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Witnesses, both in the civil and criminal causes, are sometimes examined upon oath, though not always. The oath is written in a small book of palm-leaves, and is held over the head of the witness. Foreigners, however, take their own oaths. The substance of the Book of Imprecations, or, as the Burmese call it, the Book of the Oath, is as follows:[41]—

False witnesses, who assert anything from passion, and not from love of truth,—witnesses who affirm that they have heard and seen what they have not heard or seen, may all such false witnesses be severely punished with death, by that God who, through the duration of 400,100,000 worlds, has performed every species of good work, and exercised every virtue. I say, may God, who, after having acquired all knowledge and justice, obtained divinity, leaning upon the tree of Godama, may this God, with the Nat who guards him day and night, that is, the Assurâ Nat, and the giants, slay these false witnesses.

[Here follows the invocation of many different Nats.]