The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c28.111

v1.c28.111

Of law the bases are defined as, in ascending order of validity, sacred precept (*dharma*), agreement (*vyavahāra*), custom (*charitra*), and royal edicts (*rājaçāsana*)⁴, and the subject is expounded rationally, not theologically. Civil law is treated under the heads of marriage and dowry, inheritance, housing and neighbourhood (including trespass), debt, deposit, slaves, labour and contract, sale, violence and abuse, gaming, and miscellanea⁵. Cases were heard—in the morning—before a triad of officials together with three Brāhman exponents of law⁶; and there were rules as to the circumstances in which agreements were valid, and as to procedure in court, with plea, counterplea, and rejoinder⁷. We learn from various sources that cases were commonly disposed of locally by reference to a body of arbitrators (*pañchāyat*), permanent or constituted *ad hoc*, or by the officials of various grades; and there was a system of appeals as far as the king, who was regularly present in court or represented by a minister (*prāḍvivāka*). Offences against caste or religion were tried by committees entitled *parishads*. Trials by wager or ordeal were also common. The penalties, reasonably graduated and executed by royal authority, include fines (these, and also debts, often commutable for forced labour¹), whipping, mutilation, and death with or without torture. In cases of assault the principle familiar in the modern proverb ‘first at the Thānā’ is already known, but disputed².