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 STANDARDS OF DUTY 161 family, while separate officials were charged with the delicate duty of supervising female morals. In prac- tice, this system must have led to much espionage and tyranny, and, if we may judge from the proceedings of kings in later ages, who undertook a similar task, the punishments inflicted for breach of the imperial regulations must have been terribly severe. It is recorded by contemporary testimony that in INTERIOR VIEW OF AJANTA CAVE. the seventh century King Harsha, who obviously aimed at copying closely the institutions of Asoka, did not shrink from inflicting capital punishment, without hope of pardon, on any person who dared to infringe his com- mands by slaying any living thing or using flesh as food in any part of his dominions. In the twelfth century, Kumarapala, King of Gu- jarat in Western India, after his conversion to Jainism in 1159 A. D., took up the doctrine of the sanctity of