History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.492.3

v4.c63.492.3

1-3, to be shaved, to have her head anointed with clarified butter and to be paraded naked on an ass and left to die on the Great Journey, while, acc. to Gaut. XXIII. 14 and Manu VIII. 371, an adulteress, vain of her charms or the wealth of her parents, was to be openly devoured by dogs, if her paramour was a man of lower caste. Śaṅkha⁶⁴¹ prescribes this punishment (of being devoured by dogs) for a woman's paramour of a lower caste and for the erring woman death by burning. Vṛddha-Hārīta VII. 192 prescribes that in the case of a woman who is a confirmed adulteress, or who destroys her foetus, her husband should have her ears, nose and lips cut off and then she should be banished and verses 220-221 prescribe death by being burnt with grass (kaṭāgni) for those guilty of incest. These severe penalties for adultery were very much relaxed and softened by later smṛti writers as is shown in H. of Dh. vol. II. pp. 571-573. A man who made a breach in the embankment of a lake or tank (and thereby caused it to become dry) may be sentenced to death by drowning (Manu IX. 279) or a woman who was extremely wicked (such as one who killed her own child in the womb) or who murdered a man or who destroyed the embankments of a tank may have a stone tied round her neck and be drowned, provided she be not pregnant at the time of the sentence (Yāj. II. 278). Yāj. II. 279 (=Matsyapurāṇa 227.