SIRNA, sanctuary. In all ages and countries the rights of sanctuary have been admitted, and however they may be abused, their institution sprang from humane motives. To check the im pulse of revenge and to shelter the weak from oppression are noble objects, and the surest test of a nation's independence is the extent to which they are carried. From the remotest times sirna has been the most valued privilege of the Rajputs, the lowest of whom deems his house refuge against the most powerful. 1Vhen Moses, after the Exodus, made a division of the lands of Canaan amongst the Israelites, and appointed six cities to be the refuge of him who had slain un wittingly, froin the avenger of blood, the inten tion was not to afford facilities for eluding justice, but to check the hasty impulse of revenge ; for the slayer was only to be protected until he stood before the congregation for judgment, or until the death of the high priest, which event appears to have been considered as the termination of re venge. In India the infraction of political sane tnary (sirna torna) often gave rise to the most inveterate feuds, and its abuse by the priests was highly prejudicial to society. Moses limited priestly interference, by appointing but six cities of refuge to the whole Levite tribe; but the rana Mewar assigned more to one shrine than the entire possession of that branch of the Israelites, who had but 42 cities, while the god Kaniya had 46. The motive of sanctuary in Rajasthan inay have been originally the same as that of Moses, but the privilege vvas abused, and the most noto rions criminals deemed the temple their best safe guard. Yet some princes were hardy enough to
violate, though indirectly, the sacred sirna. Zalim Singh of Kotah, a zealot in all the observances of religion, though he would not demand the culprit, or sacrilegiously drag hint from the altar, forced him thence by prohibiting the admission of food, and threatening to build up the door of the temple ; and the Greeks evaded the laws, and compelled the criminal's surrender by kindling fires around the sanctuary. There was an ancient law of Athens by which he who committed chance medley 'should fly the country for a year, during which his relatives made satisfaation to the re latives of the deceased. The Greeks had asyla for every description of criminals, which could not be violated without infamy ; but Gibbon gives a memorable instance of disregard to the sanctuary of St. Julian in Auvergne, by the soldiers of the Frank king Theodoric, who divided the spoils of the altar, and made the priests captives, art im piety unsanctioned by the son of Clovis, and punished by the death of the offenders, the re storation of the plunder, and the extension of the right of sanctuary five miles around the sepulchre of the holy martyr. Within the sacred bounds of Mount Abu \VMS the sanctuary (sirtm) of Kaniya, where the criminal was free from pursuit. —Totl'A Rajasthan, i. pp. 523, 526, ii. pp. 378, 551. See Bast ; Sanctuary.