Vol. 3 · pages 41–45

28 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Manu also deals with cases of witnesses giving false evidence. According to Manu giving false evidence is a crime, says Manu:— VIII. 122. “Learned men have specified these punishments, which were ordained by sage legislators for perjured witnesses, with a view to prevent a failure of justice and to restrain iniquity.” VIII. 123. “Let a just prince banish men of the three lower classes, if they give false evidence, having first levied the fine; but a Brahman let him only banish. But Manu made one exception:— VIII. 112. “To women, however, at a time of dalliance, or on a proposal of marriage, in the case of grass or fruit eaten by a cow, of wood taken for a sacrifice, or of a promise made for the preservation of a Brahman, it is deadly sin to take a light oath.” As parties to proceedings—Their position can be illustrated by quoting the ordinances of Manu relating to a few of the important criminal offences dealt with by Manu. Take the offence of Defamation. Manu says:— VIII. 267. “A soldier, defaming a priest, shall be fined a hundred panas, a merchant, thus offending, an hundred and fifty, or two hundred; but, for such an offence, a mechanic or servile man shall be shipped.” III. 268. “A priest shall be fined fifty, if he slander a soldier; twenty five, if a merchant; and twelve, if he slander a man of the servile class.” Take the offence of Insult—Manu says:— VIII. 270. “A once born man, who insults the twice-born with gross invectives, ought to have his tongue slit; for he sprang from the lowest part of Brahma.” VIII. 271. “If he mention their names and classes with contumely, as if he say,” Oh Devadatta, though refuse of Brahmin, “an iron style, ten fingers long, shall be thrust red into his mouth.” VIII. 272. “Should he, through pride, give instruction to priests concerning their duty, let the king order some hot oil to be dropped into his mouth and his ear.” Take the offence of Abuse—Manu says:— VIII. 276. “For mutual abuse by a priest and a soldier, this fine must be imposed by a learned king; the lowest amercement on the priest, and the middle-most on the soldier.” VIII. 277. “Such exactly, as before mentioned, must be the punishment a merchant and a mechanic, in respect of their several

29 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM classes, except the slitting of the tongue; this is a fixed rule of punishment.” Take the offence of Assault—Manu propounds:— VIII. 279. “With whatever member a low-born man shall assault or hurt a superior, even that member of his must be slit, or cut more or less in proportion to the injury; this is an ordinance of Manu.” VIII. 280. “He who raises his hand or a staff against another, shall have his hand cut; and he, who kicks another in wrath, shall have an incision made in his foot.” Take the offence of Arrogance—According to Manu:— VIII. 281. “A man of the lowest class, who shall insolently place himself on the same seat with one of the highest, shall either be banished with a mark on his hinder parts, or the king, shall cause a gash to be made on his buttock.” VIII. 282. “Should he spit on him through price, the king shall order both his lips to be gashed; should he urine on him, his penis: should he break wing against him, his anus.” VIII. 283. “If he seize the Brahman by the locks, or by the feet, or by the beard, or by the throat, or by the scrotum, let the king without hesitation cause incisions to be made in his hands.” Take the offence of Adultery. Says Manu:— VIII. 359. “A man of the servile class, who commits actual adultery with the wife of a priest, ought to suffer death; the wives, indeed, of all the four classes must ever be most especially guarded.” VIII. 366. “A low man, who makes love to a damsel of high birth, ought to be punished corporally; but he who addresses a maid of equal rank, shall give the nuptial present and marry her, if her father please.” VIII. 374. “A mechanic or servile man, having an adulterous connection with a woman of a twice-born class, whether guarded at home or unguarded, shall thus be punished; if she was unguarded, he shall lose the part offending, and his whole substance; if guarded, and a priestless, every thing, even his life.” VIII. 375. “For adultery with a guarded priestess, a merchant shall forfeit all his wealth after imprisonment for a year; a soldier shall be fined a thousand panas, and he be shaved with the urine of an ass.” VIII. 376. “But, if a merchant or soldier commit adultery with a woman of the sacredotal class, whom her husband guards not at home, the king shall only fine the merchant five hundred, and the soldier a thousand;”

30 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES VIII. 377. “Both of them, however, if they commit that offence with a priestess not only guarded but eminent for good qualities, shall be punished like men of the servile class, or be burned in a fire of dry grass or reeds.” VIII. 382. “If a merchant converse criminally with a guarded woman of the military, or a soldier with one of the mercantile class, they both deserve the same punishment as in the case of a priestess unguarded.” VIII. 383. “But a Brahman, who shall commit adultery with a guarded woman of those two classes, must be fined a thousand panas; and for the life offence with a guarded woman of the servile class, the fine of a soldier or a merchant shall be also one thousand.” VIII. 384. “For adultery with a woman of the military class, if guarded, the fine of a merchant is five hundred; but a soldier, for the converse of that offence, must be shaved with urine, or pay the fine just mentioned.” VIII. 385. “A priest shall pay five hundred panas if he connect himself criminally with an unguarded woman of the military, commercial, or servile class, and a thousand, for such a connexion with a woman of a vile mixed breed.” Turning to the system of punishment for offences Manu’s Scheme throws an interesting light on the subject. Consider the following ordinances:— VIII. 379. “Ignominious tonsure is ordained, instead of capital punishment, for an adulterer of the priestly class, where the punishment of other classes may extend to loss of life.” VIII. 380. “Never shall the king slay a Brahman, though convicted of all possible crimes; let him banish the offender from his realm, but with all his property secure, and his body unhurt.” XI. 127. “For killing intentionally a virtuous man of the military class, the penance must be a fourth part of that ordained for killing a priest; for killing a Vaisya, only an eighth, for killing a Sudra, who had been constant in discharging his duties, a sixteenth part.” XI. 128. “But, if a Brahmen kill a Kshatriya without malice, he must, after a full performance of his religious rites, give the priests one bull together with a thousand cows.” XI. 129. “Or he may perform for three years the penance for slaying a Brahmen, mortifying his organs of sensation and action, letting his hair grow long, and living remote from the town, with the root of a tree for his mansion.”

