Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c9.51

c9.51

The same is the case also with the conception of permissible self-defence. For killing an assailant (*ātatāyin*), even if he is learned in the Veda, neither punishments nor penances are prescribed; the fury of the assailant in such a case meets the fury of the defender (M. 8, 350 f. etc.). Yet however the killing of a Brahman in self-defence is one of the customs now obsolete (*kalivarjya*). The participation in a crime is judged likewise from the same point of view in the religious law and in the secular law. Thus he who eats or serves, cooks and sells the flesh of a killed animal commits as great a sin as he who himself has killed it or has cut it into pieces (Vi. 51, 74 etc.). The Mit. on Y. 3, 227, in the theory of penances, quotes a text, said to be of M., according to which among a troop of men carrying weapons not only he who gives the mortal blow should be considered to be the murderer but his companions too are as guilty as he himself. Similarly Āp. 2, 29, 1 speaks of the rewards of heaven and the tortures of hell which are shared by the instigator (*prayojayitṛ*), helper (*mantṛ*) and the perpetrator (*kartṛ*) of an evil deed.