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162 ASOKA MAURYA AND HIS SUCCESSORS animal life with the most inordinate zeal, and imposed savage penalties upon violators of his rules. An un- lucky merchant, who had committed the atrocious crime of cracking a louse, was brought before the special court at Anhilwara, and punished by the confiscation of his whole property, the proceeds of which were devoted to the building of a temple. Another wretch, who had outraged the sanctity of the capital by bringing in a dish of raw meat, was put to death. The special court constituted by Kumarapala had functions similar to those of Asoka's censors, and the working of the later institution sheds much light upon the unrecorded pro- ceedings of the earlier one. More modern parallels to Asoka's censors are not lacking. In 1876, when a pious Maharaja was in power in Kashmir, breaches of the commandments of the Hindu scriptures were treated by the state as offences, and investigated by a special court composed of five eminent pandits, belonging to families in which the office was hereditary, who determined appropriate pen- alties. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, and possibly until a later date, similar hereditary Brahman officers exercised jurisdiction over offenders charged with breaches of caste rules in Khandesh, the Deccan, and some parts of the Konkan, and imposed suitable expiation in the shape of fine, penance, or excommuni- cation. These cases, ancient and modern, are sufficient to prove that when Asoka made an innovation by appoint-