Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/270

 LAWS

n India, as throughout the ancient world, legal equality was unknown. There was one law for the Brahman and another for the Sudra; the former was treated with undue leniency, the latter with cruel severity. If a Brahman committed one of the four or five heinous crimes enumerated in the law-books, that is, if he slew a Brahman, violated his guru's bed, stole the gold of a Brahman, or drank spirituous liquor, the king branded him on the forehead with a heated iron and banished him from his realm. If a man of a lower caste slew a Brahman, he was punished with death and the confiscation of his property, while if he slew a man of equal or lower caste, other suitable punishments were meted out to him.

Adultery has always been looked upon in India not only as a criminal offence, but as an offence of a heinous nature; but here again punishment for the offence was regulated by the caste of the offender. A man of the first three castes who committed adultery with a Sudra woman was banished; but a Sudra who committed adultery with a woman of the first three castes suffered capital punishment. Rh