Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t7.30

c4.t7.30

Let us now peep a little through the jail administration of those days. Regular prisons—*bandhanāgārāṇi*—did exist.⁴ But we do not know what kind of offenders were imprisoned or how the period of imprisonment was apportioned in accordance with the seriousness of the offence. Learned and trusted ministers are once thrown into prison for plotting against the life of an innocent man,⁵ for what term we are not told. As to the life of the prisoners, it was very hard indeed. They were bound in chains of iron (*San-khalikābandhanam*).⁶ The sad and miserable plight of a released prisoner is taken as a standard of comparison (*nikkaḥmaṇakālo viya*) for a person who has not bathed for days together, nor rinsed his mouth nor performed any bodily ablutions.⁷ The stories seem to suggest that the prisoners were wholly at the mercy of the king—their life and death were in his hands. A king, in order to save his own life from a *yakkha*, promised to send to him one man daily as his food. His ministers encouraged him by saying "Be not troubled, there are many men in the jail." The king at once began to send one prisoner daily, and after a time the jails became empty.⁸ In the same way in another place⁹ the prisoners are murdered.