Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c11.151

c11.151

In the administration of law and justice Kauṭilya follows the principle of varṇa legislation. According to him, degraded people (*patita*), caṇḍālas and persons of mean avocations are among those who cannot act as witnesses in civil suits, except in the transactions of their respective communities.¹ He also lays down that the servant cannot give evidence against the master.² Similarly the pledged labourer and the slave cannot enter into agreements on behalf of their masters.³ Kauṭilya provides for different kinds of warnings tendered by the court to the members of the different varṇas. The most severe warning is to be given to a śūdra who is reminded of terrible spiritual and worldly consequences which shall follow as a result of his false deposition.⁴ In this connection only the śūdra is to be fined and bound down to service by the court, there being no mention of these things in the case of the three upper varṇas.⁵ This provision is immediately followed by another, in which Kauṭilya prescribes a fine of 12 paṇas for witnesses giving false evidence.⁶ This may suggest that the penal measure was probably meant for the śūdra witness. Megasthenes says that a person convicted of bearing false witness suffers the mutilation of his extremities.⁷ This measure may have been confined either to the members of the lower orders or to a particular area.