2 Criminal Law before Codification

2.1 Kirant Period (c. 800 B.C.E.–300 C.E.)The earliest (semi-legendary) era of Nepali statehood under the Kirant kings. Law was customaryand oral: tribal norms administered by community elders and the king-as-judge; offences against person and property handled by composition (compensation) and feud-management, with religious expiation for ritual wrongs. No written codes survive — the period's lesson for the exam: law lived in usage, punishment in restitution and social sanction; the king's judicial role was religious (divine sanction) rather than legislative.2.2 Licchavi Period (c. 300–880 C.E.)The first documented legal order: the inscriptions (abhilekh) of Manadeva, Amshuvarma and their successors. The inscriptions reveal: a king-centred judiciary (the royal court as final forum — the king described as dispensing justice as dharma); fines as the standard sanction — inscriptions fix judicial fines for defined wrongs (theft, cattle-trespass and injury, boundary encroachment — land-boundary justice being the Licchavi state's obsession); delegated localadjudication (village functionaries — the gramik, and the era's officials — administering local justice); and dharmashastra's influence — the classical Hindu law's vocabulary of expiation and caste-graded liability entering state practice. The exam's line: Nepal's criminal law was written first as land-grant and boundary inscriptions — the state's memory of its judgments.2.3 Malla Period (c. 1200–1769 C.E.)The classical maturity of pre-modern Nepali law, especially in the Kathmandu Valley:1. Written legal instruments appear: the Malla…