History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c12.s5.5

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