State and Government in Ancient India c17.s4.16

c17.s4.16

Like the village councils, the *nāḍu* councils gave donations of their own and administered charitable endowments given by others. Numerous cases are on record of the *nāḍu* assemblies deciding cases of accidental homicides not amounting to murder, usually requiring the culprits to endow a perpetual lamp in a local temple, no doubt for the spiritual benefit of the innocent men accidentally killed by them.¹