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(18) Gambling and betting, &c— " These two vices cause the destruction of the kingdoms of princes," and kings are therefore recommended to exclude them from their realms. Corporal punishment is enjoined for the offence (IX, 224), and banishment is also provided for them, as well as for dancers, singers, and men of a here- tical sect, U. y Buddhists ! (IX, 225). Death is provided for forgers of royal edicts, for bribing ministers, for slaying women, infants and Brih- mans, and for treason (IX, 232). Branding on the fore- head is provided for violating a guru's bed, for drinking sura (wine), and for stealing a Brahman's gold or killing a Brahman (IX, 237). A thief caught with stolen pro- perty and the implements of burglary as well as those who gave shelter to thieves might be slain (IX, 270, 271). Robbers, house breakers, cut purses and others might have their hands or two fingers cut off (IX, 276, 277). Death or severe punishment is provided for destroy- ing dams of tanks (IX, 279), and fine is provided for physicians treating their patients wrongly ! (IX, 284). Digitized by Google CHAP. XII.] LAWS. 197 Various punishments are provided for the adulteration of commodities, for mischief of different kinds, for cheat- ing in the sale of seed corn, for the dishonesty of gold- smiths, and for the theft of agricultural instruments (IX, 258 to 293). Besides the two chapters on law, Manu has a separate chapter on Penances, &c, for sins committed, and a very few remarks will indicate what were considered the greatest sins. PENANCES.— Here, again, we find that " killing a Brah- man, drinking the liquor called sura, stealing the gold of a Brahman, adultery with a guru's wife, and associa- tion with men who have committed these offences are the gravest moral sins, the Mahdpdtakas (XI, 55). The reader will see that they are identically the same as the Malidpdtakas enumerated by Vasistha (see Vol. II, p. 103). There are other offences which are said to be equal to these in enormity, among which we note giv- ing false evidence, incest, and the defilement of maidens, desertion of one's parents, and neglecting the Veda. Less heinous than the Mahdpdtakas are the Upa- pdtakas y among which we find the neglecting of the domestic fire, slaying kine, defiling a damsel, theft, non- payment of debts, living as a Vratya, — and lastly and curiously enough, — u superintending mines or factories and executing great mechanical works," which, accord- ing to commentators, means constructing dams or mak- ing great machines like sugar mills and the like (IX, Digitized by Google 198 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [ROOK IV. 60, 67). We have deplored elsewhere the little respect paid in ancient India to mechanics, artists and artisans ; but it is with still greater regret and pain that a Hindu writer notes that mechanical works were actually classed with sins. There were some actions which involved loss of caste, (J&tibhransa), among which was classed the smelling at spirituous liquor ; and there were other actions which reduced a man to the mixed castes (Sankartkarana) like the killing of animals (XI, 68, 69). Elsewhere we have the most terrible punishments prescribed for drinking ; — the drinker should be made to drink that liquor boiling hot until he was completely scalded ! (XI, 91). How many of Manu's Mahdpatakas and minor sins are committed in modern times without involv- ing loss of caste ! And how many harmless and even meritorious acts, not prohibited by Manu or any an- cient legal writer, are condemned by new-fangled and degenerate modern rules ! The date of Manu's Institutes has formed the subject of much controversy since the time of Sir William Jones ; but it is now generally admitted that the compilation now extant was framed witliin a century or two before or after the Christian Era. It speaks (X, 44) of the Yavanas, the Chinas, the Sakas, and the Kambojas, and this passage sufficiently indicates its date. The work stands half way between the ancient Sutras of India on which it is based, and the later Digitized by Google CHAP. XII.] LAWS. I99 Dharma Sistras of the Pauranik Period, of which we will speak in the next Book. Unlike the former, it be- longs to no particular Vedic school, but is the law for all Aryans. And unlike the latter, Manu docs not yet know of the Hindu Trinity or the Pauranik mytho- logy* scarcely knows Vishnu (mentioned only once in the Code, XII, 121, and there identified with motion), despises temples and temple priests, and still proclaims Vedic rites and sacrifices. Manners and religion change with times, and many portions of the Institutes of Manu have ceased to be operative in the present day in their entirety. The Draconic severity of the law towards Sudras was pro- bably