Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c9.55

c9.55

In this thorough parallelism of the two systems it is quite natural that they should have very many particular sins and crimes in common with one another. As already mentioned, in such cases it is to be assumed that penances and punishments were both prescribed at the same time and this is sometimes even expressly mentioned. Thus according to Baudh. 1, 19, 4 he who kills a bull shall finally, that is after paying the fine, also perform the penance Cāndrāyaṇa. According to Nār. 12, 77, in the case of grave sexual crimes (agamyāgamana), the king should decree a punishment; at the same time however the sin should have to be destroyed by Prāyaścitta. There being no fine line of demarcation between penances and punishments both may be applied indiscriminately. In the mediaeval age according to Alberuni 2, 162 f. in punishing an act of murder the penances and punishments were arranged in this way: in the case of the murder of people of lower castes by a Brahman, only penance consisting of fasts, prayers and alms-giving was ordained; in the case of acts of murder among people of lower castes, penance as well as punishment, and in the case of murderous deed and other grave crimes among Brahmans and Kṣtriyas, only punishments consisting of confiscation and banishment were prescribed. Probably the line of demarcation between the church and the state was never fixed with any certainty and it is also to be remembered that princes with religious zeal themselves used to enforce the performance of the penances prescribed in the Dharmaśāstras, cf. § 47.