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punishable with death. Fornication is treated less severely than adultery, because adultery is more likely - to cause a confusion of varnas than fornication will. Though adultery is a graver offense than fornication and rape greater than adultery, he recommends the same punishment for a fornication with a Brāhmana girl by a Kshatriya as he docs for rape by a Brāhmana of a married woman (of bad character) of his own varna. For a Brāhmana to commit adultery with an Antyaja (a person of the outcast tribe) woman is in his opinion an offense twice as great as an intercourse with a woman of one of the four varnas.[1]
- ↑ I have taken the verses viii, 374-385, in a sense different from that of the Sanskrit commentators and the modern critical students. The difference of opinion lies in the translation of the words "guptā" and "aguptā." These words are translated by the commentators as women "guarded and unguarded by relatives," and their interpretation is adopted by the modern critics. This interpretation, if adopted, would mean that if adultery is committed with a woman not guarded by relatives the offense is smaller, and if she is guarded by the relatives the offense is greater. I hope that by the words "guarded woman" the commentators and the modern critics do not mean a woman "having her relatives with her to guard" when the offense was committed! We cannot take the words guptā or aguptā to refer to the question whether the woman is properly secluded or allowed to move freely. It must be admitted that our writer was not a believer in the complete freedom of women as he has emphatically asserted the doctrine that woman does not deserve entire removal of guardianship (V, 148, ix, 2-3), still he was by no means an advocate of the institution of purda (segregation of the sexes) which is so strong in the valley of the Ganges (ix, 10-12). Again, in order to estimate the gravity of the offense, the consideration whether a woman was guarded or unguarded does not appear to be made by any dharma writer. There is an aphorism (sūtra) of Gautama which may give us some reason to think otherwise. While discussing the punishment to a Shūdra who commits adultery with an ārya woman, Gautama says:
