THE ORDEAL IN ASIA.
"jVTEITHER its scriptural justification, its
' antiquity, nor its simplicity has en
abled the ordeal to keep the place it once
held in European codes; but it still flour
ishes in Asia and Africa, as it flourished a
thousand years ago, when a traveller wrote :
"In the Indies when a man accuses another
man of a crime punishable with death, the custom
is to ask the accused if he is willing to go through
the trial by fire, and if he answers in the affirma
tive, they heat a piece of iron red-hot. This done,
they bid him stretch forth his hand, and upon it
they put seven leaves of a certain tree, and upon
these leaves they put the red-hot iron, and in this
condition he walks backward and forward for some
time, and then throws off the iron. Immediately
after this, they put his hand in a leathern bag which
they seal with the prince's seal; and if at the end of
three days he appears and declares he has suffered
no hurt, they order him to take out his hand, when
if no sign of fire is visible they declare him inno
cent, and his accuser is condemned to pay a sum of
gold as a fine. Sometimes they boil water in a cal
dron till it is so hot that no one can touch it; then
they throw an iron ring into it, and command the
person accused to thrust his hand down and bring
out the ring. I saw a man who did this and re
ceived no manner of hurt."
The Hindus acknowledge nine ordeals as
orthodox (differing in danger according to
the enormity of the offence or the caste of
the criminal), — the trial by rice, by the cosha,
by fire, by water, by boiling oil, by red-hot
iron, by the balance, by poison, and by
images. In . cases of trivial theft, the rice
ordeal is employed; in this the suspected
thief has merely to chew some dry rice that
has been weighed with the Salgram, or sacred
stone, and spit it out upon pippal leaves,
when, if he has been justly accused, the grain
will appear stained with blood, or as dry as
when he put it in his mouth.
In the trial by the Cosha, or image water,
the criminal drinks three draughts of water
in which certain sacred images have been
washed; and if he lives through a fortnight afterwards without being visited by some dreadful calamity from the Act of the De ity or King, his innocence is considered established. The ordeal of the balance is reserved for women and children; the aged, blind, lame, and sick, of the stronger sex, and the favored . Brahmans. Previous to go ing through this ceremony it is necessary that both the accused and the officiating priest should fast for twenty-four hours. The former then bathes in holy water, prayers are offered up, and oblations pre sented to fire. The beam of the balance is then adjusted, the cord fixed, and the truth of the scales tested. The priests prostrate themselves before the balance, repeating sundry incantations while the accused is be ing carefully weighed. After the lapse of six minutes, the accusation, written on a piece of paper, is bound on the prisoner's head, and he invokes his senseless judge in the following terms: "Thou, O Balance, art the mansion of truth; thou wast anciently contrived by the deities; declare the truth therefore, O giver of success, and clear me from all suspicion. If I am guilty, O vener able as my own mother, then sink me down; but if innocent, raise me aloft!" A second weighing follows; and should he prove heavier than before, he is condemned as guilty, — a result following also upon any accident happening to the apparatus; but if tried in the balance and found wanting in weight, he goes forth a free and acquitted man. The trial by fire consists in walking bare footed into a mass of burning pippal leaves; or, as in Siam, over a pit filled with burning coals; in that of boiling oil, the accused has to thrust his hand into a vessel of hot oil. The hot-iron ordeal is of a more ceremoni ous character. Nine circles, sixteen fingers in diameter, and the same measurement be