31 PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM XI. 130. “If he kill without malice a Vaisya, who had a good moral character, he may perform the same penance for one year, or give the priests a hundred cows and a bull.” XI. 131. “For six months must he perform this whole penance, if without intention he kill a Sudra; or he may give ten white cows and a bull to the priests.” VIII. 381. “No greater crime is known on earth than slaying a Brahman; and the king, therefore, must not even form in his mind an idea of killing a priest.” VIII. 126. “Let the king having considered and ascertained the frequency of a similar offence, the place and time, the ability of the criminal to pay or suffer and the crime itself, cause punishment to fall on those alone, who deserves it.” VIII. 124. “Manu, son of the Self-existent, has named ten places of punishment, which are appropriated to the three lower classes, but a Brahman must depart from the realm unhurt in any one of them.” VIII. 125. “The part of generation, the belly, the tongue, the two hands, and, fifthly, the two feet, the eye, the nose, both ears, the property, and, in a capital case, the whole body.” How strange is the contrast between Hindu and Non-Hindu criminal jurisprudence? How inequality is writ large in Hinduism as seen in its criminal jurisprudence? In a penal code charged with the spirit of justice we find two things—a section dealing defining the crime and a section prescribing a rational form of punishment for breach of it and a rule that all offenders are liable to the same penalty. In Manu what do we find ? First an irrational system of punishment. The punishment for a crime is inflicted on the organ concerned in the crime such as belly, tongue, nose, eyes, ears, organs of generation etc., as if the offending organ was a sentient being having a will for its own and had not been merely a servitor of human being. Second feature of Manu’s penal code is the inhuman character of the punishment which has no proportion to the gravity of the offence. But the most striking feature of Manu’s Penal Code which stands out in all its nackedness is the inequality of punishment for the same offence. Inequality designed not merely to punish the offender but to protect also the dignity and to maintain the baseness of the parties coming to a Court of Law to seek justice in other words to maintain the social inequality on which his whole scheme is founded. So far I have taken for illustrations such matters as serve to show how Manu has ordained social inequality. I now propose to take other matters dealt with by Manu in order to illustrate that Manu has also

32 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES ordained Religious inequality. These are matters which are connected with what are called sacraments and Ashrams. The Hindus like the Christians believe in sacraments. The only difference is that the Hindus have so many of them that even the Roman Catholic Christians would be surprised at the extravagant number observed by the Hindus. Originally their number was forty and covered the most trivial as well as the most important occasions in a person’s life. First they were reduced to twenty. Later on it was reduced to sixteen 1 and at that figure the sacraments of the Hindus have remained stabilized. Before I explain how at the core of these rules of sacraments there lies the spirit of inequality the reader must know what the rules are. It is impossible to examine all. It will be enough if 1 deal with a few of them. I will take only three categories of them, those relating with Initiation, Gayatri and Daily Sacrifices. First as to Initiation. This initiation is effected by the investitute of a person with the sacred thread. The following are the most important rules of Manu regarding the sacrament of investitute. II. 36. “In the eighth year from the conception of a Brahman, in the eleventh from that of a Kshatriya, and in the twelfth from that of a Vaisya, let the father invest the child with the mark of his class.” II. 37. “Should a Brahman, or his father for him, be desirous of, his advancement in sacred knowledge; a Kshatriya, of extending his power; or a Vaisya of engaging in mercantile business; the investitute may be made in the fifth, sixth, or eighth years respectively.” II. 38. “The ceremony of investitute hallowed by the Gayatri must not be delayed, in the case of a priest, beyond the sixteenth year; nor in that of a soldier, beyond the twenty second; nor in that of a merchant, beyond the twenty fourth.” II. 39. “After that, all youths of these three classes, who have not been invested at the proper time, become vratyas, or outcasts, degraded from the Gayatri, and condemned by the virtuous.” II. 147. “Let a. man consider that as a mere human birth, which his parents gave him for their mutual gratification, and which he receives after lying in the womb.” II. 148. “But that birth which his principal acharya, who knows the whole Veda, procures for him by his divine mother the Gayatri, is a true birth; that birth is exempt from age and from death.” 1The following are the sixteen sacraments:—