Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.67

v1.c8.67

if he makes a horse-sacrifice or a gosava or agniṣṭoma sacrifice in the rightful way ¹ (xii, 165.49 ff.). According to xii, 165.34, this offence, along with the drinking of spirits (surāpāna) and Brahman-murder, is among the monstrous ones for which there is no atonement laid down (anirdeçya), and which can only be made good again by death (cf. Manu, xi, 55). Also for sexual intercourse with a woman of higher caste there is the sharpest punishment. In this case the sinning woman also, whose punishment in general belongs not here, but to the chapter dealing with her relations with her husband, comes under public justice: “As to the woman that sins against her husband, especially if she has been held back, she shall be made to carry out the same expiatory vow as is the man after adultery.² If she leaves a better bed to go to another, a worse man,³ then shall the king have her torn (ardayet) asunder by dogs on a wide public place. But let the wise one put the man on a glowing bed of iron, and let him heap up wood, and there shall the evil-