History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.475

v4.c63.475

Fines are either fixed or not fixed (i. e. variable). They range from a *kākiṇī* to the confiscation of all wealth; fixed fines were of three kinds called *prathama sāhasa*, *madhyama sāhasa* (middling amercement) and *uttama sāhasa* (highest). These are variously defined. According to Śaṅkha-Likhita the first⁶²⁴ amercement is fine from 24 paṇas to 91, the middling one is from 200 to 500 paṇas and the highest is from six hundred to 1000 in proportion to the value of the matter in dispute or the injury caused. Manu VIII. 138 (= Viṣṇu Dh. S. IV. 10) states that the first, middling and highest fines are respectively 250, 500 and 1000 paṇas, while Yāj. I. 366 puts these respectively at 270, 540 and 1080. The Mit. explains that the lesser figures of Manu represent the fines to be awarded for offences committed without set purpose. Nār. (sāhasa, verses 7-8) prescribes that 100 paṇas is the lowest limit of fines for the lowest kind of sāhasa, 500 is the lowest for middling sāhasa, 1000 is the lowest fine in what is called the highest amercement (and might include death penalty, forfeiture of all property, banishment, branding and cutting off of a limb). Fines were supposed to be lesser than corporal punishment. Kāt. (490-493) lays⁶²⁵ down the following rules: Whatever figure of fine is prescribed in the smṛti texts for a wrong it is to be paid to the king in paṇas of copper or their equivalent. Where the fine is said to be one-fourth or one half of a māṣa, there it is a golden māṣa that is meant; when the fine is declared in māṣas, they are to be understood as those of silver and where the fine is declared in kṛṣṇalas the same is to be understood; a māṣa is 1/20th of a kārṣāpaṇa.' The general rule that lesser punishment is to be inflicted on women is stated by Kāt. (487) 'In the case of all offences, women are to suffer half of the fine in money which is prescribed for a male offender (of the same kind) and when the punishment is death for a male, the punishment for a woman would be the excision of a limb.'⁶²⁶ Kauṭ. (III. 3) provides: 'a woman attains ability to enter into transactions on completion of 12 years and men when they are 16; if they disobey after that (i. e. after attaining majority) the woman shall be fined twelve paṇas and a man twice that amount.'⁶²⁷ Aṅgiras quoted by the Mit. (on Yāj.