History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c45.42

v3.c45.42

The question whether ending one's life by starting on the Great Journey or by falling from a precipice is sinful exercised the minds of many writers on dharmaśāstra. The Dharmaśāstra writers generally condemn suicide or an attempt to commit suicide as a great sin. Parāśara (IV. 1–2) states that if a man or woman hangs himself or herself through extreme pride or extreme rage or through affliction or fear he or she falls into hell for sixty thousand years.²¹³⁰ Manu V. 89 says that no water is to be offered for the benefit of the souls of those who kill themselves. The Ādiparva (179. 20) declares that one who commits suicide does not reach blissful worlds. Vas. Dh. S. (23. 14–16) ordains "whoever kills himself becomes *abhiśasta* (guilty of mortal sin) and his *sapiṇḍas* have to perform no death rites for him; a man becomes a killer of the self when he destroys himself by wood (i. e. by fire), water, clods and stones (i. e. by striking his head against a stone), weapon, poison, or ropes (i. e. by hanging). They also quote a verse 'that *dvija* who through affection performs the last rites of a man who commits suicide must undergo the penance of Cāndrāyaṇa with Tapta-kṛcchra'". Vas. Dh. S. 23. 18 prescribes a prāyaścitta for merely resolving to kill oneself (even when no attempt is made). Yama (20–21) prescribes that when a person tries to do away with himself by such methods as hanging, if he dies, his body should be smeared with impure things and if he lives he should be fined two hundred *paṇas*; his friends and sons should each be fined one *paṇa* and then they should undergo the penance laid down in the *śāstra*.²¹³¹