The Mauryan Polity c8.s4.t4.6

c8.s4.t4.6

⁴ The technical term for ‘torture’ is parikleśa the palikleśa of Aśokan inscriptions. Hultzsch who takes ‘karman’ in the Kauṭaliya in the sense of ‘torture’ is obliged to interpret parikleśa—‘harsh treatment’: The inscription runs thus: bandhanam va paliklesam (Corpus, p. 93) meaning imprisonment or torture. Parikleśa cannot be merely ‘harsh treatment’ for two reasons: First imprisonment itself is harsh treatment; secondly parikleśa in the sense of ‘torture’ to which Senart and Lüders agreed, is found used in the Arthaśāstra (IV-9). According to the latter authority the superintendent of the jail was liable to be punished if he would imprison persons without assigning reasons, torture them and kill them. See also R.E. V where imprisonment, death and torture seem separately referred to in the terms bandhana, vadha, and palibodha, bandhana—badhasa paṭvidhanay (e) apalibodhaye mo(ksaye) ayi anuba. (Corpus, p. 56.) See also Mookerjee’s Aśoka, p. 143, note 2.