Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/245

Rh ultimately pronounces his verdict. If the woman is declared innocent, she is re-accepted amidst universal rejoicings, and the head of the family feels amply repaid for the expenditure he has incurred in the reputation for chastity secured for a member of his family under such a severe ordeal. If things do not end so well, all the Brāhmans come out of the temple and re-assemble, when a Brāhman, who is usually not a Nambūtiri, as the Nambūtiris do not desire to condemn one of their own caste, stands up, and in a stentorian voice repeats the substance of the charge, and the judgment as given by the Smārta. The guardian of the woman then goes away, after she has been handed over by the Smārta to the custody of the Purakkoyimma. The guardian bathes, and performs all the funeral ceremonies for his ward, who from this moment is considered dead for all social and family purposes. The persons meanwhile, whose names have been given out by the woman as having been implicated in the offence, have to vindicate their character on pain of excommunication.

In connection with a case of adultery, which was tried recently in Malabar, it is noted that the Purakkoyimma kept order in the court with sword in hand. Īswara pūja (worship of Īswara) was performed in the local temple on all the days of the trial, and the suspected woman was given pānchagavya (five products of the cow) so that she might tell the truth.

I am informed that, in the course of an enquiry into a charge of adultery, "it sometimes happens that the woman names innocent men as her seducers. Two courses are then open to them, in order that they may exculpate themselves, viz., ordeal by boiling oil, and ordeal by weighing. The former of these ordeals is undergone, under the sanction of the Rāja, by the