The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c30.46

c30.46

Violent crime was rare, but the roads and river routes evidently were less safe than in Fa-hien’s time, as Hiuen Tsang was stopped and robbed by brigands more than once. Imprisonment was now the ordinary penalty, and it was of the cruel Tibetan type; the prisoners, we are told, ‘are simply left to live or die, and are not counted among men’. The other punishments were more sanguinary than in the Gupta period: mutilation of the nose, ears, hands, or feet being inflicted as the penalty of serious offences, and even for failure in filial piety; but this penalty was sometimes commuted for banishment. Minor offences were visited with fines. Ordeals by water, fire, weighment, or poison were much esteemed as efficient instruments for the ascertainment of truth; and are described with approval by the Chinese pilgrim.