Zend Avesta Part 03

SR No.: 007673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1887
Total Pages: 2618
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1232

THE JUDGMENT.
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members of the court obtain their absolution, and the guilt goes to the offender, when the guilty person is punished.
14. He who, having entered the court, delivers a strange opinion, ignoring the true state of the case, resembles a blind man who regardless swallows fish together with the bones.
15. Therefore let every assessor of the court deliver a fair opinion after having entered the court, discarding love and hatred, in order that he may not go to hell.
* 16. As an experienced surgeon extracts a dart by means of surgical instruments, even so the chief
were to acquit the criminal, and unjustly to condemn the innocent party, the iniquity or sinful action committed by the unjust decree would go into four parts, i.e. a quarter of it would go respectively to the shares of the perpetrator of the deed, of the witnesses, of all the assessors of the court, and of the king. If, however, the guilty person alone is condemned, i.e. if the criminal party loses his cause, the king becomes free from guilt, the judges are free from responsibility, and the whole guilt falls on the perpetrator of the iniquitous deed. A. Medhâtithi, in commenting on the identical rule of Manu (VIII, 18), observes that the guilt goes to the king, in case the sentence had been passed by him in person. Otherwise it goes to his chief judge. Identical with Manu VIII, 18, 19, &c.
14. One whose eyesight is unimpaired, does not eat fish without having previously removed the bones, which would injure his mouth, his tongue, and his palate. A blind man, on the contrary, eats fish together with the bones, because he is unable to remove them The case is similar with the eye of knowledge. A.
15. Considering all this, let a judge, after having entered the court of judicature, reject every kind of bias, and deliver a fair, i.e. an impartial opinion, in order that he may not go to hell burdened with the crime of a guilty person (acquitted by him). A.
16. As a skilful surgeon conversant with the art of extracting a dart, extracts it, though it may be difficult to get at and invisible, by the application of surgical instruments, of spells, and other manifold artful practices, even so a judge shall extract the dart of
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