The prerogative of mercy was the king's alone, but a guru, a priest, a learned householder, or a prince could intercede for an offender, except in the case of a capital offence.
The lawgiver Vasishtha reserves the right of self-defence in the case of a person attacked by an Atatayi, a class of criminals including incendiaries, poisoners, those ready to kill with weapons in their hands, robbers, and those who take away another's land or abduct another's wife.
Agriculture and trade were the means of the people's subsistence, and crimes relating to a cultivator's land or to an artisan's trade were punished with the utmost severity. We have seen that defence of land was one of the cases in which the right of self-protection was allowed, and false evidence given about land was regarded with the utmost detestation. By giving false evidence concerning small cattle, a witness commits the sin of killing ten men; by false evidence concerning cows, horses, and men, he commits the sin of killing a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand men respectively; but by false evidence concerning land, he commits the sin of killing the whole human race.
A severe penance is ordained for the man who attempts suicide, and the relations of a suicide are prohibited from performing funeral rites for him. Such was the criminal law of the Hindus over two thousand years ago.
We now turn to the more complicated subject of civil law, which may be conveniently treated under
