Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/42

32 High-Church Puseyism consigns all “Dissenters” when they hand them over to “the uncovenanted mercies of God.”

In addition to the exclusion of woman and the lower caste, this terrible Code proceeds to sink still deeper vast multitudes of their fellow-creatures. The “Outcasts” are numbered by the million. Some of these are called “Chandalas,” and concerning them this heartless and cruel Lawgiver ordains: “Chandalas must dwell without the town. Their sole wealth must be dogs and asses; their clothes must consist of the mantles of deceased persons; their dishes must be broken pots, and their ornaments must consist of rusty iron. No one who regards his duties must hold any intercourse with them, and they must marry only among themselves. By day they may roam about for the purposes of work, and be distinguished by the badges of the Rajah; and they must carry out the corpse of any one who dies without kindred. They should always be employed to slay those who are sentenced by the laws to be put to death; and they may take the clothes of the slain, their beds, and their ornaments.”—Code, X, 51-58.

Can the Western reader wonder that, tame and subdued though the Asiatics may be, these aristocratic ordinances should have proved too much for human nature, or that the introduction of English rule and fair play, elevating these long-crushed millions to legal equality with these proud Brahmins, was an immense mercy to nearly one sixth of the human family?

As a sample of how this sacerdotal law, framed for his special glorification, discriminated in favor of the Brahmin, it may suffice to quote a sentence or two. On the question of his privileges when called to testify in a Court of Justice, he must be assumed to be the “very soul of honor,” and his oath, without exposure to penalty, was to be held sufficient. The Code decreed that “A Brahmin was to swear by his veracity; a Kshatriya by his weapons, horse, or elephant; and a Vaisya by his kine, grain, or gold; but a Sudra was to imprecate upon his own head the guilt of every possible crime if he did not speak the truth.”—VIII, 113. “To a Brahmin the Judge should say, ‘Declare;’ to a Kshatriya he