Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.250

c10.250

So far as the operation of these criminal laws is concerned, a passage from the *Majjhima Nikāya* shows that in cases of adultery and theft the same punishment applied to the offender, irrespective of his *varṇa*.¹ Therefore the discriminatory laws of the Dharmasūtras in this regard need not be taken so seriously. But the non-brāhmaṇical sources show that the offending dāsas, *kammakaras* and other classes of workers were subjected to corporal punishments by their masters. Thus we can cite two instances of beating, in which the victims are women slaves.² In one case the offence is the neglect of work³ and in another the failure to bring her wages back to her master.⁴ Although there is mention of a slave who was patted and permitted to learn writing and handicrafts, he lived under the perpetual fear of getting ‘beaten, imprisoned, branded and fed on slave’s fare’⁵ at the slightest fault.