The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c11.38

c11.38

¹ Even the circumstance that in the Rathalaṭṭhi Jātaka stress is laid on the participation of the king in the administration of justice with regard to the drivers against whom the purohita preferred a charge (*rājā sayam vinicchaye nisīditvā*, III. 105), signifies that under usual circumstances in cases of such little importance as the one in question, the king did not preside over the administration of justice. Still it is to be noted that Brahmanical law books did not alone assign to the king the task of personally conducting law-suits: "the Greek reports, the Indian epics, the inscriptions and numerous works of Indian princes on *vyavahāra* show that the Indian princes often exercised judicial powers in person." Jolly in the "Zeitschrift der Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellschaft," Vol. 44, p. 344.