Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c14.s5.11

c14.s5.11

It will be observed that to associate with an excommunicated person was to invite excommunication on one’s head. In the next chapter, Gautama is at pains to add that a year’s company of outcasts or instigating others to acts causing loss of caste led to excommunication. The consequences of excommunication were not merely moral but also material and spiritual. An outcast was deprived, after death, of the rewards of his meritorious deeds. He lost the right to follow the lawful occupations of the twice-born—a penalty which could be enforced only by public opinion or government.² No wonder there were those who described this condition as hell.