Ordeal

Sometimes the decision was referred to the intervention of Providence by appealing to the ordeal of the red–hot iron or the more dreaded ordeal of water.

In Anglo–Saxon times, these were mainly compurgation, ordeal, witnesses (whose functions were, however, widely different from those of witnesses in modern law), and charters.

The word lex, in its technical sense, applied to any form of judicial test, such as compurgation, ordeal, or combat, the precise meaning required in each particular case being determined by the context.

The portions of it which deal with Evidence appear to me especially remarkable, not only for the legal doctrine, which (though the writer believes in Ordeals) is on the whole extremely modern, but for the elevation of moral tone displayed in its language on the subject of true and false witness, which should be set off against the unveracity attributed to the modern Hindu.

divine proof is of nine kinds, from the balance ordeal to the *dharma* ordeal.

In accusations of great sins and in the theft of a deposit, the king should examine the case by ordeals, even if witnesses exist.

In a matter done long ago and in secret, when witnesses have long since perished, and when inference is corrupted, one should clarify the case by ordeals.

A king who knows Dharma, who administers the five ordeals (`divyāni` (दिव्यानि)) to the accused according to the stated manner, rejoices hereafter and in this world.

When there are no witnesses in a dispute between speaking men, one should then examine by means of ordeals (`divyaiḥ` (दिव्यैः)) and by various oaths.

The balance (`dhaṭa` (घट)), fire (`agni` (अग्नि)), and water (`udaka` (उदक)), and poison (`viṣa` (विष)), and the consecrated water (`kośa` (कोश)) as the fifth—these ordeals are declared for the purification of the accused.