Vyavahāra
Vyavahāra is an important concept of Hindu law denoting legal procedure. The term is analyzed by Kātyāyana as follows: "Vi means ‘various,’ ava means ‘doubt,’ hara is ‘removal’; legal procedure is called by the term vyavahāra because ‘it removes various doubts.’” Kane defines it as follows: "When the ramifications of right conduct, that are together called dharma and that can be established with efforts have been violated, the dispute which springs from what is sought to be proved, is said to be vyavahāra." According to Donald Davis, “There are two basic meanings of vyavahāra. The first is a general sense of practice, business, or everyday transactions. The other, specific sense is legal procedure, the processes of litigation including a trial.” Legal procedure according to the dharmaśāstras includes: court, listening to and assessing witnesses and their testimony, deciding and enforcing punishment, and the pursuit of Justice in the face of Injustice. Davis later quotes the in an attempt to answer the question why legal procedure came about in the Hindu tradition. The text states, “When men had dharma as their only focus and were speakers of the truth, there was no legal procedure, no enmity, and no conflict. Legal procedure came into being when dharma was lost among men."
Courts
According to the of there are four different kinds of courts of justice. The is a court established in a fixed place such as a town, the is not fixed in one place, but moving from place to place as on a circuit, the mudritā is the court of a judge appointed by the king, who is authorized to uses the royal seal, and the śāsitā is the court in which the king himself presides. The court assignment of a case was also very influenced by the situation of the litigants. "For those who stay in the forest the session should be held in the forest, for the soldiers in the army, and for the merchants in the caravans." Furthermore, “he court-house should be decorated with flowers, statues, paintings, idols of gods and should be furnished with incense, throne or seat, seeds, fires and water." There is also differentiation among the different grades of courts. The king's courts are the highest grade, “but other tribunals were recognized in the and digests." It appears there were no court fees in ancient India, except for fines imposed by the king, and texts such as the,,, and ’s Arthaśāstra prescribe rules for payment after a suit was decided.The King's Role
The King or has the responsibility of overseeing legal procedure and then enforcing their results. According to Nārada, "The king is the assistant of the sacred law when two people are engaged in a lawsuit; he should investigate cases accurately, free from affection or hatred." For the King, vyavahāra is part of his personal caste dharma. In the section on laws for the king, the states, “Arranging in this manner for the discharge of all his obligations, he should protect these subjects with care and vigilance. When bandits abduct from his realm subjects screaming for help, while he and men in his service stand by—he is surely dead, he is not alive. For a, the protection of his subjects is the highest Law; the enjoyment of the specified rewards binds the king to this Law.” The king's personal dharma is inextricably linked to legal proceedings and his dharma is determined by the merits and demerits of his subjects, therefore it is crucial he bring about justice. This is why it is stressed in the dharmaśāstras how important it is for the king to be fair and righteous and to appoint learned Brahmins to counsel and help him in legal matters. If the king cannot be present at a legal proceeding, he appoints a Brahmin to take his place. In the absence of a Brahmin, a kşatriya should be appointed; in the absence of a kşatriya, a vaiśya.Judges
Cases were examined by either the king or by the chief judge. The chief judge collaborated with the other judges to devise the questions necessary for investigation, and "n a lawsuit he puts question and counter-question; he speaks first in a friendly way. Therefore he is said to be the prādvivāka." The of Kātyāyana states that, “ The chief judge and the sabhyas were not to hold conversation in private with any one of the litigants while the suit was pending and if they did so they were liable to be fined.”. If a decision is given that is against the and usage, through friendship, greed or fear, each was liable to be fined twice as much as the fine to be paid by the defeated party. Kane states, “it was believed that when a just decision was given, the king and his sabhyas became free from sin, the sin only reaches him when he is guilty ; but where an unjust decision is rendered a quarter of the sin falls on the litigant who is guilty of adharma, one quarter each on the witnesses, the sabhyas and the kings. Additionally, a judge were to be banished if they utter injustice, if they live on bribery, or if they betray other people’s confidence. “A false judge, a false witness, and the murderer of a brahmana are said to be equally deep in guilt.”Legal Proceedings
There are four parts of Hindu legal procedure:- The Plaint
- The Reply
- The Trial
- The Decision
The Plaint
Vyavahārapadas
Vyavahārapada means "the topic or subject matter of litigation or dispute." Manu divided the vyavahārapadas into eighteen titles of law. Manu acknowledged that "the enumeration of the 18 vyavahārapadas was a matter of a convenient arrangement and that the number 18 did not embrace all disputes whatever but only the largest number of disputes and the most important among them." The eighteen titles of law include " the first is the non-payment of debts; deposits; sale without ownership; partnerships; delivery and non-delivery of gifts; non-payment of wages; breach of contract; cancellation of a sale or purchase; disputes between owners and herdsman; the Law on boundary disputes; verbal assault; physical assault; theft; violence; sexual crimes against women; Law concerning husband and wife; partition of inheritance; and gambling and betting.”Wagers
