Public Administration in Ancient India c15.60

c15.60

Proceedings at law, according to Nārada, were of two kinds: “attended by a wager, or not attended by a wager. A lawsuit attended by a wager is where (either of the two parties) stakes in writing a certain sum which has to be paid besides the sum in dispute (in case of defeat).”² This system of wager, however, is not to be found in other works, and probably in Nārada’s time only the remembrance existed of a custom which had died out long ago. It is interesting to note that the system of wagers in India was analogous to a similar custom in Rome in the earlier stages of the development of Roman legal procedure.