318 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of a guest to the house of a Brahmin he is to be fed after all the Brahmins are fed and if the Vaishyas and Shudras come in the manner of guests they are to be fed after everybody is fed and only in the company of servants.
Take the rules of Manu regarding Sanskaras:
X. 126. A Shudra has no right to receive the sacraments.
X. 68. The law prescribes that neither of the two (that is those who belong to mixed castes) shall receive the sacraments the first being excluded on account of lowness of his origin of his parents was against the order of the castes.
II. 66. The whole series [1] of sacraments must be performed for females also in order to sanctify the body at the proper time and in the proper order, but without the recitaion of sacred Vedic Mantras.
Manu further lays down that:
VI. 1. A twice born Snataka, who has thus lived according to the law in the order of householders, may, taking a firm resolution and keeping his organs in subjection, dwell in the forest, duly (observing the rules given below).
VI. 33. But having thus passed the third part of (a man’s natural term of) life in the forest, he may live as an ascetic during the fourth part of his existence, after abandoning all attanchment to worldly objects.
Even in law Manu introduces the principle of graded inequality. To take only two illustrations, the law of defamation, abuse and the law of assault:
VIII. 267. A Kshatriya having defamed a Brahmana, shall be fined one hundred (panas); A Vaisya one hundred and fifty or two hundred; a Shudra shall suffer corporal punishment.
VIII. 268. A Brahamna shall be fined fifty (panas) for defaming a Kshatriya; in (the case of) a Vaisya the fine shall be twenty five (panas); in (the case of) a Shudra twelve.
VIII. 269. For offences of twice born men against those of equal caste (varna, the fine shall be) also twelve (panas) for speeches which ought not to be uttered, that (and every fine shall be) double.
VIII. 276. (For mutual abuse) by a Brahmana and a Kshatriya a fine must be imposed by a discerning (king), on the Brahmana the lowest agreement, but on the Kshatriya the middlemost.
VIII. 277. A Vaisya and a Shudra must be punished exactly in the same manner according to their respective castes, but the tongue (of the Shudra) shall not be cut out; that is the decision.
- Except Upanayan which is forbidden for women.