employed in the case of witnesses at court, perjury being
indicated by the subsequent misfortune (Manu, viii. 108).[41]

Our objections to seeing primitive Aryan law in the minutiae of
ordeals is based on the gradual evolution of these ordeals and of
their minutiae in India itself. The earlier law of the S[=u]tras
barely mentions ordeals; the first 'tradition law' of Manu has only
fire, water, and the oath. All others, and all special descriptions
and restrictions, are mentioned in later books alone. Moreover, the
earliest (pre-legal) notice of ordeals in India describes the carrying
of hot iron (in the test of theft) as simply "bearing a hot axe,"
while still earlier there is only walking through fire.[42]

To the tests by oath, fire, and water of the code of Manu are soon
added in later law those of consecrated water, poison, and the
balance. Restrictions increase and new trials are described as one
descends the series of law-books (the consecrated food, the hot-water
test, the licking of the ploughshare, and the lot), Some of these
later forms have already been described. The further later tests we
will now sketch briefly.

Poison: The earliest poison-test, in the code of Y[=a]jnavalkya (the
next after Manu), is an application of aconite-root, and as the poison
is very deadly, the accused is pretty sure to die. Other laws give
other poisons and very minute restrictions, tending to ease the
severity of the trial.

The Balance-test: This is the opposite of the floating-test. The
man[43] stands in one scale and is placed in equilibrium with a weight
of stone in the other scale. He then gets out and prays, and gets in
again. If the balance sinks, he is guilty; if it rises, he is
innocent.

The Lot-ordeal: This consists in drawing out of a vessel one of two
lots, equivalent respectively to _dharma_ and _adharma_, right and
wrong. Although Tacitus mentions the same ordeal among the Germans, it
is not early Indic law, not being known to any of the ancient legal
codes.

One may claim without proof or disproof that these are all 'primitive
Aryan'; but to us it appears most probable that only the idea of the
ordeal, or at most its application in the simplest forms of water and
fire (and perhaps oath) is primitive Aryan, and that all else
(including ordeal by conflict) is of secondary growth among the
different nations.

As an offset to the later Indic tendency to lighten the severity of
the ordeal may be mentioned t