[172] The one that an unmarried girl gives birth to secretly in her father’s house is called the son born of an unmarried girl and is said to belong to the man who marries her. [173] If a woman who is pregnant gets married, whether her condition is known or unknown, the embryo belongs to the man who marries her and is called (the son) of a pregnant bride. [174] The one whom a man purchases directly from the mother and father in order to have children, whether he is like or unlike (his new father), is a son who is bought. [175] If a woman is deserted by her husband or becomes a widow and willingly remarries and bears a child, he is called a son born of a remarried woman. [176] If she still has her maidenhead intact or returns to a man she had left, she should perform the transformative ritual (of marriage) again with her husband (who thus becomes the husband) of a remarried woman. [177] One who has no father or mother, or who has been deserted for no good reason and gives himself to someone, is traditionally regarded as a self-given (son). [178] The son whom a priest begets out of lust in a servant woman is a corpse (śava) who saves (pārayan), and so he is traditionally known as a ‘Saving-corpse’ (pārasava). [179] A son whom a servant man begets in his slave girl, or in the slave girl of his male slave, may take a share, if he is permitted; this is the established law.
[180] Wise men say that these eleven sons that have been mentioned, beginning with the one born in the (husband’s) field, are son-surrogates to forestall the interruption of the rituals. [181] The ones born of the seed of another man, who are called (sons) because of some connection, belong to the man from whose seed they are born, but not to the other man.
[182] If only one of several brothers born from one father has a son, Manu has said that all of them have sons because of that son. [183] If only one of all the wives of one man has a son, Manu has said that all of them have sons because of that son. [184] In the absence of each higher son, the lower son should get the estate, but if there are many sons all alike, they share the estate. [185] Not brothers, not fathers – sons take the father’s estate; but the father and brothers should take the estate of a man who has no son. [186] The libation (at the ceremony for the dead) should be made to three (ancestors), and the ball is given to three; the fourth (descendant) is the one who gives it to them, and the fifth is not involved.
[187] The property should belong to each successive man who is immediately next to his co-feeding relative, and after that it would belong to a member of the same family, and then to the teacher or the pupil. [188] But in the absence of all of these, then priests who have the triple learning and are unpolluted and self-controlled share the estate; in this way duty is not neglected. [189] The king should not take the material possessions of a priest; this rule always applies. But the king may take (the possessions) of the other classes in the absence of all (heirs). [190] (The widow) of a man who has died childless should have a son by a member of the same lineage (of the sages) and hand over to (that son) whatever property comes from his estate. [191] But if two sons born from two men in one woman should quarrel about the property, each of them, and not the other, should take the property of his own father.
[192] Now, when the mother has died, all the uterine brothers and all the ‘umbilical’ sisters should share equally in the mother’s estate. [193] Something should even be given to the daughters of these daughters out of the estate of their maternal grandmother, through affection and according to their deserts. [194] A woman’s property is traditionally regarded as of six sorts: what was given in front of the (marriage) fire, on the bridal procession, or as a token of affection, and what she got from her brother, mother, or father. [195] In addition, any subsequent gift and whatever her affectionate husband might give her should become the property of her children when she dies, (even) during her husband’s lifetime.
[196] Whatever valuables (are given to a woman) in a marriage in the manner of Brahmā, the gods, the sages, the centaurs, or the Lord of Creatures belong to her husband alone if she dies childless. [197] But whatever property is given to her in a marriage in the manner of the demons and the others (ogres and ghouls) belongs to her mother and father if she dies childless. [198] And if a father should give anything valuable to a wife, the daughter of the (husband’s) wife of the priestly class, or her children, may take it. [199] A woman should not make a great hoard of the family property that belongs to several people, nor even her own valuables, without her husband’s permission. [200] The heirs should not share the jewellery worn by a woman during her husband’s lifetime, for if they share them they will fall.
[201] No share is given to a man who is impotent or fallen, or blind or deaf from birth, or a madman, an idiot, or a mute, or devoid of virile strength. [202] But it is proper for a wise man to give clothing and mouthfuls of food even to all of these, without limit, to the best of his ability, for if he did not give this he would fall. [203] But if the impotent man and the others should somehow desire wives, the children of those of them that produce offspring have a right to an inheritance.
