caste tribe strike his superiors, that limb should be cut off. Such is the command of Manu."
"He who raises his hand or a stick shall have his hand cut off; he who in anger kicks with his foot shall have his foot cut off."
"This person of wretched birth if he tries to place himself on the same seat with a man of higher caste, shall be branded on his hip and be banished, or the (king) shall cause his buttock to be gashed."
"If out of arrogance he spits (on a superior) the king shall cause both of his lips to be cut off; if he urinates (on him) the penis should be cut off; if he breaks wind against him, then the anus."
"If he lays hold of the hair of a superior let the king unhesitatingly cut off his hands. Similarly should his bands be cut off if he holds, also, the feet, the beard, the neck or the scrotum" (viii, 279-283).[1]
While interpreting these verses I must again warn the reader that the punishments prescribed here were hardly anything more than threats. They were intended to produce a certain moral effect which society approved of. The punishments given here are quite old. Older works, like those of Apastamba (sec. ii, 27, 141) and Gautama (xii, I and 7), and the later smritis of Yajñavalkya and Vishnu, repeat the same thing. All
- ↑ In translating these verses I am again compelled to dissent from the Sanskrit commentators, and from those who have depended on them. The word Antyaja does not mean a Shūdra. It means castes which are below a Shūdra, like Chandālas. Our writer has sharply distinguished Shūdra from an Antyaja where he prescribes a fine of five hundred coins for fornication with a Shūdra woman and a fine of one thousand coins for such intercourse with an Antyaja woman (viii, 385).