The plaint is also sometimes accompanied by a legal wager, or paņa. A legal proceeding is attended with a wager if “before writing down the plaint, a wager is placed like this: ‘The one who is defeated here will give so much to the winner by way of punishment.’" If the litigant who places a wager loses the case, he must pay both the wager amount they placed and the punishment for the crime. However, if one litigant places a wager and the opposing party does not, and the waging litigant is successful in the case, the defeated litigant need only pay the fine for the crime, not the wager. In a sense, a wager can be seen as a form of evidence; if a defendant wages his entire estate in his defense, he must be certain of his innocence. Additionally, a wager is only considered legitimate if it is articulated in a written agreement between the litigants. The specific logistics of wager-placing are unclear; “it is uncertain whether the paņa is made by one or both of the parties, whether it is paid to the ‘winner’ of the suit or to the king, and what size the paņa must be.”. The Mitākṣarā of Vijñāneśvara on Yājñavalkya 2.18 explains the wager payment in the following way: “There in that legal proceeding which includes a ‘wager,’ the king should make the loser, the defeated one, pay the aforementioned fine and his wager to the king, and the amount under litigation to the plaintiff.”The Reply
After a valid plaint has been made, the king should order the reply to be given. The amount of time given to a defendant to produce his reply is based upon a few things, including when the act in question was committed and the strength of the case. According to Kātyāna, “ reply is not valid when it is not connected with the subject, when it is too concise, when it is too broad, and when it pervades only part of the thesis.” There are four types of reply in Hindu law procedure:- Confession
- Reply by Way of Denial
- Reply by Way of Exception
- Reply by Way of Former Judgment
Confession
Reply by Way of Denial
Following with the previous plaint example of “You owe me a hundred coins because you borrowed them from me” a reply by way of denial would respond with, “I do not owe you a hundred coins.” In this circumstance, the defendant is denying that he ever borrowed the coins at all.Reply by Way of Exception
A reply by way of exception to the plaint, “You owe me a hundred coins because you borrowed them from me” would be “I do not owe you a hundred coins, since I paid them back,” or “I do not owe you a hundred coins, since I received them as a gift.” In the first instance, the defendant is agreeing with the plaint that he had borrowed a hundred coins, but he raises an exception, and therefore does not owe the plaintiff the money. In the second example, the defendant denies that he ever borrowed a hundred coins but received them in another way and thus does not owe them.Reply by Way of Former Judgment
If the plaint “You owe me a hundred coins because you borrowed them from me” was responded to with “I do not owe you a hundred coins, since this matter has been decided in the court before,” or “I do not owe you a hundred coins, because I never borrowed them, and that matter has been previously settled in court” that would be an example by reply by way of former judgment. In these cases, the defendant either agrees or disagrees he had previously borrowed the money, but due to the intervening fact that “this matter has been decided in the court before,” he does not owe the money regardless.The Trial
If the reply is found to be valid, a trial is granted. Unlike the leniency given for the time to produce a reply, “o delay should be granted in producing witnesses and making them depose.” There are two kinds of trial: human and divine.The Burden of Proof
If the reply is by way of exception or by way of former judgment, the burden of proof is upon the defendant. In the case of a denial, it's upon the plaintiff, and if there was a confession, there is no burden. The burden is on the plaintiff in the case of a denial because asking the defendant to prove this would be asking him to prove a negative, i.e. prove he did NOT borrow the coins. The burden should be upon a party to prove a positive aspect, i.e. proving the defendant DID borrow the coins.Human Evidence
Human trials produce evidence including witnesses, documents, and possession, and divine trials involve oaths and ordeals administered to the defendant.Witnesses
In a trial, there can be a minimum of three witnesses and a maximum of nine. A competent witness is explained by Manu: “Householders, those who have a son, those born of an indigenous family, whether satriyas, vaishyas, or shudras, are competent witnesses if they are produced by a party.” Yājñavalkya elaborates, explaining “itnesses should be ascetics, liberally disposed, of good family, speaking truth, eminent in the sacred law, honest, having a son, well to do.” A witness can be considered incompetent in a number of ways including: on account of a text, because of viciousness, because of discord, a deposition suo motu, and a witness of intervening death.Once a witness is determined to be competent, the chief judge should question them one-by-one, in front of the plaintiff and defendant, beginning with the plaintiff's witnesses. Manu explains the proceedings as follows: Manu: “In the morning, after being purified himself, shall ask the twice-born people to deliver true evidence. They too, shall be purified, face eastward of northward, and stand close to gods or brāhamaņas. The chief judge….should address them in the following terms: ‘Declare everything you know about how these people have mutually behaved with regard to this case; for you are a witness to it.’”
The truth-telling of witnesses is considered of extremely high importance. “When a witness speaks the truth in s deposition, he reaches the most magnificent worlds, and here he obtains an unsurpassed fame; such a speech is created by Brahman.” Witnesses who give false statements on the stand, however, reach “the same worlds as the perpetrators of sins and minor sins, incendiaries, and the murderers of women and children.” Additionally, false witnesses should serve a punishment twice as high as the subject-matter of the lawsuit.
