Hindu Administrative Institutions c10.s3.56

c10.s3.56

There is then the more important question of torture in meting out punishments. This has been discussed elsewhere.² The chapter in the Kauṭalīya entitled ‘वाक्यकर्मानुयोग’³ has been mistranslated and consequently misinterpreted. As this question is of moment we will once again examine our position having always an eye to the recommendations given in the Dharmaśāstras. If we read and understand this chapter in the light of the smṛti texts, much of the misinterpretation will be removed. The question resolves itself thus: whether torture was used as punishment after the decision of the judges, or to elicit confession of guilt. Dr. Shama Sāstri translates the title, ‘trial and torture to elicit confession’ and Monahan ‘the questioning of an accused person by word and by act’ without or with torture. Monahan then remarks: ‘As in ancient Europe, torture appears to have been applied to elicit a confession from an accused person whose guilt had been established by other evidence—a practice based on the view that, as the best and more conclusive evidence of guilt, a confession should be obtained, where that is possible, to clinch and confirm other proof.¹ This is building a theory; but to our knowledge there is not a single statement in the chapter under review which we can regard as providing evidence in favour of the application of torture for eliciting confession. In the later portion of the chapter, Shama Śāstri himself translates it as ‘cross-examination.’ The title simply means ‘examination on evidence and action to be taken thereon’. This shows that only avowed culprits were subjected to torture, and not the ‘suspected’ as some scholars would have us believe.