Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c10.3

c10.3

The council of the king is responsible together with the king himself for the injustice which the king commits by passing a wrong judgment. Of the sin thus originated a quarter falls on the person wrongly condemned or released, a quarter on all the assessors of the court, and a quarter on the king (Gaut. 13, 11 ; M. 8, 18 etc.). The assessors (*sabhya, sabhāsad*) shall speak out their opinion even unbidden (*aniyukta*) and shall not agree, out of selfish motives, with a king who is giving wrong judgment, for in that case they themselves become his accomplices in the crime and would go to hell along with him (Nār. I, 3, 2 ; Kāty. 1, 7 f¹). The house priest (*purohita*) of the king occupies a high place among the assessors who therefore has to expiate for a sin originating from a wrong judgment of the king (Vas. 19, 40f.).