The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c20.10

c20.10

It is on law and justice that Alberûnî is most illuminating. Here he supplies details which are not to be found in the Hindu literature or the inscriptions. He rightly observes that the Hindus believed their religious law and its simple precepts to be derived from Ṛiṣis . . . “Further no law can be exchanged or replaced by another, for they use the laws simply as they find them.” But he adds presently “laws can be abrogated, for some practices allowed before the coming of Vâsudeva are now forbidden.”² In the Court a suitor had ordinarily to submit some documentary evidence, in prescribed form, to substantiate his claims before the judge. In the absence of such documentary evidence, the case was settled by means of witnesses. Witnesses should not be less than four but they might be more in number. Only where the facts were perfectly clear, adds Alberûnî, would the testimony of a single witness suffice. Even then the judge would employ all sorts of tricks and secret means to elicit the truth. If the plaintiff could not prove his claim, the defendant had still to swear to his innocence. On the other hand, the defendant himself might, evidently at an earlier stage, tender the oath to the plaintiff saying, “Swear thou that thy claim is true and I will give thee what thou claimest.” Oaths were of many kinds in accordance with the value of the object of the claim. If the object were not very important and the plaintiff agreed, the defendant merely swore, in the presence of five learned Brāhmaṇas, that " if I lie, he shall have as recompense as much of my goods as is equal to the eightfold of the amount of his claim."¹