Hammurabi

Hammurabi (c. 1810 BC – c. 1750 BC) was the Emperor of Babylon, who ruled from about c. 1792 BC to c. 1750 BC. He is known for giving a law code. He was the sixth king of Amorite dynasty in Babylon which is now modern Iraq. Some historians insist that he was in the 3rd millennium BC, but most agree at the time around 1800 BC. According to a latest estimates, he was born about c. 1810 BC and died in 1750 BC. He had proclaimed a code of law popularly known as 'the Code of Hammurabi'. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime, the Code of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is among the first codes to establish the presumption of innocence. The Code of Hammurabi was a collection of 282 laws dealing with a wide range of issues.

Wisdom & Quotes

• If a man destroys the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye.

- The Code of Hammurabi

• If a man has committed robbery and is caught, that man shall be put to death. If the robber is not caught, the man who has been robbed shall formally declare whatever he has lost before a god, and the city and the Mayor in whose territory or district the robbery was committed shall make good to him his lost property.

- The Code of Hammurabi

• That the strong may not oppress the weak, to give justice to the orphan and the widow, I have inscribed my precious words on my stele.

- The Code of Hammurabi

• If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water and pays no rent for this year.

- The Code of Hammurabi

Upanishads