A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c7.46.3

c7.46.3

In connection with the above ceremony, moreover, the Brāhmaṇas point directly to the fact that some of the persons mentioned were inferior in blood to the Brāhmaṇas and the Kṣatriyas. Thus, according to the account of the Śat. Br. the king is required, immediately at the close of the ‘Jewel-offerings’, to perform two rites for expiating the act of ‘putting those unworthy of sacrifice,—either Śūdras or whomsoever else,—in contact with the sacrifice.’star Thus the Brāhmaṇas would seem to indicate the emergence of a nobility of service in the place of the old nobility of birth. How powerful some of the new nobles were, will appear from the fact that the Śat. Br. declares the Sūṭa and the Grāmaṇī to be kingmakers (rājakrit), although not kings.dagger The history of the administration of justice among the Indo-Aryans, like the history of the nobility, appears to mark the gradual evolution of the State. The Rigveda, indeed, already points to the institution of money-compensation for offences instead of the old indiscriminate revenge or even blood-feud. One of its designations for a human being is ‘śatadāya’, meaning one whose wergeld is a hundred cows. But, at first, justice must have been administered by the family or the clan, instead of the State. In the Dharmasūtras, however, which belong to the immediately following period, the administration of justice is regarded as one of the principal duties of the king.