Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 180

152
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(AUaust, 1931
commit thefts bear corresponding guilt and become the females of the animals above enumerated."
All the crimes mentioned above deal with larceny in some form or another, but there are others which are much more serious. According to Hindu law crimes may roughly be divided under three broad headings : crimes against the property of an individual; crimes against the person of an individual ; and crimes against the honour of an individual. To the last group belong sacerdotal crimes and religious crimes or sins. An unfaithful wife, we are told, will become a jackal after death, and publish her shame to the world by howling dismally at night. The soul of a Brahmana, who drinks forbidden spirituous liquors, called surd, will enter the bodies of great and small insecte, moths, carrion-eating birds such a vultures and so on, and destructive animals. Men who take pleasure in inflicting pain become carnivorous animals; those who eat forbidden food become worms; thieves become creatures which devour their own kind, like fish. But more heinous still are crimes committed against the dignity of the twice-born Brahmanas. "He who kills a Brahmaņa, after a long process through different hells, is to be reborn as a dog, a pig, ass, camel, cow, goat, sheep, stag, bird," etc., and "the worst fate is reserved for those who commit adultery with the wife of a priest or teacher in former times a priest or a teacher was alwaye a Brahmana, and even today the office of a priest is reserved specially for a Brahmaņa); their souls are to return hundreds of times into grass, shrubs, creeping animals with claws and cruel dispositions."
But the religious books of the Hindus say that nearly all these crimes may be atoned for by the person committing them, and a complete or at least a partial remission of the punishments may be obtained. In fact, the same lawgiver says that a man who omits to perform an action prescribed by the Sastras, or one who performs a blameable act, or one whe cleaves to sensual enjoyments, is obliged to perform a penanceand adds that penances are necessary for the sal, of purification, because those whose sins are not expiated are born again with disgraceful marks.8
Whether, however, any of the penances prescribed are applicable to graver crimes committed intentionally is not quite clear. The probability is that they are not. In one place it is said plainly that there can be no prayascitta for intentionally killing a Brahmana, but if the killing is unintentional the slayer must purify himself by erecting a hut in a dense and impenetrable forest and dwelling there for twelve years, subsisting on alms and making the skull of a dead man his drinking vessel. 10 And in modern India the unintentional slayer of a cow or a oalf must live on charity for a period of three or five years, and is not allowed to utter a word, although there does not seem to be any objection to bie making some inarticulate sounds. On the other hand, the slaying of a Sūdra is a comparatively petty offence in Hindu eyes; or rather it was till British justice ohanged the whole aspeet. The only punishment prescribed for such an action is the same as for killing a dog, an iguana, & cat, a mungoose, a blue jay, a frog, an owl or a crow, 11 even though the killing be intentional.
Some of the prayascittas are severe in the extreme, as for example that for a Brahmana drinking spirituous liquor. If a twice-born intentionally drinks such beverages through delusion of mind, his penance is to drink it again boiling hot; only thus, when his body has been completely scalded by the boiling liquid may he be freed from his guilt 19 ; or, he may drink a concoction of cow's urine, water, milk, clarified butter (ghyta) and cowdung, or any one of these, boiling hot until he dies. 13
Laws of Manu, xü, 55-69, cited by B. Bonnerjes, L'Ethnologie du Bengale (Paris, 1927), pp. 113 f. 3 Latos of Manu, v, 164 ; ix, 30.
1 Cf. Laws of Manu, xii, 66. 5 B. Bonnorjea, op. cit., 114, citing Manu. Ibid.
1 Laws of Manu, xi, 44. Laws of Manu, xi, 52.
• Laws of Manu, xi, 90. 10 Law of Mans, zi, 90, 73.
11 Law of Manu, xi, 132. 13 Laws of Mann, ri, 91,
13 Laws of Manu, si, 92,