General observation related to selling and buying things

Having dealt with the "services" in the past post, let us have a look at few guidelines related to the disputes relating to the selling and buying.

cANakya deals with the following topics in chapter 15 and 16 of the dharmasthIyam. 

vikrIta-krItAnuSayaH is chapter 15.

If the seller is not delivering or giving the goods to the buyer within the agreed duration fine is imposed. For a trader the time to deliver is one day, for agriculturist it is 3 days, for cow heard it is 5 days and for the goods made by mixed professions it is 7 days.

If the sold items are found defective (hence not delivered) or lost in a calamity (like fire accident or theft) or sold for an unreasonable price due to some problem on seller's side it will not attract a fine.

A bench of judges should make sure there is no loss for both the seller and buyer in the disputes related to the sale of things.

Chapter 16 deals with few topics.
dattasyAnapAkarma - Promising a gift and not giving it. This has to be dealt as per the rules of loan. So promising to give something is equavalant to taking loan from the other party.

asvAmivikrayaH - selling of the goods not owned. Methods of dealing with disputes arising from this kind of transactions are described.

sva-svAmi sambandhaH - Relation between the items and the owner. Some interesting aspects are discussed here. Any unclaimed items that were lost should be kept for a period of 45 days by the officer and no one claims them after that period it belongs to the King. If King is unable to recover the lost things from the thieves, King should replace those items on his own expense to the owner.

 Anyone who has renounced the world and roams around as sannyasi, then sannyasi can't claim ownership of any property. But when they commit any offence (criminal in nature) they should be treated just as any other subject and get the same punishment as any regular citizen.


King should restrict those who are just acting like sannyasis and not doing anything without real renouncement. If the King is not being strict in this matter, the dharma itself covered by adharma, works against the King. 

This brings us to the end of 16th chapter covering the guidelines in dealing with disputes related to civil matters!