History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.882

v4.c63.882

Bṛ. (S. B. E. 33 p. 354 verse 27) defines a *saṁsaraṇa*⁹¹⁴ as the road by which men and beasts pass to and fro without let or hindrance. Kāt. (755) calls it *catuṣpatha* and defines *rājamārga* as the road by which people are allowed to pass at certain times (and not at all times). Several rules are prescribed by Kauṭilya and others for obviating nuisances on public roads or near private houses. Bṛ. (S. B. E. 33 p. 354 verse 28) and Kāt. (756) provide that roads should not be obstructed by parking⁹¹⁵ carts and the like thereon, that no one should plant anything on a public road, that a man who puts obstruction on the public road, makes pits or plants trees or wilfully voids excrement thereon should be fined a *māṣaka*, and one who does not give⁹¹⁶ precedence on the road to his *guru*, preceptor or the king should be fined. Manu IX. 282 prescribes the fine of two *kārṣāpaṇas* for voiding or dropping ordure on the public road in the absence of distress and requires the wrongdoer to clean the road, but Manu (IX. 283) makes an exception in the case of persons diseased, very old men, a pregnant woman and a child, who are not to be fined but only reproved for voiding ordure on the road. Vide Matsya 227. 175–76 for the same two verses. Kauṭ. II. 36⁹¹⁷ prescribes the fine of ⅛ of a paṇa for throwing dust on a cart-road and ¼ for obstructing it with mud and a fine double of these for doing the same on a royal road; prescribes a fine of one, two, three or four paṇas respectively for voiding ordure on or near a holy place, or a place whence water is taken, or a temple or the king's buildings and exempts from fine such persons as those mentioned in Manu IX. 283. Kāt. (758-759) provides⁹¹⁸ that he who defiles a tank, a garden or holy water (or *ghāts*) by throwing filthy matter (ordure &c.) therein should be made to remove the filth and fined the first amercement and also one who pollutes by washing soiled clothes in holy and purifying sacred places (*ghāts* &c.) established by great or saintly persons. Yāj. II. 155 prescribes the first, the highest and middling amercements respectively for making breaches in the boundary (between two or more fields), for ploughing a field beyond the boundary of one's field and for depriving a man of his field by intimidation and the like. Vide also Viṣṇu Dh. S. V. 172 and Śaṅkha-Likhita⁹¹⁹ who prescribe a fine of 1008 paṇas for transgressing (the whole of) the boundary (of a field). Manu VIII. 264 (= Matsya 227. 30) provides a fine of 200 paṇas for seizing another's field, garden or house through inadvertance, but 500 for seizing any one of these by intimidation. Nār. XIV. 13-14 and Kāt. (760-761) state⁹²⁰ that the fruits and flowers of those trees that grow on the boundary between two fields should be declared (by the Judge) as joint between the owners of the two fields and that if the branches of trees growing in one man's field spread over another man's field that man should be understood to be the owner of the trees and branches (together with fruit &c.) in whose field the trees are born (have taken root). The first proposition implies that if one owner alone takes all the fruits he is liable to be fined for taking half the fruits.