never reduced to practice, even in the days of Brahman supremacy, and all distinctions in punish- ment, based on caste, certainly ceased to have opera- tion after the Mahommedan conquest of India. Other portions of the work are equally obsolete now. Men of superior caste do not marry women of inferior caste now ; widow marriage has altogether been stopped since Manu's time ; and the barbarous rite of suttee was introduced centuries after Manu. Manu's mixed castes were a list of Hinduized aboriginal tribes ; and Manu's Vaisyas have now been cut up into numerous separate castes according to their professions. And lastly, the religious rites insisted upon by Manu have ceased to be performed ; even Brahmans do not perform the Srauta sacrifices and the Grihya rites which were still Digitized by Google 20O BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK IV. current in Manu's days ; while the descendants of Ksha- triyas and Vaisyas have ceased to wear the holy thread and to acquire holy learning as they did in Manu's time. The mass of the Aryan population is disinherited of their national sacred learning. The portion of Manu's institutes which still has the greatest influence with modern Hindus is the law of inheritance. But even in this matter customs have changed, and the blindest reverer of Manu would shud- der to acknowledge a G&dhotpanna or Kshetraja son ! For change is inevitable, and even Manu's revered In- stitutes cannot perpetuate ancient customs. Hindus in recent years are working out changes in their national customs slowly and sensibly, still clinging to the tradi- tions of the past, but nevertheless yielding to modern ideas. Young Hindus who would hastily cut asunder all connection with the past should learn from a perusal of Indian History, that never within the last four thou- sand years has such a complete severance been witness- ed in India, that the religion and philosophy of the Upanishads and the Sankhya system were based on the traditions and teachings of previous periods, and that the great Buddhist revolution itself was founded on Hindu ideas and Hindu faith. On the other hand, orthodox Hindus, who quote the laws of Manu and the supposed immutability of Hindu customs against all social progress, may be gently reminded that the time is gone by when great mechanical works could be Digitized by Google CHAP. XII.] LAWS. 201 punished as a sin, when Kanina boys could be recogniz- ed as sons, or when the blasphemy could be uttered that the Sudra " was created by the Self-existent to be the slave of a Brahman." Hindus will remain Hindus to the end of the chap- ter ; but their rites and customs have continuously changed in the past ; and in the future, the Hindus will be progressive^ as all the world is progressing. Digitized by CHAPTER XIII. ASTRONOMY AND THE PROGRESS OF LEARNING. We have in the preceding pages dwelt on the history and political condition of the Hindus, their arts and architecture, their social life and laws during the Bud- dhist Period. It remains now to say a few words about their learning and progress in knowledge during that age. Unfortunately, our materials are very poor, — poorer perhaps than those for any other period of ancient Hindu history. Nor are the reasons far to seek. For five or six centuries India was the scene of foreign invasions and wars, and literature and science could not have a healthy and natural growth. Much of what was achieved was also under Buddhist influences, and bore the mark of Buddhism, and later Hindu writers have not been careful in preserving such records. And lastly, scientific works composed in this period have been replaced to a great extent by the more exhaustive works of the Pauranik Period which followed. For all these reasons, the literary and scientific remains of the Buddhist Period are scanty indeed. Nevertheless intellectual pursuits were never given up in India, and there was no such thing as a " literary Digitized by Google CHAP. XIII.] ASTRONOMY, &C. 203 interregnum " in Hindu history. And traces of what was done in the Buddhist Age are still left to us. We have spoken of the six schools of Hindu philos- ophy in our account of the Rationalistic Period ; but it should be remembered that at least two of them, viz., the Yoga of Patanjali and the Vedanta of Badarayana Vyasa, were started in the Buddhist Age, in the second century B. C. or later ; and all the six schools were considerably developed in this Age. Patanjali was again the writer of the celebrated Mahabhasya or Great Commentary on Panini, — a monument of the gramma- tical culture of the Buddhist Period. In religious literature the codes of Manu and Yaj- navalkya belong to the Buddhist Age, while much of the large mass of Buddhist theology was composed in this Age in the universities of Nalanda and elsewhere.