Hindu Administrative Institutions c10.s3.60

c10.s3.60

If this interpretation were to be accepted, then one of the several arguments advanced by J. Jolly in favour of establishing the *Arthaśāstra* as a purely secular treatise, falls to the ground. Dr. Jolly says that ‘the *Arthaśāstra* recommends judicial torture for persons suspected of crimes, while the *Dharmaśāstra* administers ordeals in doubtful cases’. ² The ordeals of fire, water, weighing and poison that are found in the *smṛtis* have also been noticed in some of the Vedic literature and they are not unknown to Hieun Tsiang, the Chinese traveller.³ He refers to this practice when he visited India centuries after the composition of the *Kauṭalīya*. The ordeals for doubtful cases in spite of the recommendation of the codes of law are certainly questionable expedients resorted to by the ancient Hindu judges. But we would grant that they served the purpose well in those days when conditions were quite different from the present, and when theft, highway robbery, and corruption were rife. But even these ordeals were not used for any and every offence. Only to cases in which serious crimes and treasonous acts were involved these ordeals were applied. In other words their application was extended to transactions involving more than a thousand paṇas.¹