110 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
VIII. 366. “A Shudra 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 desires it.”
VIII. 374. “A Shudra having an adulterous connection with a woman of a twice-born class, whether guarded at home or unguarded shall thus be punished in the following manner; if she was unguarded, he shall lose the part offending and all his property; if guarded everything even his life.”
VIII. 375. “For adultery with a guarded Brahmin a Vaishya shall forfeit all his wealth after imprisonment for a year; a Kshatriya shall be fined a thousand panas, and he be shaved with the urine of an ass.”
VIII. 376. “But if a Vaishya or Kshatriya commits adultery with an unguarded Brahmin, the king shall only fine the Vaishya five hundred panas and the Kshatriya a thousand.”
VIII. 377. “But even these two however, it they commit that offence with a Brahmani not only guarded but the wife of an eminent man, shall be punished like a Shudra or be burned in a fire of dry grass or reeds.”
VIII. 382. “If a Vaishya approaches a guarded female of the Kshatriya or a Kshatriya a guarded Vaishya-woman, they both deserve the same punishment as in the case of an unguarded Brahmin female.”
VIII. 383. “But a Brahmin, who shall commit adultery with a guarded woman of those two classes, must be fined a thousand panas, and for the offending with a Shudra woman the fine of a thousand panas on a Kshatriya or Vaishya.”
VIII. 384. “For adultery by a Vaishya with a woman of the Kshatriya classes, if guarded, the fine is five hundred; but a Kshatriya for committing adultery on a Vaishya woman must be shaved with urine or pay the fine just mentioned.”
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 with 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 origin concerned in the crime such as belly, tongue, nose, eyes, ears, organs of generation etc., as if