ARBITRATION IN RELIGIOUS TEXTS: AN INSIGHT INTO, AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF, REFERENCES TO ARBITRATION IN HINDUISM, BUDDHISM, CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

Abstract

Arbitration is trending in India and the World due to its speedy disposal, awards, procedure, secrecy and the people involved in carrying out the arbitration whether its arbitration practitioners, arbitrators or its management. There are various verticals of businesses belonging to diverse backgrounds with distinct jurisdictions involving humans with multiple religions that are adopting alternate dispute resolution methods to resolve their disputes, especially arbitration. Judicial institutions in the present times throughout the world and especially, India is promoting Arbitration to lessen the burden of case logs from its roaster, and also, to make judiciary into the multi-dimensional institution to deal with the problems at a multi-tier level instead of a unilateral way of deciding the cases. This paper talks about the first instances dealt by human mankind in different geographies around the world in settling their disputes through the mode of arbitration based on their religious learnings provided in their religious textbooks in the field of alternate dispute resolution mechanisms. The paper is divided into four parts, whereas first part is introductory in nature, the second part deals with the instances of arbitration in different religions mentioned in their religious textbooks, the third part deals with the glimpses of earlier arbitration which can be witnessed in the present arbitration, and the fourth part is conclusive in nature. The reader shall witness the origin of arbitration practice in Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism practised all over the world and does a comparative analysis of the practice of arbitration in different religions with the perspectives of intertwinement of mythology. In the light of all above, a conclusion is drawn out analysing the existence of humans on the planet ‘Earth’ could have only been possible despite human wars, invasion of countries and religious conflicts through the practice of resolving disputes through the medium of alternate dispute resolution mechanism especially through arbitration, mediation and conciliation etc. provided in their respective religious textbooks.