Administrative System of the Marathas c25.s4.24

c25.s4.24

The celebrated Muhammadan astronomer Abu Rihan Alberuni accompanied Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni to India on one of his several expeditions and has left an interesting account of the manners and customs of the Hindus as he saw them. He mentions ordeal by water, libation water, balance, heated metal and fire. ³⁴ Trials by ordeal have been mentioned in several South Indian inscriptions, as Lewis Rice tells us, "The earliest method consisted in the accused making oath in the presence of the god holding at the same time the consecrated food. If guilty, it would choke him on partaking of it. Instances of this ordeal appear in 1241 and 1275. In the first the payment of some money was in question, the second was a boundary case. The ordeal of grasping a red-hot iron rod or bar in the presence of the god Hoyasaleshvara is recorded in 1309. A later form of ordeal was perhaps a severer test and consisted of making oath as before and then plunging the hand into boiling Ghi. If no injury resulted, the defendant won (his cause). Instances occur in 1580 and 1677.⁵⁵ Thus, the continuity of this practice has been established beyond doubt from the Vedic times to the first decade of the 19th century when the Maratha empire came to an end.