Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.66

v1.c8.66

³ The same bloody punishment by loss of manhood, etc., is found in Manu, xi, 105 f.; Āpast., i, 9, 25.1; Gaut., xxiii, 10; Vas., xx, 13; Baudh., ii, 1, 1.15; Yājñav., iii, 259. According to Manu, xi, 104; Gaut., xxiii, 8; Baudh., ii, 1, 1.13, the offender is to burn himself on a glowing iron bed (gridiron); according to Manu, xi, 1; Āpast., i, 9, 25.2; Gaut., xxiii, 9; Vas., xx, 14, he is to clasp the glowing iron figure of a woman; he is to be burned in a hollow iron statue, under which fire is stirred up, according to Āpast., i, 10, 28.15; Manu, xi, 106 f. Yājñav., iii, 260, lets him be cleansed of his sin through mortifications; Agnipur., 169.20 adds self-castration to this (cp. 664). Manu, ix, 237; Viṣṇu, v, 7; Nārada, Pariśiṣṭa, 44 prescribe that the gurutalpin shall be branded with the yoni (vulva); so too Agnipur., 227.50. See also Meyer, Kauṭilya, and Altind. Rechtsschr., index under “Brandmarkung”. It must not be left unmentioned that this sin also, like so many others, according to Smṛiti can easily be made good so long as it is kept hidden, namely by lip-penance and purse-mortification, that is, by grinding out mantras (Manu, xi, 252), and at the same time making the pious gift of a milch-cow (Yājñav., iii, 305). But on the other hand Smṛiti speaks of many sexual offences that are the same as the staining of the teacher’s marriage-bed, and a long list of women is given who are on the same level with the guru’s wife. Here we give only one or two: a woman who is the man’s ward, a virgin, the wife of a friend, or of the son, a Pariah woman, the sister’s friend, a kinswoman