Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c10.91

c10.91

Punishment for perjury and concocting false witness. False witnesses are punished with fines and banishment. Bribed witnesses have to pay particularly heavy fines and bribing or seducing to give false evidence is likewise punished with heavy fines and with the confiscation of property and banishment and leads to the loss of the suit. The last punishment is also inflicted on him who tries to influence the witnesses of the opposite party in his favour (M. 8, 120—123 ; Y. 2, 81, Kāty. 6, 26² ; Nār. 1, 165). Over and above the temporal punishments there are the most terrible hell tortures and low rebirths and the perjured person by his false evidence throws into hell long lines of predecessors and relations—their number depends on the value of the disputed property ; this belief is met with not only in the oldest Smṛtis and Mah. 5, 35, 32-34, but it appears also in the Vendidad and therefore seems to go back to the Indo-Aryan period. The hierarchy of *paśvanṛta*, *gavānṛta*, *puruṣānṛta*, *bhūmyanṛta* exactly correspond to the *pasu-mazo*, *staoro-mazo*, *vīro-mazo*, *daṅhu-mazo* of the fourth Fargard, and also the *mithro aiwidrukhto* may be compared with the *mitradruh* of the Smṛtis, in so far as the sin of the latter may be placed on the same footing as that of a false witness ¹. The Smṛtis mention only a single case of permissible perjury, namely when the life of a man, particularly of a Brahman, is at stake; yet the sin committed through such an untruthful act, has to be expiated for by a sacrifice (Vi. 8, 15,—17; Gaut. 13, 24; Bṛh. 7, 34 etc.).