Chapter 26 - Description of eighteen types of practical designations in the royal court

Description of eighteen types of practical designations in the royal court. 

Shri Narayan Muni said:- 

A King should make courtiers (from among) those people who are well–informed, learned, knower of dharma and truth speaking. They should be honest, kind and straightforward and have a sense of shame (for wrong doing). They should be impartial to a friend and a foe and capable of pointing out the just and the unjust as it is. 1 - 2. 

With a judge, a minister, learned Brahmins, a priest and other members in his court, a king should assess all matters as per the procedures. Where in seven or five or three Brahmin experts in mundane matters, the Vedas and dharma sit for deliberations, is the judicial court that has sanctity like that of a sacrificial assembly.3.-4

Judicial procedure. 

Judicial procedure in the matters of dispute has four stages, namely Bhasha (written statement of the plaintiff), Uttarakriya (written statement of the respondent), Sadhya (weighing evidence of the concerned parties) and Siddhi (verdict). 5. 

Matters of dispute are of eighteen kinds. They are (1) debt related matters - for instance matters concerning deposits, (2) unauthorised sales, (3) partnership disputes, (4) irregular transactions, (5) heresy and blasphemy, (6) disputes regarding boundaries, (7) robbery, felony, plunder and many others, (8) dispute regarding buying and selling of merchandise, (9) disputes between employers and employees as those between owners of farms and keeper of livestock, (10) breach of contract, (11) verbal offence, (12) swearing, insulting and so on and physical harm, (13) misbehaviour with women, (14) non-payment of wages, (15) disputes regarding gambling, (16) participating in animal and bird fights for a prize, (17) inheritance dispute, (18) sex and marriage disputes. 6 - 9. 

Manush and Divyapraman. 

One should settle (all these kinds of disputes) by means of divine and human evidence. Of these, the human evidence is said to be the most important. 10. 

The sages have said that witness, authentic documents and actual possession are the three kinds of evidence and these are good for all. 11.

Divine evidence involves different kinds of ordeals. These are ordeals by balance, fire, water, poison, Kosha, Tandula, hot lentils and dharma- Adharma – eight in all. 12. 

The dispute in which all the judges agree that a certain party is right is known to be a clear case. Otherwise, it is a case to be decided upon. 13. 

A king should settle a case by taking into consideration the merits and demerits of the concerned parties and the facts of time and place. 14. 

If one (judge) stresses on human evidence and other stresses on divine evidence, then to settle the case, the king should accept only human evidence and not the so-called divine evidence. 15. 

If there is even partial human evidence, a king should accept it. He shouldn’t accept divine evidence even if it available in full. 16. 

A good king should settle a dispute on the basis of human evidence by accepting his own and his counsellor’s judgment in accordance with the scriptures. 17. 

He indeed is a wicked king, if he does not possess his own strength of intelligence or that of his counsellors and thus, decides a case on the basis of ‘divine’ evidence. 18. 

He should understand that settling a dispute is a test of his sense of justice and that of his counsellors. Furthermore, to give a verdict without subjecting people to harassment is called wisdom. 19.

Advocate, presiding judge, king and the jury- these people supervise the proceedings. The accountant should count the money (look after the financial matters) and the clerk should write down the proceedings and decision taken. 20. 

The king should sit facing the East, the jury facing the North, the accountant facing the West and the clerk facing the South. 21. 

The hearing of cases on the forest-dwellers should be in the forest, cases of the soldiers should be at the military stations and that of merchants in their respective guilds. 22. 

The verdict should not be given only on the basis of the scriptures. While giving the verdict, the king should take into consideration the old established customs and practices of different regions, castes and clans. 23. 

In every dispute, there should be a strong guarantor from both the parties. Further, the king should detect a bad or unreliable witness from the following traits. 24. 

Characteristics of appropriate witnesses. 

The king should consider a witness unfit to testify if he can observe the following in the witness: a sweating forehead, licking lips with the tongue, faltering speech, unsteadiness, a pale face, biting lips, slanting eyes or an overall garrulousness. 25 - 26. 

If there is a mild-tempered man trembling with fear on account of nervousness and speaking falteringly, he should be kindly reassured. 27.

Those who are well-born, have a charitable temperament, pious, truthful, austere, straightforward and have progeny and wealth are known to be reliable witnesses. In addition, they should be doing rituals as per the tenets of the Vedas and the Smritis. A witness should belong to the same Varna (caste) as the applicants, in a legal suit. Moreover, any other witness, irrespective of this condition of caste, is also good. 28 - 29. 

Characteristics of inappropriate witnesses. 

A King should never accept a type of witness as mentioned below. These are: women, children, an extremely old man, an intoxicated or a mad person and a gambler.(Continued) 30. 

A man suspected of a grave sin, one who has fallen for a grave sin, a cunning and untrustworthy person, one who suffers from a physical handicap (such as deafness), a robber, a desperado, one who is on the side of the enemy, a heretic, a forger and a friend. All these are additional types of unreliable witnesses. 31. 

One who has been discarded by his kith and kin, one whose faults have already been detected, an accomplice and a panegyrist; all these mentioned above, are further unfit to be witnesses, they only spoil the case. 32. 

One who does not answer the questions despite knowing answers to them out of selfishness, anger or fear throws round his own neck a thousand nooses of God Varuna. 33 - 34. 

A witness who knowingly intentionally keeps quiet or gives false or hostile evidence meets the same fate. Of these, only one noose is removed in a year. Consequently, one should honestly speak out the truth that one exactly knows of. 35. 

A judicial assembly in which dharma (truth and justice) is harmed by Adharma (untruth and injustice) and in which the authorities do not remove this harm in accordance to the principles detailed above are considered to be perpetrators of Adharma (sin). In such cases, the principal member (of the assembly) suffers a half of this dharma, the alleged suffers for one quarter of this sin and the remaining quarter is borne by all the other members (of the assembly). 36 - 37. 

Those who speak lies while answering questions in a court forfeit all their religious merit. They will have seven generations of their ancestors and heirs destroyed. 38. 

As a result of speaking lies in a court, one loses all his religious merit, goes to the hell of sinners and deadly sinners and reaches abodes meant for incendiaries and murderers of women and children. 39 - 40. 

A person is not guilty if he gives a false witness to save an innocent life. In fact, he would be guilty if he does not do so. 41. 

Even after the judicial authorities pronounce the judgement, the king should act upon it only after carefully considering the decision. In addition, he should avoid making hasty decisions. 42. 

A king whose mind is vitiated by greed and ignorance, who gives importance only to wealth (Artha) and politics and not to dharma, falls from his duty and forfeits the merits of all his good deeds soon. 43. 

Thus ends the twenty sixth chapter entitled, ‘narration of eighteen titles of litigation: civil and criminal,’ in the fifth Prakaran of Satsangi jivan, the life story of Lord Narayan, also titled as Dharmashastra (the rules of the code of conduct). 26