Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/101

Rh Censors, and the inferior were called Dhmrma-yuktas or Assistant Censors. The duties of the Censors, as deﬁned in general terms in Rock Edicts V, XII, and Pillar Edict VII, must have included jurisdiction in cases of injury inflicted on animals contrary to the regulations, exhibitions of gross ﬁlial disrespect, and other breaches of the moral rules prescribed by authority. They were also instructed to redress cases of wrongful confinement or corporal punishment, and were empowered to grant remission of sentence when the offender was entitled to consideration by reason of advanced years, sudden calamity, or the burden of a large family. They shared with the Inspectors of Women the delicate duty of supervising female morals, the households of the royal family both at the capital and in the provincial towns being subject to their inspection. The practical working of these institutions must have presented many difficulties, and been open to much abuse.

The general severity of the government of Chandragupta is testiﬁed to by Justin, who declares that that prince, after his victory over the Macedonian garrisons, ‘forfeited by his tyranny all title to the name of liberator, for he oppressed with servitude the very people whom he had emancipated from foreign thraldom.' The Roman historian’s impression seems to be justiﬁed by the few details on record concerning the ferocity of the penal law. We have seen that evasion of taxes in certain cases was punishable with death, and that an intruder on the king's procession during a hunting expedition was