Expert witness testimony should be respected in all cases. According to Rocher, "each and every case must be decided in association with persons who are experts in that field." For example, if a merchant were being charged with a crime, a decision is not possible without the expert testimony of other merchants. Furthermore, the cases of ascetics should not be decided without experts acquainted with the three Vedas.
Documents
The second mode of human evidence is documents. As helpful as witnesses are in trials, “he ancient authors have been fully aware of the extreme weakness of human memory: if made after a certain lapse of time, the deposition of witnesses loses its validity because they are likely to have forgotten many an important detail.” Therefore, a second form of evidence that may be presented at trial is that of a document, which is considered more reliable evidence than witness testimony. There are two types of documents as prescribed by vyavahāra: public and private documents. The two major forms of public documents are official grants of land or the like, and documents of success. These documents, due to their official nature, do not need to meet many criterion to be taken as reliable evidence. Private documents, on the other hand, which include principal civil transactions have to meet far more conditions. There are many possible defects of private documents that would render them illegitimate evidence. For one, the person who created the document can’t be a child or mentally insane, and they can’t have been intoxicated or under fear or misfortune when drawing up the document. Additionally, the content of the document needs to be very descriptive. It needs to clearly indicate the nature of the subject and describe details of all persons involved and bear the exact date and place of the transaction.Possession
The third mode of human evidence is possession, and it is considered a much surer means of proof than the other two. In order for possession to serve as adequate evidence, “it must be supported by a title, it must be of longstanding, uninterrupted, not claimed by others, and held in the presence of the other party.” If a title accompanies the ownership, the possession and the title need to be produced simultaneously, and if there is no title, the possession needs to be of longstanding. Although texts disagree about how much time someone has to have possession of something before they have ownership of it, the general consensus seems to be three uninterrupted generations.Divine Evidence
The Oath
Very little is known about the oaths taken in Hindu courts. “Hindu Law only knew the oath imposed by the judge: in the absence of human modes of proof, he invites the party to swear an oath which will constitute sufficient evidence for the case to be decided upon.” The oath can take many different forms based upon a person's caste. “Witnesses should swear by gold, silver, a cow, corn, Sũrya, Agni, an elephant’s shoulder, a horse’s back,the box of a chariot, or weapons, or by their son or grandson. One should select different according to their caste.” For example, a kșastriya would swear by his chariot or gold, a vaiśya by his cows, seeds, or gold, etc.The Ordeal
While oaths should be administered in small cases, ordeals should be reserved for heavier crimes. According to Kātyāyana, “When the witnesses are equal, one should purge by means of an ordeal; and equally so in case of a lawsuit that involves capital punishment, even if witnesses are available.” The number of ordeals is different in various texts, ranging from two listed by Manu to nine listed by Brihaspati. A few examples of ordeals are as follows: In the ordeal of the balance, the defendant is weighed twice within a short interval of time. If he weighs less the second time, he is considered innocent; if he weighs equally or more, he is declared guilty. In the ordeal of fire, the person has to walk a certain distance carrying a red-hot iron ball in his hand. If his hand is not injured at the end of the day, he is innocent. In the ordeal of the grains of rice, the person has to swallow and spit out grains of rice which have undergone a special treatment. He is declared guilty if, when spitting out the grains, his saliva is mixed with blood. The ordeal to be administered is selected “according to the nature of the crime, according to the status of the individual who is to undergo it, and according to the time when the ordeal is to be administered.”The Decision
describes the following kinds of decisions: by valid means of proof, by motives, by customs, by an oath, by a royal decree, or by reconciliation of the parties. Nārada classifies the decisions in a different way, differentiating between sacred law, positive law, custom, and royal decrees. Sacred law refers to a decision in which “a case has been duly investigated, decided in accordance with circumstance, and examined by means of oaths, it should be known as a decision by the sacred law.” Positive law, on the other hand, is a decision made based upon the prescriptions. A decision is determined by custom if it is made according to local rules and the customs of the people. A royal decree is “hen kings consider a particular custom to be contrary to equity, in the same way this custom should be annulled by a royal decree.” The punishment of the defeated party is related to the reply of the accused. A defendant who lost the case after delivering a reply by way of denial, exception, or former judgment should pay the disputed amount to the plaintiff and an equal amount to the king. If the defendant wins, the plaintiff should pay a fine twice as high as the amount mentioned in the plaint. In the case of a confession, the defendant pays half the fine he would pay if he had denied the plaint and was defeated. Certain guidelines must be followed in determining the fine for the defeated party. For example, Kātyāyana explains the fines to be given in trials of ordeals: “In case of poison, water, fire, the balance, holy water, rice, and the ordeal by the hot piece of gold, he should inflict fine on the defeated according to the following gradation: a thousand, six hundred, five hundred, four, three, two, and one hundred, and less.”All these aspects of the trial, including the statements of the plaintiff, defendant, witnesses, and decision-maker, should be written down in great detail in a document called a ‘certificate of the decree’ for future judicial reference.