Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/41

 Chap l.J THE BRAHMIN CASTE. 5

crime is known on earth than shxying a Brahmin." While the Brahmin may a.d. — thus be guilty of all imaginable atrocities without putting his life in danger, the law carefully throws its shield around him, and punishes the slightest insults Comparative offered to him by the intliction of barbarous tortures and mutilations. Should for crime a Sudra address him in contumelious terms, "an iron style, ten lingers long, shall "y ^^e be thrust red hot into hjs mouth;" should he "insolently place himself on the ^'■^'i^ms. same seat," banishment is the mildest punishment that awaits him; "should he spit on him through pride, the king shall order both his lips to be gashed ; " should he seize him by the locks, or other enumerated parts of his person, "let the king, without hesitation, cause incisions to be made in both his hands ; '' should he "through pride give instructions to priests concerning their duty, let the king order some hot oil to be dropped into his mouth and his ear."

Such is a specimen of the penalties which the code of Menu provides for the slightest premeditated insults offered to a Brahmin. Legal penalties, however, are insufficient to heal his wounded dignity or satisfy his vengeance, and therefore, to make the punishment complete, sanctions of a different kind are put in re(piisition. In some cases where the offence proceeds from momentary impulse, or is of so trivial a nature that the law has not deigned to deal with it, expiation by penance may suffice, and hence, he " who says hush or 'pish to a Brahmin " may purge the offence by bathing immediately, eating nothing for the rest of the day, and appease him whom he has offended "by clasping his feet with respectful salutation." Inhke manner, one offending a Brahmin by striking him, " even with a blade of grass," or by " overpowering him in argument, and adding contemptuous words," must "soothe him by falling prostrate." It woukl seem. Penalties for however, that from the refusal of the Brahmin, or some other cause, the offered Braiimin. reparation may prove unavailing, and hence we are elsewhere told that he who has smitten a Brahmin in anger and by design, even with a blade of grass, "shall be born in one-and-twenty transmigrations from the wombs of impure quadrupeds." The crime may be committed, and a fearful penalty incurred, without actually smiting ; for it is expressly declared that " a twice-born man," that is, one belonging to any one of the three first classes, if he " barely assaults a Brahmin, with intention to hurt him, shall be whirled about for a century in the hell named Tamisra." Should there be not merely an intent to hurt or kill, but actual striking, the punishment shall be extended to a thousand years; and should blood be shed, then "as many pellets of dust as the blood of a Brahmin collects on the ground, for so many thousand years must the shedder of that blood be tormented in hell."

In the early aa:e, when the Institutes of Menu were compiled, the Brahmin stages of a

•^ '=' -^ .... Brahmins

paid somewhat dearly for his honours by the strict discipline to which his whole life. life was subjected. Having been invested with the badge of his caste in his eighth, and, at aU events, not later than his sixteenth year, he became a Brah- machari, or student in theology, took up his residence with a preceptor, and