Page:The history of caste in India.pdf/179

 matter is clear enough. The murder of a Brāhmana is associated with great horror in all Sanskrit literature. In order to insure the perpetuity of grants, even great kings always condemned the revocation of the grant by attaching to it the sin of killing a Brāhmana. Even the enemies of Brāhmana (the Buddhists) did not have any scruples in associating the sin of killing a Brāhmana with the violation of their arrangements (Gupta inscri. no. 5, line 10, no. 7, lines 8, 16; no. 16, lines 11-12; no. 55, lines 39-44) in order to insure its safety.

But with all the graveness attached to the murder of Brāhmanas, it is still doubtful how far they were exempted from capital punishment. Nīti literature is silent on this point, and we have several cases which show that such claims were not adhered to. Charudatta, the hero of Toy-Cart, is sentenced to death for the supposed murder of Vasantsenā. But it may be claimed that it was regarded as an improper thing. Nevertheless there are cases where Brāhmanas were sentenced to death for offenses of much less magnitude. Kāmapāla, the seducer of Princess Kāntimati, is represented in Dashakumāracharita as a person twice sentenced to death, once for seducing the princess and another time for plotting against the king. The hero of Chaura-Panchāshika (probably the poet himself) was another man who was sentenced to death for seducing the princess whom he was appointed to teach. All these cases make us suspect that the rule laid down was not strictly adhered to.

In some cases the punishments for crimes were less to Brāhmana than to other varnas. Our text says: "But