The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris JastrowHopkins, Edward Washburn
Religion
The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow
Hopkins, Edward Washburn
India -- Religion
To the tests by oath, fire, and water of the code of Manu are soon
added in later law those of consecrated water, poison, and the
balance. Restrictions increase and new trials are described as one
descends the series of law-books (the consecrated food, the hot-water
test, the licking of the ploughshare, and the lot), Some of these
later forms have already been described. The further later tests we
will now sketch briefly.
Poison: The earliest poison-test, in the code of Y[=a]jñavalkya (the
next after Manu), is an application of aconite-root, and as the poison
is very deadly, the accused is pretty sure to die. Other laws give
other poisons and very minute restrictions, tending to ease the
severity of the trial.
The Balance-test: This is the opposite of the floating-test. The
man[43] stands in one scale and is placed in equilibrium with a weight
of stone in the other scale. He then gets out and prays, and gets in
again. If the balance sinks, he is guilty; if it rises, he is
innocent.
The Lot-ordeal: This consists in drawing out of a vessel one of two
lots, equivalent respectively to _dharma_ and _adharma_, right and
wrong. Although Tacitus mentions the same ordeal among the Germans, it
is not early Indic law, not being known to any of the ancient legal
codes.
One may claim without proof or disproof that these are all 'primitive
Aryan'; but to us it appears most probable that only the idea of the
ordeal, or at most its application in the simplest forms of water and
fire (and perhaps oath) is primitive Aryan, and that all else
(including ordeal by conflict) is of secondary growth among the
different nations.
As an offset to the later Indic tendency to lighten the severity of
the ordeal may be mentioned the description of the floating-test as
seen by a Chinese traveller in India in the seventh century A.D.:[44]
"The accused is put into a sack and a stone is put into another sack.
The two sacks are connected by a cord and flung into deep water. If
the sack with the man sinks and the sack with the stone floats the
accused is declared to be innocent."
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Literally, transmigration, the doctrine of
metempsychosis, successive births; first, as in Plato:
[Greek: _metabolê tis tugchanei ousa kai metoikêois tê
psuchê ton topon tou enthende eis allon tochon_], then
_metabole_, from 'the other place,' back to earth; then,
with advancing speculation, fresh _metabole_ again, and so
on; a theory more or less clumsily united with the
bell-doctrine.]
[Footnote 2: Weber has lately published two monographs on
the sacrifices, the R[=a]jas[=u]ya and the V[=a]japeya
rites, both full of interesting details and popular
features.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account