History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.397

v4.c62.397

Constitutionally there was no one who could directly bring to book the king guilty of injustice. But the Dharmaśāstra writers insisted that *dharma* was the king of kings (Bṛ. Up. I. 4. 14 quoted above p. 97 n. 125 ), that Varuṇa was the chastiser of kings (Manu IX. 245); therefore they appealed to the higher nature and conscience of the king and prescribed that if a king levied an unjust fine, he should offer thirty times of that amount to Varuṇa, throw the amount in water or distribute it among brāhmaṇas (Yāj. II. 307) and that where an ordinary man would incur a fine of one kārṣāpaṇa for a wrong, the king certainly deserves to be fined a thousand kārṣāpaṇas (Manu VIII. 336). The remarks of Medhātithi on that verse quoted below are very interesting, when he insists on the principle that fines for the same wrong should vary with the capacity to pay²²⁷. Even Kauṭilya (IV. 13 last two verses) falls in line with Manu IX. 245 and Yāj. II. 307. But these prescriptions of Manu, Yāj. and Kauṭ. were counsels of perfection and must have been futile. No king would ordinarily fine himself. Therefore some medieval digests like the Vivādaratnākara and the Daṇḍaviveka (p. 55) interpret these texts as meaning that the word ‘rājan’ applies here only to subordinate chiefs and not to a king who is independent.