Cultural Study of Nisitha Curni

Author(s): Madhu Sen
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar

Page 82

62
A CULTURAL STUDY OF THE NISITHA CURNI
severed as a punishment for putting a false charge of theft. 1 For criminally assaulting any woman of the royal house-hold the guilty person's hands and feet were amputated, and he was pierced on a pale or killed with one stroke of a sword. 2 Yuan Chwang's statement that "corporal punishment was nonexistent” and that "torture was not used to elicit confession" is contradicted by himself when he states that on violating “the rules of property, justice, fidelity and filial piety, the nose and ears of the person were cut off, his hands or feet amputated, or he was expelled from the country or was driven to the wilderness of the deserts."4
Imprisonment for violating the legal code was a common punishment. Although the imprisonment (bandha)" is frequently mentioned, no details regarding prisons (bandha gāra) are to be found from the text. Prisoners, however, were released ( baṁdhaņā gārasodhana )8 on certain auspicious occasions. Yuan Chwang also informs us that “for certain crimes the offenders were imprisoned"? and that "on auspicious occasions like the birth of a child the king ordered a general release of the prisoners "8
Banishment from the village, town, state or country was another common punishment. Two different forms of this punishment appear to have been in vogue. Usually the respectable citizens and the Brāhmaṇaslo were only expelled from
1. Samarāiccakahā, Vol. I, preface p. XXXIV. 2. Ibid., pp. 165-75. 3. Beal, op. cit., 1, pp. 84-85; Watters, op. cit., 1, p. 172. 4. Vide-Beni Prasad, op. cit., p. 371. 5. NO. 3, pp. 56, 202. 6. TUTTICHTIU 7701-NC. 3, p. 261. 7. Watters, op. cit., 1, pp. 83, 264. 8. Beal, op. cit., 1, p. 188. 9. FYTITZ TUOTT forfoqanit tat-NC. 2, p. 153; aafa-ford Hot-ITA-OTTT-T
Tulat at foroghf-NC. 3, p. 56. 10. From Yuan Chwang we learn that five hundred Brāh manas were
simply exiled by Harsa for making a conspiracy against him, although his ministers and feudatories demanded an extermination of the whole tribe.-—Beal, op. cit., 1, pp. 220-21.