The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c23.27

v1.c23.27

Except for treason, all crimes are judged relatively, that is, there is no absolute penalty, but one conditioned by the social order of the criminal or the victim of the crime. Thus in cases of defamation, if a warrior defame a priest, he is fined one hundred *paṇas*; if a man of the people-caste do so, one hundred and fifty; if a slave, he shall be corporally punished; but if a priest defame a warrior, fifty; if he defame a man of the people, twenty-five; if he defame a slave, twelve, and this last fine is that imposed upon equals defaming equals within the Āryan castes. But if a slave insult a 'regenerate' (Āryan), his tongue is to be cut out. Especially is this the case in relations between the sexes, for though the rule of death for adultery is general (the woman is devoured by dogs in a public place and the man is burned alive, Manu, VIII, 371 f.), yet its antique provisions are really preserved only out of respect for tradition, the real law being that the offending man shall be fined and the woman have her hair cut off and be treated with contempt (Nārada, XII, 92), unless the crime be one that outrages caste-sentiment. Thus a slave who has intercourse with a guarded high-caste woman may be slain; a Vaiçya shall lose his property; a warrior be fined a thousand and be shaved with urine (Manu, VIII, 384 f.). The old general rule of the Sūtras to the effect that the woman be eaten by dogs and the man killed is preserved under the form, explicit in the later works but already implied by Manu, that this be the punishment if 'a wife who is proud of the greatness of her family' (that is a woman of high caste) commit adultery, while Nārada restricts the ferocious penalty to the impossible case of a priest's wife deliberately going to a low-caste man and seducing him.