Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t7.7

c4.t7.7

Punishments were of various kinds: fines, imprisonment, 'mutilation' banishment and death penalty—vadha-bandhana-chejja-bhejja.⁹ Of the four robbers brought before a king, one is sentenced to receive a thousand strokes from whips barbed with thorns, another to be imprisoned in chains, a third to be smitten with a spear and the fourth to be impaled.¹⁰ Confiscation of property was not uncommon.¹¹ Trampling the criminals to death under the feet of elephants may have been in vogue.¹ But such cruel and harsh punishments were resorted to in the case of tried thieves and robbers. Some offenders were sometimes banished from their country in great humiliation, with all their property confiscated to the State or were ordered to live in the Caṇḍāla settlement.² Shaving the heads of criminals was regarded as a great punishment.³