) and then by judges duly appointed (*ibid.* 39). Yājñavalkya (II, 305) and Nārada also (I, 65) say that, when a lawsuit has been wrongly decided, the trial must be repeated. According to Yājñavalkya appeal may be taken from corporations, etc., to ‘the judge appointed by the king’ (II, 30). Such a judge is one appointed to act for the king in his own city or in the provinces, a provision found also in epic literature. All the law-books acknowledge the importance of the law of family (*kula*), gild or corporation (*çreṇi*), and assembly or greater corporation (*pūga*, *gaṇa*), of caste or co-inhabitants in making their own laws, which the king must not contravene.