A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c14.78

c14.78

Justice was administered by regularly constituted royal courts in addition to village courts and caste *panchāyats*. Usage, documents and witnesses were admitted as evidence, and where no human evidence was forthcoming, trial by ordeal was resorted to; sometimes titles to property were proved by the self-immolation of people who were ready to prove the title with their lives. Treason (*rājadroham*) was dealt with by the king himself and involved confiscation of property besides death as punishment. Fines and imprisonment were the common punishment for ordinary crimes, and Chau Ju-kua notes: ‘When any one of the people is guilty of an offence one of the court ministers punishes him; if the offence is light the culprit is tied to a wooden frame and given fifty, seventy, or up to an hundred blows with a stick. Heinous crimes are punished with decapitation or by being trampled to death by an elephant.’