and enumerates them as follows: (1) slaves whom you have redeemed from other money masters; (2) slaves who have been born of slaves in your house; (3) slaves you have got from your father and mother: (4) slaves whom you have got from others by way of gift; (5) slaves you have helped out of punishment; (6) those who have become your slaves by your having fed them when rice was dear, and (7) those whom you have brought back as captives when you went to war. It will be observed at once that the seven kinds of slaves mentioned in the code of Manu and the Siamese Laxana Tat are exactly the same.
Sir John Bowring has said in his treatise on Siam that "legal reasons for excluding witnesses are so many in Siam that they would appear seriously to interfere with the collection of evidence." Here again is another illustration of the close analogy between the Hindu law and the ancient Siamese laws. The code of Manu says as follows: "Those must not be made witnesses who have an interest in the suit, nor familiar friends, companions, and enemies of the parties, nor men formerly convicted of perjury, nor persons suffering under severe illness, nor those tainted by mortal sin. The king cannot be made a witness, nor mechanics and actors, nor a Srotriya, nor a student of the Veda, nor an ascetic who has given up all connection with the world, nor one wholly dependent, nor one of bad fame, nor a Dasyu, nor one who follows cruel occupations, nor an aged man, nor an infant, nor one man alone, nor a man of the lowest castes, nor one deficient in organs of sense, nor one extremely grieved, nor one intoxicated, nor a mad man, nor one tormented by hunger or thirst, nor one oppressed by fatigue, nor one tormented by desire, nor a wrathful man, nor a "thief" (Manu VIII, 64–68). On this subject the Siamese Laxana Payan[1] says that the following thirty-three kinds of persons are excluded from being witnesses, namely: (1) those who do not observe the five and eight precepts; (2) those who are debtors of litigants or have borrowed anything from them; (3) slaves of litigants; (4) relation of litigants; (5) friends of litigants; (6) companions of litigants who eat and sleep with them; (7) those who have quarrelled with litigants; (8) those who are covetous: (9) enemies of litigants; (10) those who aro suffering under severe illness; (11) children under seven years of age; (12) aged people over seventy years of age; (13) those who go about defaming one person to another; (14) those who beg for food by dancing;
- ↑ The name of an ancient Siamese law concerning witnesses.
