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Vishnu-smriti (Vishnu sutra / Vaishnava Dharmasâstra)
Writings
VII.1
1. Documents are of three kinds:
2. Attested by the king, or by (other) witnesses, or unattested.
3. A document is (said to be) attested by the king when it has been executed (in a court of judicature), on the king ordering it, by a scribe, his servant, and has been signed by his chief judge, with his own hand.
4. It is (said to be) attested by, witnesses when, having been written anywhere, and by any one, it is signed by witnesses in their own hands.
5. It is (said to be) unattested when it has been written (by the party himself) with his own hand.
6. Such a document, if it has been caused to be written by force, makes no evidence.
7. Neither does any fraudulent document (make evidence);2
8. Nor a document (which), though attested, (is vitiated) by the signature of a witness bribed (by one party) or of bad character;
9. Nor one written by a scribe of the same description;
10. Nor one executed by a woman, or a child, or a dependant person, or one intoxicated or insane, or one in danger or in bodily fear.
11. (That instrument is termed) proof which is not adverse to peculiar local usages, which defines clearly the nature of the pledge given3, and is free from confusion in the arrangement of the subject matter and (in the succession of) the syllables.
12. If the authenticity of a document is contested, it should be ascertained by (comparing with it other) letters or signs (such as the flourish denoting the word Srî and the like) or documents executed by the same man, by (enquiring into) the probabilities of the case, and by (finding out such writings as show) a mode of writing similar (to that contained in the disputed document).
13. Should the debtor, or creditor, or witness, or scribe be dead, the authenticity of the document has to be ascertained by (comparing with it other.) specimens of their handwriting.
Footnotes
1. 4. Y. II, 84-88.--5-7. Y. II, 89.--6. M. VIII, 168.--12. Y. II, 92.
2. According to Nand., the particle ka is used here in order to include documents that have been executed by a person intoxicated, by one under duress, by a female, by a child, by force, and by intimidation (see Nârada IV, 61). Most of these categories are, however, mentioned in Sûtra 10.
3. I have translated the reading vyaktâdhividhilakshanam, which, though not occurring in the text of any MS., is mentioned by Nand., and is found in an identical passage of the Institutes of Nârada (see Nârada IV, 60, and Appendix, p. 123).
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