State and Government in Ancient India c19.8

c19.8

It is therefore no wonder that we do not find references to any judicial organisation in the Vedic literature, which is at least a 1000 years earlier than the age of Manu. Vedic literature nowhere refers to the king as a judge either in civil or criminal cases. Offences like murder, theft and adultery are mentioned, but there is nothing to indicate that they were tried by the king or an officer authorised by him. It is only the analogy of later times that may perhaps warrant the conjecture that the king in the Vedic age functioned as a judge in private disputes. It has been suggested that *sabhāpati* of the later Vedic period may have been a judge. But the possibility of his being a governor cannot be excluded.³ Such slight indications as exist seem to show that normally it was the *sabhā* or the popular village assembly rather than the king who tried to arbitrate when it was feasible to do so. This conjecture is based upon the circumstance that in the Purushamedha sacrifice, a *sabhāchara* is dedicated to Dharma or law. If the terms *praśnin* and *abhipraśnin* really mean plaintiff and defendant, they must be referring to those litigants who submitted their disputes for settlement to the village *sabhā* either voluntarily or because they were too weak to help themselves. *Madhyamasī* was rather an arbitrator than a judge.