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 1306

I, 316.
ORDEAL BY WATER.
113
* 309. From the place where the arrows have been discharged, a young man endowed with swiftness of limb should walk as quickly as possible to the place where the middlemost arrow has fallen down.
* 310. Another man, who must be an equally swift runner, should seize the middlemost arrow and return with it quickly to the place from which the (first) man has proceeded.
311. If he who took the arrow does not see the defendant in water on arriving, because he is completely under water, the defendant must be acquitted.
* 312. Otherwise he is guilty, though only one limb of his have become visible. (He is pronounced guilty) equally, if he has moved to a different place than that where he was first immersed.
*313. Women or children must not be subjected to the ordeal by water by persons acquainted with the law; nor sick, superannuated, or feeble men.
* 314. Cowards, those tormented by pain, and persons afflicted by a calamity should also be held exempt from this trial. Such persons perish immediately after diving, because they are declared to have hardly any breath.
* 315. Should they even have appeared before the court on account of a serious crime, he must not cause them to dive under water, nor must he subject them to the ordeal by fire, or give them poison.
* 316. 'Nothing is more capable than water and fire of showing the difference between right and wrong.
316, 317. These two paragraphs contain the prayer by which the deity of water should be addressed. A. Vishmi XII, 8; Yâgñavalkya II, 108.
EESE LIBRARIES [33]
UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA
Google
REESE
I