Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c9.56

c9.56

§ 40. Secular crimes and transgressions. The secular crimes and transgressions, i. e. those that are punished by the king, are also dealt with along with the corresponding punishments in the Dharmaśāstras in the chapter on the duties of kings without any trace of systematic arrangement. In M. the criminal law, divided into real and verbal injuries, theft, violence and sexual crimes, constitutes the contents of 11.—15. of its 18 titles of law. In Nār. the laws about punishments, dealt with in 14.—16. titles of law, consist of violence or grave crimes (sāhasa), real and verbal injuries, and these 3 titles are subdivided into 15 sections; moreover in Nār. the 12. and the 18. titles contain things connected with criminal law—their titles being "duties of man and wife" and "miscellany"—as well as an appendix which like M. 9 deals with theft and robbery and the destruction of evil-doers (kaṇṭakasodhana). Also a quotation from Nārada (Quot. 1, 11f.) enumerates the 10 chief crimes (daśāparādha) as follows: violation of a royal command, murder of a woman, mixing of castes, adultery, theft, pregnancy as the result of criminal intercourse, verbal injury, gross abuse, real injury and abortion of the embryo. But only Bṛh. 2, 5-10 expressly makes distinction between civil and criminal cases (dhanodbhavāni and hiṃsodbhavāni); according to Bṛh. the latter consist of real and verbal injuries, violence and adultery and each of these four crimes is again divided into three grades.