13. Six Cases Where Witnesses are Unnecessary

The Minor Law Books (SBE33), by Julius Jolly, [1889], at sacred-texts.com

13. Six Cases where Witnesses are unnecessary.

* 172. However, six different kinds of proceedings have been indicated in which witnesses are not required. (Other) indications of the crime committed are substituted for the evidence of witnesses in these cases by the learned.

* 173. It should be known that one carrying a firebrand in his hand is an incendiary; that one taken with a weapon in his hand is a murderer; and that, where a man and the wife of another man seize one another by the hair, the man must be an adulterer.

* 174. 74. One who goes about with a hatchet in his

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hand and makes his approach may be recognised as a destroyer of bridges (and embankments); one carrying an axe is declared a destroyer of trees.

* 175. ¹⁷⁵ One whose looks are suspicious is likely to have committed an assault. In all these cases witnesses may be dispensed with; only in the (last-mentioned) case of assault careful investigation is required.

176. Some one might make marks upon his person through hatred, to injure an enemy. In such cases it is necessary to resort to inductive reasoning, (ascertaining) the fact of the matter, and strata gems, in order to get a (reliable) test.

Footnotes

86:175 'Suspicious looks,' as e.g. a sword smeared with blood. Vîramitrodaya. In an analogous text of Saṅkha, as quoted in the Vîramitrodaya, &c., the possession of stolen goods is mentioned as a further manifest proof of crime.