Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.265

c10.265

For the first time the Dharmasūtra law introduces different rates of wergeld for the members of the different varṇas, there being no such distinction in Vedic times. Three of them lay down that for slaying a kṣatriya the offender shall give one thousand cows, for slaying a vaiśya one hundred cows and for slaying a śūdra ten cows, with a bull in every case.¹ Baudhāyana says that the amount should go to the king,² but Āpastamba seems to favour the brāhmaṇa in his place.³ In any case the amount is not to be paid to the relations of the murdered man. The nature of penances provided for the expiation of the sin of murder also varies according to the varṇa of the murdered person. According to Gautama, for killing a kṣatriya the guilty man should maintain the normal vow of continence for six years, for killing a vaiśya for three years and for killing a śūdra for one year.⁴ Vasiṣṭha, however, increases the term of the penance by three years in the case of a vaiśya, and by two years in the cases of a kṣatriya or a śūdra.⁵ But the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa, which is regarded by Burnell a work of this period,⁶ provides the same penance for the expiation of the sin of killing the members of the first three varṇas, prescribing a different penance for the sin of killing a śūdra.⁷ This may suggest that the first distinction in respect of the wergeld was made between the śūdra and the traivarṇika. Later this was pushed to extremes by prescribing different rates of fine for the murder of the members of the different varṇas. There must be some basis for the law of the wergeld, which is found in most of the Dharmasūtras. Different rates of wergeld varying according to class are found only in those societies which have ceased to be tribal. But how far and in what ways such a law was observed in the case of the śūdra cannot be determined in the absence of the court decisions on this point.