The Colas c25.47
The Cōḷas c25.47
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c25.47.1
That theft, adultery and forgery were considered serious offences is seen from the list of persons declared unfit for service on the village committees of Uttaramērūr.¹²⁴ In this list of exclusions are mentioned also persons who had ridden upon donkeys, and possibly this was the form of punishment for some offences. Considering that most offences appear to have been punished only by fines, and that even man-slaughter and murder¹²⁵ were often punished only by the offender being required to maintain a perpetual lamp burning in the nearest temple, the code must be held to have erred on the side of leniency. In one instance, when a *nāḍāḻvān* stabbed to death a commander of a regiment of bowmen, the king, Rājēndra II, sent an order to the local village assembly that the culprit was to be required to endow 96 sheep for a lamp in the neighbouring temple.¹²⁶ In another, a woman committed suicide, being unable to stand the pain or the shame of an ordeal to which she was subjected by a village official for the recovery of dues which she said she was not liable for; the man is let off with a fine of 32 *kāśus* imposed by a meeting of the people from 'the four quarters, eighteen districts and various countries.'¹²⁷ In yet another, when one soldier killed another, he came to an agreement with the relatives of the deceased and endowed a lamp in the temple at Karutttaṭṭānguḍi, near Tanjore,¹²⁸—an instance of private commutation for murder.
c25.47.2
Even deliberate civil war started under cover of night and ending in the death of a general and the *satī* of his wife in the sixth year of the reign of Kulōttunga was only punished by the culprit being required to endow a lamp; this course had the approval of Ediriliśōḷa Śambuvarāya, the overlord of the dead general, and of the elders of the *nāḍu* (*nāṭṭu puruṣar*). In a solitary example from the Mysore country, assault and murder lead to the award of capital punishment by the *nāṭṭarāja* of Hulimadda.¹²⁹ In a case of homicide due to an accident in the reign of Kulōttunga II, the judge expressly stated that the guilty man need not die for his offence¹³⁰—a recognition of the fact that homicide may be punished with death. In another similar instance, some years later in the same reign, a *veḷḷāḷa* was the offender; the case came up before an officer of the king's government, he consulted the *bhaṭṭas*, and they advised him that death sentence should not be meted out to a *veḷḷāḷa*.¹³¹ There is recorded an interesting case of vicarious punishment, about 1091¹³² in the reign of Kulōttunga I. A boy of six, while cutting wood with the sickle (*arivāḷ*), hurt another lad of seven, who died in consequence of the injury; the father was required to endow half-a-lamp in expiation of the boy's offence. Another case of what appears like a penance, rather than punishment following an enquiry, comes from the reign of Kulōttunga III;
c25.47.3
two men found a buffalo grazing amidst their crops in the fields; they belaboured the animal so severely that it died in consequence; they consulted the *bhaṭṭas* and were advised to endow a half-lamp in the neighbouring temple, and did so.¹³³ Another record of the same reign, from Kiḻaiyūr (Tanjore), gives an instance of two persons who were a public nuisance and a source of trouble to Brahmins, *veḷḷāḷas* and the temple; they were tried for rioting (*kalaham*) and incendiarism and together fined 1000 *kāśus*; no one helped them to pay the fine, and their lands were sold to the temple for 1060 *kāśus*, the extra amount of 60 *kāśus* being treated as penalty for default in the payment of the fine. The inscription mentions incidentally a royal order of a general nature that in similar cases of rioting, incendiarism and so on, the amount of the fine may go up to 20,000 *kāśus*.¹³³ In the sixteenth year of Kulōttunga III, a.d. 1194, a case of misappropriation of temple property, *śivadrōha*, is punished by the confiscation of the estate of the offender, the proceeds being handed over to the temple that had suffered by the offence.¹³⁴