Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 130

Sec. VIIA] STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA 105
The Vivāga Suyal gives an account of tyrannical method of collecting revenue applied by a district officer (Ratthaküda), named Ilkāi who was in charge of five hundred villages.
He resorted to all sorts of oppression to trouble the people of those villages, such as, levying of different kinds of taxes (kara) custom-duties (bhara), interest, bribe, insult, compulsory donation (dejja), punitive taxes (bhejja), forcible extraction of money (i.e. illegal exaction) by violence, affording shelter to thieves, setting fire to the houses of the people, and attacking travellers.
SEVENTH SECTION-A Administration of Justice and Judicial Procedure
A great emphasis is put by the political theory advocated in all the ancient Indian literatures on the administration of law and justice which is a most essential condition of liberty and protection of the people in the state.
The Bhs throws some light upon the judicial adminis. tration of its period as revealed in its stray references. The text lays a stress on the equitable justice and proper punishment to be administered to the people involved in any case, as it is advocated by its author thus that there must not be any impunity and unjust punishment awarded to anybody in the state and the encroachment upon the liberty of citizens. The king warns the Bhațas (a class of civil royal administrative officers) not to enter the house of a house-holder (ab hadappavesar) and orders the release of prisoners (cāragasohana) on the auspicious occasion of the birth-ceremony of a new born prince in the royal family.
The term "palayāhi' (protect) used in the Bhs' in connection with the coronation ceremony of the crown prince, Śivabhadra denotes that the king should protect the people from both the
1 Vivāga Suya 1, p. 6f. 8 Bhs, 11, 11, 429.
? 16, 1, p. 6 f. 4 10, 11, 9, 417,
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