History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.492.4

v4.c63.492.4

200) prescribes death by being gored by the horns of bulls (after the nose, lips, ears and hands are cut off) for a woman who is guilty of poisoning (the food or drink of another) or who is guilty of incendiarism or who kills her husband, elders or her own child (provided she is not pregnant)⁶⁴². Yāj. II. 282 provides death by being burnt with the fire of straw for those who set fire to growing crops, houses, forests, village, pastures and threshing floors or who approach the queen. Nār. (pāruṣya, verse 31) prescribes that one who strikes with a weapon the king, even though the latter be at fault, should be impaled and roasted in fire. These examples are enough to convey an idea of the crimes for which the sentence of death was provided in some of the ancient smṛtis. Manu VIII. 272, Nār. (pāruṣya 24), Viṣṇu Dh. S. V. 24 prescribe the pouring of boiling oil in the mouth and ears of a śūdra who through insolence tries to expound dharma to brāhmaṇas. Cutting off limbs as a punishment (particularly hands and feet or fingers) was common in the case of thieves, pickpockets and cut-purses (Manu IX. 276-277, Nār., pariśiṣṭa verse 32, Yāj. II. 274). Excision of the tongue was the sentence when a śūdra abused a brāhmaṇa or a kṣatriya by falsely charging him with some grave sin (Āp. Dh. S. II. 10. 27. 14, Manu VIII. 270, Nārada, pāruṣya 22), when a śūdra loudly repeated the Veda along with twice-born persons (Gaut. XII.