Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c37.47

c37.47

The King comes back immediately to the throne which he again ascends while the priest recites: 'Sit thee on 'the pleasant soft-seated throne!'³ Then follows an exceedingly queer procedure. **The king's person is silently touched on the back with a rod which is the symbolic sceptre of justice**, ⁴ conveying by the action the view of the sacred common law that **the king was not above but under the law**.⁵ The interpretation given of this procedure is an amusing piece of euphemism. The commentator says that it is done to carry the king's person beyond 'judicial destruction' (*daṇḍa-vadha*)!