Sutra 16

Devanagari script

महाजनस्यैकं घ्नतः प्रत्येकं द्विगुणो दण्डः ॥ कZ_०३.१९.१६ ॥

Transliteration

mahājanasyaikaṃ ghnataḥ pratyekaṃ dviguṇo daṇḍaḥ

Translation

အများပြည်သူ (mahājana) ထဲမှ တစ်ဦးကို တစ်ယောက်က ထိုးနှက် (သို့) သတ်/တိုက်ခိုက် လျှင်၊ (ပြစ်မှု/ထိခိုက်သူ) တစ်ဦးချင်းစီအတွက် ဒဏ်ကြေး/ဒဏ်ခတ်မှုကို နှစ်ဆ တိုးမြှင့်ရမည်။

Word by Word

• महाजनस्य: of a great/important person (or of the notable public)
• Type: Noun
• Root: महाजन
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग; षष्ठी एकवचन; ‘महाजन’ = महत् + जन (समासान्त-प्रातिपदिक)

• एकम्: one (person)
• Type: Pronoun/Adjective (Numeral)
• Root: एक
• Form: नपुंसकलिङ्ग; द्वितीया एकवचन; ‘एक’ (संख्यावाचक)

• घ्नतः: of the slayer / of one who kills
• Type: Verb (Participle)
• Root: हन्
• Form: वर्तमान कृदन्त (शतृ/शानच्-प्रत्यय); परस्मैपदी धातु √हन्; प्रथमा/षष्ठी?—यहाँ षष्ठी एकवचन (कर्तृ-सम्बन्ध) ‘घ्नतः’ = ‘(उस) मारने वाले का/द्वारा’

• प्रत्येकम्: for each (one), individually
• Type: Adverb
• Root: प्रति + एक
• Form: अव्यय; अर्थ: ‘एक-एक के प्रति/प्रत्येक’

• द्विगुणः: double (in amount)
• Type: Adjective
• Root: द्विगुण
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग; प्रथमा एकवचन; ‘द्वि + गुण’ = दो-गुना

• दण्डः: the penalty (fine/punishment)
• Type: Noun
• Root: दण्ड
• Form: पुंलिङ्ग; प्रथमा एकवचन

Entities Mentioned

• mahājana (public/community)
• offender
• court/state

More Details

FAQs

What is the administrative logic behind ‘double for each’?

To prevent under-penalization in multi-victim incidents and to deter crowd/communal violence by scaling punishment with social harm.