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SOCIAL LIFE AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 173
senders (pesanakacorā) and criminal tribes living in foren af atavicorā). They were either isolated individuals or formed different gangs, each under a ring-leader (corajettha). The criminal laws provided for brutal and horrible forms of punishment, including putting on stakes and throwing down from a precipice, from which circumstances the precipice of a Rājagaha hill became known as Corapapāta. Sometimes the oppressive rulers or their officers were in league with the gangs of thieves or robbers." In a solitary instance, an educated Brahmin youth turned out to be a fierce highway robber and became an object of great terror to the people of Kosala and even to so powerful a king as Pasenadi. Among the epidemics, the most virulent was known as ahivātakaroga, which was a kind of plague that broke out at Rļājagaha, Sãvatthi and other places. The free supply of medicinal roots, fruits and herbs was another act of social piety on the part of the righteous king.2 - The Ratthikas, Pettanikas and Bhojakas were three classes of royal officers as well as hereditary feudal lords or landowners and landholders. They seem to have been represented mostly by the Khattiyas.
1 Majjhima, i, p. 101f.
% Law, Drugs and Diseases knowu to the early Buddhists, in Woolner Commemoration Volume, p. 163.
