Judicial Processes and Punishment in Classical India

Xuanzang (Buddhist monk) · Down to Earth Series · 6 pages

From Thomas Watters, T.W. Rhys Davids and Vincent A. Smith (eds.), On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, AD 629–645, two volumes, London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1904–1905; Vol. I, Social and Legal Matters, pages 171–72. The traveller is the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, whose account dates from his years in India in the second quarter of the seventh century; a footnote dates the Byzantine–Arab wars to 626 AD for context.

The extract falls into three short sections. The first describes the character of the Indian people as the pilgrim found it — hasty and irresolute in temperament but of pure moral principles, unwilling to take anything wrongfully and yielding more than fairness requires, fearing retribution for sins in other lives and making light of what conduct produces in this one, not practising deceit and keeping their sworn obligations. The second covers judicial process: the criminal class is small because government is honestly administered and people live on good terms; violation of the statute law and plots against the sovereign are punished by imprisonment for life without corporal punishment, though the offender is not treated as a member of the community; offences against social morality and disloyal or unfilial conduct are punished by cutting off the nose, an ear, a hand or a foot, or by banishment to another country or the wilderness; other offences can be atoned for by a money payment. The third describes the four ordeals by which innocence or guilt was determined — by water, by fire, by weighing and by poison — with the mechanics of each set out, beginning with the accused and a stone sealed in connected sacks and thrown into a deep stream.

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