Indian Antiquary Vol 04

SR No.: 032496
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 410
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 146

136
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1875.
This procedure and doctrine as to the duty interrogated in a judicial inquiry, answers one of this court leaves hardly anything to be desired, question falsely." The standard of truthfuland seems to be indicative of an advanced stage ness could hardly have been high where conof civilization, a high appretation of established tinual exhortation of this kind was needed. law, and a considerable amount of juridical And perhaps the effect of this teaching may cultnre. It is to be feared, however, that the have been marred by the qualification (p. 202, integrity of the kings, judges, and the veracity 103 and 104) that "In some cases a giver of of litigants and witnesses was not of the same false evidence from a pious motive, even though exalted character. Passage after passage in he know the truth, shall not lose a seat in heaven: the Institutes is devoted to impressing upon the such evidence wise men call the speech of the king and his officers the awful nature of the gods. Whenever the death of a man, either of obligation to judge the people righteously, and the servile, the commercial, the military, or the tremendous consequences here and hereafter the sacerdotal class, would be occasioned by of disregarding it. And whole pages are ex- true evidence, falsehood may be spoken: it is hausted in contrasting the fates of those who even preferable to truth."'-a qualification not are the witnesses of truth and the witnesses unknown to tender-hearted British jurymen, of falsehood. Thus we have (p. 199, 81)—"A though seldom admitted even by them, so danwitness who gives evidence with truth shall gerous is the doctrine felt to be. attain exalted seats of beatitude above, and the It is worthy of note that in the Institutes the highest fame here below: such testimony is creditor is expressly authorized to recover his levered by Brah mî himself. The witness who property (p. 195, 49 and 50), if he can, by his speaks falsely shall be fast bound in the cords own arm, without having recourse to a court of of Varuņa, and be wholly deprived of power law, and if on his doing so the original wrongduring a hundred transmigrations : let mankind, doer complains, the latter becomes liable to be therefore, give no false testimony. By truthfined (p. 212, 176), and also (p. 204, 117) that is a witness cleared from sin; by truth is justice "whenever false evidence has been given in any advanced: truth must therefore be spoken by suit the king inust reverse the judgment, and witnesses of every class. The soul itself is its whatever has been done must be considered as unown witness; the soul itself is its own refuge: done,” two facts which go far to suggest that offend not thy conscious soul, the supreme the regular action of the courts was not altoeternal witness of men ! The sinful have saidgether satisfactory in its results. And this seems in their hearts, 'None sees us. Yes, the gods to be confirmed by the alternative, which it was distinctly see them, and so does the spirit thought necessary to allow them, of reaching within their breasts. The guardian deities of their decision by the short cut of a solemn oath, the firmament, of the earth, of the waters, of or of ordeal: "In cases where no witness can the human heart, of the moon, of the sun and be had between two parties opposing each other, fire, of punishment after death, of the winds, of the judge may acquire a knowledge of the truth night, of both twilights, and of justice, perfectly by the oath of the parties, if he cannot perfectly know the state of all spirits clothed with bodies." ascertain it" (p. 203, 109). "Or, let him cause And in calling upon a Sudra to give his evidence the party to hold fire, or to dive under water, the judge is enjoined to exhort him to truth in or severally to touch the heads of his children a homily of some length, which contains pas. and wife. He whom the blazing fire barns not, sages such as the following :-" The fruit of whom the water soon forces not up, or who every virtuous act which thou hast done, O meets with no speedy misfortune, must be held good man, since thy birth, shall depart from veracious in his testimony on oath" (p. 204, thee to dogs if thou deviate in speech from the 114). truth" (p. 201, 90 et seq.). "Naked and shorn, In all this it is more than probable that we tormented with hunger and thirst, and deprived have a relatively modern method of pleading of sight, shall the man who gives false evidence and trial superimposed upon a primitive progo with a potsherd to beg food at the door of ceeding; for in the next topic to which we come, his enemy." "Headlong in utter darkness shall namely, municipal law, it appears plainly manifest the impious wretch tumble into hell, who, being that something of the like kind has taken place,