Appendix to AccoinU of Hindu Courts of Justice. 185 



" In every law-suit, several persons, conversant with manj- sciences, must be appointed 

 to tr}' the cause : a prudent man should not trust a single individual, however virtuous 

 he may be.* 



" Let persons, who are conversant with sciences and holy studies, acquainted with 

 the law, habitually veracious, and strictly impartial towards friend and foe, be appointed 

 by the king assessors of the court.f 



" Twice-born men, disinterested, opulent, acquainted with jurisprudence, habituallj' 

 veracious, and skilled in all sacred sciences, should be appointed by princes assessors 

 of their courts of judicature. A man, who has studied but one science, would not 

 know how to pass a just decision in a cause; therefore should one who has many 

 attainments, be appointed by the monarch supreme in the trial of forensic controversies. 

 If there be no learned priests let the king appoint a man of the military class, or one 

 of the commercial tribe, who is conversant with jurisprudence: but let him carefully 

 avoid nominating a s'l'ulra. Whatever act shall be done by others, than such as here 

 described, though they be formally appointed, must be considered as an illegal pro- 

 ceeding, even though it chance to be conformable with the law.J 



" Men, qualified by honesty and religious acts, strict in veracity, and attentive to 

 their duties, void of wrath and avarice, and conversant with the institutes of law, should 

 be appointed by the king assessors of the court.} 



" Persons, qualified by birth, religious acts, and rigid observances, and who are 

 impartial towards friend or foe, and incorruptible by the parties in the cause, through 

 any means whatsoever, whether by influencing their lust, wrath, fear, avarice, or other 

 passion, should be appointed by the king assessors of the court || 



" The king should appoint, as members of the court, honest men of tried integrity, 

 who are able to support the burden of the administration of justice like bulls (bearing a 

 heavy load). The assessors of the king's courts of judicature should be men skilled 

 in jurisprudence, sprung from good families, rigidly veracious, and strictly impartial 

 towards friend and foe.H 



" They, who are unacquainted with the customs of the country, who hold atheistical 

 tenets, who neglect the sacred code, and who are insane, passionate, avaricious, or 

 diseased, must not be consulted in the decision of a cause.** 



" Let the hrdhmaiia, who has been appointed by the king to be chief judge, being 

 accompanied by three hrdhman'as, who are learned men, fit to sit in the court, and 

 conversant with the trial of causes, enter that court, and there sitting or standing, but 

 not moving to and fro, lest his attention should be distracted, try the causes relative to 

 matters of debt or other litigated topics, which are depending for trial before the king. 

 In wiiatever spot even three hrdhman'as, learned in the three vedas (rich, yajmh and 

 saman) sit ; and with them the learned hrdhman'a who has been appointed by the king, 



• Kureda, 1. $ 2, 3. f Yujni/mvalct/a, 2. 2. J Cali/ayana, cited in Calp., iSrc. 



J Vrlliaipati, ibid. || Vishn'u, 3. ~i. K Xareda, 1. § 2. 7. 8. 



*• Vrlhatpali, in Sin. Cliund. and Calp. and Madh. 



Vol. II. 2 B 



