Society and its Purpose
Appendix 8. (339).
From the report of Megasthenes, who lived for several years at the court of the king of the Prasii about the beginning of 200 BC, we know that written laws were not in use amongst the Prasii, perhaps the least civilised of the Indian kingdoms, and that thefts were limited to small amounts. According to Strabo (bk. 15):
| Megastenes says that during his sojourn at the establishment of Sandracottus, where the population was about four hundred thousand, he never experienced a single day in which anything greater than two hundred drachmas were stolen. This seems to have been accentuated by lack of use of written laws. The people are in fact illiterate, and depend for their direction on memory. |
Lack of use of written laws is something found even today in India. Ancient treatises of jurisprudence exist, but they have no force in law. Papi, who lived for a long time in India, says:
| Indians have numerous ancient treatises on law. Some centuries ago, a
certain Raghunandana, called by the English of Calcutta the Indian Trebonius,
compiled a kind of digest in twenty-seven volumes. His sources were books of
the various Muni or holy men. However, these treatises seem to have been made
for the private use of a few Brahmins; they were not promulgated, and the
people seem ignorant even of their existence. The principal, almost unique
rule, of judgment are ancient customs and precedents. If cases occur in which
these cannot be applied, and especially in questions of covetousness and theft
or some other passion, the law is simply what the Brahmin, the despot or the
judge decides. (Lettere sulle Indie Orientali, t. 2, pp. 136–137,Philadelphia, Klert publishing house, 1802) |
Only towards the middle of the 16th century did Akbar VI, a descendant of Tamerlane, compile his compendium of Indian jurisprudence. Two centuries later, the English governor Hastings brought out a new compilation of Indian laws, published in London, 1781. In 1796, Colebrooke published at London in three 4o volumes the translation of the Manu codex which, according to Romagnosi’s conjecture, would have been brought from Iran to India in 540 BC. Romagnosi’s arguments for his assertion do not, however, seem to have much force. He bases his theory solely on the discovery of certain laws in this codex which do not seem to have been practised in India. This is a difficult point to prove for all times and localities in that vast region. Allow me to mention Indian mythology on this matter. It maintains that Manu and ten other lawmakers were born from Brahma and his wife, Seraswati. Manu populated the earth and provided excellent laws for his children (this is a case, in India, of the immediate origin of civil dominion from paternal dominion, of political society from that of family society). But his children and their descendants did not observe his laws. — This explains the necessity for the origin of other Manus who would lead and rule people wisely.