History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.288

v5.c71.s1.288

The caste of the offender as well as of the victim made a difference in the prāyaścitta as well as in the legal punishment. Vide H. of Dh vol. III pp. 395–399 as to punishments for crimes dependent on caste. Viṣṇu¹⁹² provides that the prāyaścitta for a kṣatriya, vaiśya and śūdra sinner should be respectively ¾, ½ and ¼ of what is prescribed for a brāhmaṇa sinner. The Agni-purāṇa says¹⁹³ the same thing. The Par. M II. 1. p. 231 quotes the Caturviṁśatimata¹⁹⁴ to the same effect. The Mit. on Yāj. III. 250 explains that the verse of Caturviṁśatimata applies to all cases except where any one of the four sāhasas is committed by a man of a lower caste as against one of a higher caste. Bṛhad-Yama (IV. 13-14) in prescribing penance for the killing of a cow provides the same scale of 4, 3, 2, 1 for the four varṇas Aṅgiras (verse 3) prescribes the penances of Kṛcchra and Cāndrāyaṇa for a brāhmaṇa partaking of the food of an *antyaja*, half of these for a kṣatriya or vaiśya guilty of the same. Yāj II. 206-207 provide that the punishments for defamation depend upon the higher or lower varṇa or caste of the offender as well as of the person defamed and that if a kṣatriya or vaiśya defames a brāhmaṇa the fines are respectively twice or thrice as high as the fine for a brāhmaṇa defaming a brāhmaṇa and conversely if a brāhmaṇa defames a kṣatriya or a vaiśya the fine is reduced by half in each successive caste. The Mit quoting Aṅgiras says that the rules about punishments apply to prāyaścittas for slaying a person i e. if a brāhmaṇa slays anybody and a certain penance is prescribed for him, then a kṣatriya killing the person would have to perform double the penance prescribed for the brāhmaṇa and a vaiśya offender three times as much¹⁹⁵ It may be pointed out here that though the smṛtis provided for different punishments according to the castes of the offender and of the person wronged and though some commentaries and digests went into all those details for the sake of presenting a complete statement or digest of the smṛti material, such discriminatory punishments had mostly ceased to be enforced by the rulers from about the 12th century A. D. at least, as stated by the Smṛticandrikā, the Madanaratna (vyavahāra) and the Sarasvatīvilāsa. Vide H. of Dh. vol. III p 512 note 924 for the relevant quotations from the three works. Since, as stated above (n. 181), prāyaścittas were to be moulded on the lines of legal penalties, it appears that the discriminatory treatment about prāyaścittas depending upon the varna of the sinner must also have gradually fallen into disuetude with the disappearance of the more severe prāyaścittas and the substitution of cows and monetary equivalents in later digests. And some digests expressly state this to have been the case in relation to prāyaścittas. For example, the Pr Prakarana, after quoting Gaut. 22. 14–16 about the prāyaścitta for killing a kṣatriya or vaiśya or śūdra under certain circumstances, remarks that in its day those prāyaścittas were no longer part of the practices of the people.¹⁹⁶