Appendix to Account of Hindu Courts of Justice. 179 



but if he gain the cause on appeal, the original judges shall be fined, as the law pro- 

 vides. That will be explained in another place. 



" Is not the trial of causes by townsmen and the rest impossible ? How then can one 

 jurisdiction be superior to another? For it may be asked, have they power to try 

 causes in their own right, or by delegation from the king ? The one supposition is not 

 correct ; for the appointment of a chief judge as assessor and representative of the mo- 

 narch, and that of the spiritual advisers, the ministers of state, and judges as assessors 

 only, is exclusively propounded. Nor is the other supposition right ; for those only 

 who are empowered to protect the people are invested with authority of inspecting 

 judicial affairs : others, then, cannot possess that authority in their own right. 



" It is thought that townsmen and the rest have power to try law-suits between 

 merchants and others by the king's special appointment only, because it appears from 

 texts of Vya'sa, Vkihaspati, and others, that they are appointed assessors in the mode 

 before explained. 



" That is wrong. For if such were the case, the power of trying all causes would 

 belono- to the king and the chief judge exclusively, because no others could try suits 

 without reference to them ; and, since it is a maxim that denominations are taken from 

 the principal object, the rule, that suits determined by kinsmen, &c. may be appealed, 

 would be impertinent, for none could be determined by them. Townsmen and the rest 

 could not themselves try a suit with delegated power, because it is forbidden to delegate 

 judicial authority to S'udras ; now the townsmen and the rest mostly belong to the 

 servile class, and even to the lowest tribes of it, sprung in the inverse order of the 

 classes. 



" To all this the answer is, admitting that townsmen and the rest could not them- 

 selves try suits, still, in law-suits between merchants and the like, the charge is brought 

 by persons of that description, and the king and the judge rely on such persons in de- 

 ciding the cause. Taking their acts as the chief objects, the denomination may be fitly 

 assumed from what is done by them. For the purpose of regulating the appeal, when 

 a law-suit is recommenced, under a notion that it was ill decided, their consecutive 

 authority is propounded by the text : else the precept would be irrelevant : 



" But, in fact, townsmen and others, though persons to whom delegation of judicial 

 authority is forbidden, are regenerated as to the cognizance of suits between fellow- 

 townsmen and the rest; for a person to whom judicial power may be delegated, is not 

 restricted by the texts of Vya'sa and others to the cognizance of certain particular 

 charges. Their power of themselves trying causes, like the chief judge, may therefore 

 be aflfirmed. Consequently there is nothing impertinent. Moreover, VrIhaspati sup- 

 ports this very doctrine.* 



" Kindred are relations of the parties. By the term ' and the rest' [in the text of 

 VrIiiaspati], companies and classes are meant. A company (s'rai'i) is a convention of 

 merchants, and so forth. A class (gama), is an assemblage of priests, &c. Members of 



* Mitra mis'ra, in Viravntrddnj/a. 



2 A 2 



