The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c14.158

c14.158

Kauṭalya's judicial system is most elaborate, but there is nothing to indicate how far it corresponded to facts. The details smack too much of theory and must be left out of account. Of course, the king is the highest court of justice. Kauṭalya wants courts to be established in places which formed the headquarters of the circles of eight hundred, four hundred, and two hundred villages and at the meeting-points of districts, and at the headquarters of village circuits. The Courts were of two descriptions, the Dharmasthīya and Kaṇṭaka-śodhana, roughly, civil and criminal, though their spheres overlap and the latter is also invested with some police and executive functions. The judicial bench consists of three judges. The whole administration is presided over by the chief judge.³ Equity prevails over the letter of the law but the Kauṭalyan penal code is a stern one. Ordinary wounding is to be punished with corresponding mutilation of the offender, perjury with mutilation of the extremities. Injury to a sacred tree, evasion of title on goods sold, and intrusion on the royal procession going to the hunt—all alike might be capitally punished. In a passage of general application, however, Kauṭalya counsels moderation in the infliction of punishments.⁴ The procedure prescribed by Kauṭalya with a marvellous fullness of detail, is remarkable for its insistence on recording everything, for its rules on witnesses, their qualifications and disqualifications in particular cases, their travelling and sumptuary allowances, their cross-examination and punishments in case of perjury.¹ Clerks of the court who neglected their duties or sided with either party to litigation, judges who abused or ill-treated litigants, or accepted bribes were likewise to be chastised.² Torture is allowed to elicit confession in certain cases and spies play an ubiquitous role in every stage of judicial proceedings. In Kauṭalya the secret service performs four important duties. Its members noted all happenings, all trends and shades of public feeling and sent regular reports on it to the government—veritable ‘newspapers’! They toured in foreign states, tried to fathom the intentions of friends and designs of enemies. As such they closely corresponded to spies in modern Europe. They tried to detect sedition and crime in the land, and thus approximated to the modern Criminal Intelligence Department of India. Lastly, they watched the doings of government servants of all ranks and reported to the highest authorities. Here they bear a partial resemblance to the Wâqiah-navîsas—who, however, were not secret officers—the news-recorders, of the Mughal empire.³ The spies are to be drawn from both sexes and all grades of society. They should settle on farms, engage in trade, get into prisons, or wander in all conceivable disguises from one end of the kingdom to the other and in regions far beyond. Or they could stoop lower, commit thefts, regale themselves with drink, and lure marked men—natives or foreigners—with their lascivious charms. Throughout his work Kauṭalya displays an abnormal anxiety to enlist religion in the service of espionage. He would organise the department in the most thorough-going fashion and devotes many chapters to it. There were to be Samsthâs or institutes of espionage to which all classes of spies were to submit their reports. In laying down their methods of work, Kauṭalya sounds the lowest depths of ignominy. All sorts of contemptible fraud, treachery, sacrilege, immorality and cruelty might be resorted to as the occasion demanded.¹ The remuneration of spies varies according to their grade and the nature of their task and sometimes ranges between 250 and 1,000 paṇas.²