Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/139

103 Chap. III.] HINDOO GOVERNMENT. 103

this is a fixed law, but the wealth of all other classes, on the ftiilure of all a.d — heirs, the king may take. It is rather singular, that though the right of a father to dispose absolutely of his property, or distribute it among his children, in his lifetime, is implied by various passages in the Institutes, there is not the least hint of his being able to dispose of it by will.

The criminal law of the Hindoos is much more defective than the civil, and Criminal law is characterized throughout by partiality, caprice, and cruelty. Punishments are regulated not so much by the heinousness of the offence as the cast of the offender; and thus, while some of the worst crimes escape with comparative impunity, the most venial are visited with barbarous mutilations and tortures. The principal heads under which criminal law is arranged are, slander and assault, larceny, robbery and other violence, adultery, and gaming. This arrangement is arbitrary and incomplete, classing together crimes which have little in common, and omitting many by which the peace of society is disturbed and individuals are seriously injured. A few specimens selected from each head will show the spirit which pervades the whole.

Defamatory words are punished by fine if the offender belong to a superior Defamation, class, and corporeally if he be a Sudra. In fixing the fine, the rule is to deal most leniently with the Brahmin who offends, and most severely with the person with whom he is offended. Thus, a Brahmin for slandering a soldier was fined fifty panas, for slandering a merchant twenty-five, and for slandering a Sudra twelve. If he was slandered, the fine imposed on the soldier was 100 panas, and on the merchant 150 or 200. For the very same offence "a mechanic or servile man " was whipped. He might even be glad to escape so easily, for, if convicted of insulting "the twice -born with gross invectives," or of mentioning "their names and classes with contumely," he is in the former case to "have liis tongue slit," and in the latter to have "an iron style ten fingers long thrust red hot into his mouth." With regard to assault the general rule is, that " with whatever member a low-born man shall assault, or hurt a superior, even that member of his must be slit." Accordingly, "he who raises his hand or a staff against another shall have his hand cut; and he who kicks another in wrath shall have an incision made in his foot." Even the meaning of the word "assault" is stretched, for the purpose of making it reach offences not properly included under it. In this way it is provided that "a man of the lowest class who shall insolently place himself on the same seat with one of the highest, shall either be banished with a mark on his hinder parts, or the king shall cause a gash to be made on his buttock." For a variety of insults in more aggravated forms, lips, hands, and other offending membei-s are to be similarly gashed. In some cases treatment which might amount to assault, may be justified by the authority of the person who inflicts it, and be nothing more than legitimate chastisement. The only case mentioned, apparently by way of illustration, is so singular as to be worth quoting. It runs thus: — "A