History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.480.4

v4.c63.480.4

4) is to be made on the forehead only if the offender (whether a brāhmaṇa or not) did not perform *prāyaścitta* for those grave sins. Branding with marks appropriate to the crime committed were in vogue in Rome and in Britain up to 1699 (such as the mark of the letter M for murderers, T for thieves &c.). Vide Barnes' 'Story of punishment' p. 62. The Rājatarangiṇī (IV. 96-106) refers to a case in the reign of king Candrāpīḍa of Kashmir when a brāhmaṇa guilty of the murder of a brāhmaṇa was exempted from death sentence because of the smṛti rule. Manu IX. 241 gives option that a brāhmaṇa (unintentionally) guilty of grave offences may be punished with the middle amercement or he may be banished from the realm keeping all his wealth. The punishments for a brāhmaṇa offender, according to Gaut. XII. 44, were preventing him from doing the same thing again, depriving him of all wealth, taking sureties from him, proclaiming him as a thief in the city banishment, putting on his forehead the mark indicative of his crime. Āp. Dh.S. (II. 10.27. 16-17)⁶³³ lays down that a brāhmaṇa guilty of murder, theft, forcible seizure of another's land was to have his eyes covered over with cloth for the whole of his life (while a śūdra guilty of any of the three was to receive the death sentence).