HIGH COURT OF MADRAS. 



37 



eigh.ty-th.ree pagodas, with interest, being the cost of them, and 

 of a physic garden. Judge Dolben returns answer that he 

 hath demanded the same and that President Yale saith he hath, 

 not done anything of that nature but what was either ordered by 

 the Eight Honorable Company or agreed to by the Council, or 

 of absolute necessity, and desiras to be heard about it before any 

 further demands be made. 18 



" Wednesday, 25th January 1693. — Judge Dolben reports 

 from the Admiralty Court that in a trial this day between the 

 Eight Honorable Company and the late President Yale and 

 others, for wrongs and damages done them, that the said late 

 President has objected against the manner of giving the Grentoo 

 Oath by the usual ceremony of fetching water and flowers from 

 the Pagoda into Court, affirming that there was a late order of 

 Consultation by which the ceremony of taking Grentoo Oaths was 

 for the future established to be done before the Pagoda. 

 Upon which report we have made inquiry of Choultry Justices 

 and Members of Council, who all declared the way of swearing 

 the Gentoos hath been in the Court before the Jury, by causing 

 water and flowers to be brought from the Pagoda ; the flowers 

 are put upon their Heads and they drink some of the water before 

 or in the Court, and both are given and done by the Brahmin 

 of the Pagoda, and in the presence of the eternal God, who they 

 believe in a more particular manner to be in all Courts of Justice, 

 are required to speak the truth. 



" We likewise sent for a dozen or fourteen of the ancient 

 Brahmin Priests, the most eminent in the place, and asked them 

 of the same matter, who all unanimously gave it as their 

 opinion and knowledge that this is the way of their own Gfentoo 

 Government, swearing Witnesses in the Carnatic Country when 

 evidence was not believed without an oath ; but that the 

 Governor did never send or force any of them to be sworn at the 

 Pagoda, but did cause water and flowers to be brought from 

 thence and swear them in Court. 



18 Wheeler's Madras, vol. i, p. 267. 



