Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c19.70

v2.c19.70

slayer of a Cūdra man, undertake for six months the purificatory vow of the Brahman-murderer. But if she has led a bad life (durvṛttā), then he need only give for a Brāhmaṇī a leather bag, for a Kṣattriyā woman a bow, for a Vaiçyā woman a he-goat, and for a Cūdrā woman a sheep, and thereby he is cleansed. Manu, xi, 139, sets the same value on the unchaśte woman. Cp. Gautama, xxii, 26. In Manu’s law book the killing of a woman, as that of a Kṣattriya, Vaiçya or Cūdra man, leads to loss of caśte, and he that is guilty of it must still be strictly shunned even when he has cleansed himself according to precept (xi, 191; so too Yājñav., iii, 299; Viṣṇu, liv, 32). There, too, the king is strictly enjoined to have the woman-murderers executed also, like slayers of Brahmans and children, and other evil-doers (ix, 232); and so, too, in Viṣṇu, v, 9–11. This offence appears as the type of the most dreadful sin in Mahānirvāṇatantra, iii, 153 also. Indeed, in the case of strange women (paraśtrīshu), as in that of men of a higher caśte than one’s own, twice as heavy a fine must be paid as in the case of men of equal caśte, if they are spit on, kicked with the heel, or have filth thrown over them. Yājñav., ii, 213 f.; Kauṭilya, 306.20–22; cp. Kauṭ., 305.6–7 and addition to it (in the case of certain verbal insults double the fine).