Sāhasa is a well-known technical term in classical Hindu law. It has its regular place in the enumerations of vivādapadas, i.e., the —normally eighteen— “titles of law.” For example in Manu's list of vivādapadas (8.4–7), the śloka containing titles ten to fifteen runs as follows:

“(10) Disputes regarding boundaries, (11) assault and (12) defamation, (13) theft, (14) robbery and violence, (15) adultery” (trans. Bühler: 253).

There may be some doubt about the exact connotation of the term sāhasa even within a single text such as the Manusmṛti and Bühler's “robbery and violence” may only be partly valid. On the one hand, sāhasa seems to refer to “violent appropriation,” different from steya only insofar as the latter indicates appropriation in the absence of the owner and, hence, without violence. Thus MDh 8.332:

“An offense (of this description), which is committed in the presence (of the owner) and with violence, will be robbery; if (it is committed) in his absence, it will be theft; likewise if (the possession of) anything is denied after it has been taken” (trans. Bühler: 312). On the other hand, sāhasa is clearly distinguished from steya; says MDh 8.345: