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 the description of the floating-test as seen by a Chinese traveller in India in the seventh century A.D.:[44] "The accused is put into a sack and a stone is put into another sack.
The two sacks are connected by a cord and flung into deep water.

If the sack with the man sinks and the sack with the stone floats the accused is declared to be innocent." * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Literally, transmigration, the doctrine of metempsychosis, successive births; first, as in Plato: [Greek: _metabole tis tugchanei ousa kai metoikeois te psuche ton topon tou enthende eis allon tochon_], then _metabole_, from 'the other place,' back to earth; then, with advancing speculation, fresh _metabole_ again, and so on; a theory more or less clumsily united with the bell-doctrine.] [Footnote 2: Weber has lately published two monographs on the sacrifices, the R[=a]jas[=u]ya and the V[=a]japeya rites, both full of interesting details and popular features.] [Footnote 3: The traditional sacrifices are twenty-one in number, divided into three classes of seven each.