Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s19.71

v1.c3.s19.71

Very little is recorded as to procedure. The list²³ of victims at the Puruṣamedha, or ‘horse sacrifice,’ includes a praśnin, an abhi-praśnin, and a praśna-vivāka, in whom it is not unreasonable to see the plaintiff, the defendant, and the arbitrator or judge: the terms may refer to what is probably an early form of judicial procedure, a voluntary arbitration. The same idea may be conveyed by the word *madhyama-śī*, ‘lying in the midst,’ which occurs in the Rigveda,²⁴ and which Roth,²⁵ followed by Zimmer,²⁶ understood to mean an arbitrator or judge, the expression being derived from the judge acting with other judicial persons,²⁷ and being surrounded by the assembly of the people. But this interpretation is uncertain; Whitney²⁸ thinks that the word merely alludes to a chief round whom his men encamp. The king is later the chief civil judge, and may presumably have been so earlier, no doubt in conjunction with the elders of the tribe, but for this we are reduced to conjecture.²⁹