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History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c12.s5: Criminal administration

History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c12.s5

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English

Criminal administration

c12.s5.1

Owing to the well-organised character of the government there do not seem to have been many instances of violent crime. Yuan Chwang testifies to this rather amazing fact : “As the government is honestly administered and the people live together on good terms the criminal class is small.”³ But the roads and river routes were by no means immune from bands of brigands, Yuan Chwang himself being stripped by them more than once. At one time, when the pilgrim had proceeded eastward from Ayodhyā (not very distant from Kanauj) and was going down the Ganges with about eighty other fellow-passengers on board a ship, the robbers selected him on account of his handsome form as an offering to the goddess Durgā, whom they paid worship; and it was fortunately through the intercession of Nature that he escaped meeting a cruel death at their hands. We learn that all of a sudden a “black tempest” (typhoon) arose, which terrified the pirates, and interpreting it as an indication of divine anger they sincerely felt repentance for their evil ways and not only spared Yuan Chwang’s life but also “took on themselves the five obligations of a lay-believer.”¹

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³ Watters, I, p. 171.

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¹ *Life*, pp. 86-90. This incident clearly proves that human sacrifices to propitiate the gods or goddesses were then not unknown. Bāṇa also at one place refers to them (*Hc. C. T.*, p. 92). ² *Life*, p. 73. ³ Watters, I, p. 172. ⁴ *Hc. C. T.*, p. 111. ⁵ Watters, I, p. 172; Beal, I, pp. 83-84.

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Once while he was in the Panjab, Yuan Chwang had similarly to encounter a band of fifty bandits in a great forest of *Po-lo-che* trees (Palāśas) near the town of *Che-kia-lo* (Sākala). He and his companions were deprived of all their clothes and goods, and hotly pursued by the gang with drawn swords. A Brahman peasant, who appeared on the scene with eighty armed men just at the right time, however, saved their lives and dispersed the robbers².

c12.s5.5

The law against crime appears to have been exceptionally severe. Imprisonment for life was the ordinary penalty for transgressions of the statute law and conspiracy against the sovereign, and we are informed that the prisoners were so cruelly treated that they were not at all considered as members of the community.³ The *Harṣacarita* on the other hand refers to the custom of releasing prisoners on festive and joyous occasions. Thus Harṣa’s birth saw “disorderly crowds of freed prisoners, their faces hairy with long matted beards.”⁴ The other punishments were more sanguinary than in the Gupta period: “For offences against social morality, and disloyal and unfilial conduct, the punishment is to cut off the nose, or an ear, or a hand, or a foot, or to banish the offender to another country or into the wilderness.”⁵ Minor offences could be “atoned for by a money payment.” Ordeals by water, fire, weighing, or poison, were esteemed as efficient instruments to determine the innocence or guilt of an accused person, and the Chinese pilgrim apparently describesthem with approval.¹ The severity of the criminal administration was no doubt largely responsible for the infrequency of violations of the law, but it may also have been due to the character of the Indian people, who are described as of “pure moral principles.” Yuan Chwang adds: “They will not take anything wrongfully, and they yield more than fairness requires. They fear the retribution for sins in other lives, and make light of what conduct produces in this life. They do not practise deceit and they keep their sworn obligations.”²

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¹ Watters, I, p. 172; Beal, I, p. 84.

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² Watters, I, p. 171; Beal, I, p. 83. For a discussion on Harṣa’s administrative system, see also Dr. R. K. Mookerji, Harṣa (p. 84 f.) where the author has copiously supplemented it by the evidence of the Gupta inscriptions.

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