14 On Ordeals. [No. 1, 



A translation of the Chapter on Ordeals, from the Vydvahdra Mayuhha. 

 — By Professor George Buhler, Elphinstone College, Bombay. 



[Received 2nd June, 1865.] 



The following translation of the Mayukha's chapter on Ordeals was 

 originally prepared by a Bombay Shastri at the request of rny learned 

 friend, Mr. Wh. Stokes, and intended to be inserted in the reprint of 

 Mr. Borradaile's translation of the Mayukha, which was being published 

 under his superintendence in Madras. When I looked over the Shis- 

 tri's work, I found that it would be of no use, as his translation was 

 frequently unintelligible, and often decidedly wrong. I therefore retrans- 

 lated nearly the whole, with the assistance of Mr. Vinayak Laxman, 

 late Hindu Law Officer of the Bombay High Court. Circumstances 

 prevented the completion of the translation, before the printing of Mr. 

 Borradaile's Mayukha was too far advanced to admit of its insertion. 



These circumstances will explain how it happened that my attention 

 was directed to a part of the Hindu Law, like the Ordeals, which has a 

 purely antiquarian interest, and has become rather trite by the publica- 

 tion of two papers on it ; one by Ali Ibrahim Khan, As. Res. I., p. 389, 

 the other by Prof. Stenzler, Journ. D. Morg. Ges. Vol. IX., as well as 

 by the appearance of a translation of the chapter on Ordeals from the 

 Mitakshara by Mr. W. Macnaghten, (Principles and Prec. of H. 

 Law, Madras, 1865.) 



Here (begin) the ordeals : 



They are used to decide matters which are left undecided by human 

 evidence. They are of two kinds (1st) such, as decide (a case) 

 immediately, and (2nd) such, as decide it after the lapse of some time. 



Amongst them Brihaspati describes those of the first kind (in the 

 following verse) : 



" The scales, fire, and water, poison, fifthly consecrated water ; rice 

 grains are declared to be the sixth ; hot masha (coins) the seventh ; 

 the eighth is the ploughshare, according to the (ancient sages) ; the lot 

 is recorded as the ninth." 



Yajnavalkya declares (II. 95) that the first five (of these nine 

 ordeals) (are to be used) in (cases involving) heavy accusations only. 



