The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c8.80

c8.80

grounded partly in the facts of some remote epoch. For slaying a Kṣatriya one should give a thousand cows besides a bull; for slaying a Śūdra, ten cows and a bull. Then in priestly contempt of Śūdras, Baudhāyana adds that the fine for killing a flamingo, a pea-cock, a crow, an owl, a frog, a musk-rat, a dog, etc., etc., is the same as for killing a Śūdra.¹ Baudhāyana, however, knows of state courts and judges. He specifies three sources of law—the Vedas, Smṛitis or sacred tradition and the example of Śiṣṭas—personages who combine moral excellence with mastery of Vedic and subsidiary studies and powers of ratiocination. Failing them, doubtful points of law should be submitted to an assembly of ten, comprising four scholars, each a master of one of the four Vedas, a Mīmāṃsaka, a scholar acquainted with the Aṅgas, a reciter of the sacred law, and three Brāhmaṇas, belonging to three different orders. Failing such an assembly, points of law might be referred to five, three or a single blameless man but never to a thousand fools. A little later, however, he adds that narrow and difficult is the path of the sacred law, that many gates lead to it and that a doubt can never be resolved by a single person, "howsoever learned he may be."² Details apart, it is probable that a pariṣad or committee of this type was constituted to give what may be called a jurisconsultum. It might be dominated by priestly lawyers but its constitution would depend on the king, who could 'pack' it at will. It could form a machinery for what must be pronounced a species of legislative business. The sphere of any such body, however, would be strictly limited. Like others, Baudhāyana declares that local customs and opinions, varying in different regions, should be respected.³ As might be expected, caste privilege enters Baudhāyana’s judicial system at many points. He would exempt Brāhmaṇas from corporal punishment but he adds that Brāhmaṇas who tend cattle, practise agriculture or who live as artizans, actors, usherers or servants should be treated as Śūdras. It will appear that the caste-law of occupations was often violated and that its violation sometimes implied a forfeiture of the privileges which it conferred.¹ Like Gautama, Baudhāyana summons witnesses and prescribes their qualifications, etc.²