[204] The younger (sons), if they have kept up their education, should have a share in whatever property the eldest (son) acquires when the father has died. [205] But if, not having such education, they all acquire property by a joint effort, there should be an equal division of that property, which does not come from their father; this is an established rule. [206] Property (gained) by education belongs to the one to whom it was given, as does property received from a friend, at marriage, or with the guest’s honey-mixture.
[207] But if one of the brothers is able to live by his own work and does not want (any of) the property, he may give up his own share of the division when he has taken something for his livelihood. [208] And whatever he himself earns by his own effort and hard work without using up the wealth of his father he need not give up unless he wants to. [209] But if a father should take possession of wealth from his own father that he had not possessed (before), he need not share it with his sons unless he wants to, for he has earned it by himself. [210] If (brothers) who have divided live together again and make a new division, the division in that case should be equal; for in that case there is no primogeniture. [211] If the eldest or youngest of them is deprived of his share of the inheritance, or if either of them dies, his share is not lost: [212] his uterine brothers should come together and divide it equally, all together, with his brothers who were reunited and his uterine sisters.
[213] If an eldest brother should through greed act badly towards his younger brothers, he should cease to be the eldest and lose his (special) share, and kings should restrain him. [214] No brothers who persist in bad actions deserve the property, nor should the eldest create private property without giving anything to the youngest. [215] If there should be a joint undertaking by brothers who have not divided, the father should never give an unequal share to any son. [216] (A son)born after the division has been made should get only his father’s property, or if any (sons) join with him he may share with them.
[217] The mother should receive the inheritance of a childless son, and if the mother is also dead the father’s mother should take the property. [218] When everything, debts and property, has been divided in accordance with the rule, whatever may be discovered afterwards should all be distributed equally. [219] They say that a piece of clothing, a carriage, jewellery, cooked food, water, women, the means of security, and a pasture should not be divided.
[220] The division (of inheritance) and the rule for the treatment of sons, in order, beginning with the one born in the husband’s field, have thus been described to you; now learn the law for gambling.
[221] The king should ban gambling and betting from his kingdom, for these two vices put an end to the reign of the kings who possess the land. [222] Since gambling and betting are open robbery, the king should make a constant effort to oppose them. [223] People call it gambling when it is done with objects that do not have the breath of life, but when it is done with creatures that have the breath of life it should be known as betting. [224] The kin
g should physically punish anyone who gambles and bets, or gets others to do so, or servants who wear the distinctive marks of twice-born men. [225] He should quickly expel from the town gamblers, travelling bards, playboys, men who persist in heresy or bad actions, and bootleggers. [226] These concealed thieves living in the king’s kingdom constantly oppress his good subjects by their bad actions. [227] This gambling was seen to be a great maker of enemies in a former age, and so an intelligent man should not indulge in gambling even for a joke. [228] If a man indulges in it openly or secretly, he should be punished in various ways according to the king’s discretion.
[229] If someone born in a ruler, commoner, or servant womb should be unable to pay his fine, he may absolve himself of the debt by labour; a priest should pay little by little. [230] The king should have women, children, madmen, and the old, the poor, and the ill chastised with a whip, a bamboo cane, a rope, and so forth. [231] If people appointed to carry out work ruin the work of those for whom they work, being cooked by the heat of wealth, the king should have their property confiscated. [232] The king should physically punish men who make false proclamations, who corrupt his subjects, who kill women, children, or priests, or who serve his enemies. [233] Whenever something has been settled and someone punished, and he knows it has been done justly, he should not let it be taken up again or annulled. [234] But if his ministers or the interrogating judge should settle a case in the other way, then the king himself should settle it and he should have them fined a thousand (pennies).
[235] A priest-killer, a liquor-drinker, a thief, and a violator of his guru’s marriage-bed – all of these, and each separately, should be known as men who have committed major crimes. [236] He should inflict just punishment, both corporal and financial, on all four of these if they do not perform any restoration. [237] (The brand of) a vagina should be made for violating the guru’s marriage-bed; the flag of a liquor-shop for drinking liquor; a dog’s foot for stealing; and a headless man for priest-killing. [238] These miserable men – whom no one should eat with, no one should sacrifice for, no one should read to, and no one should marry – must wander the earth, excommunicated from all religion. [239] When they have been branded they should be abandoned by their relatives and in-laws and given no compassion or greeting: this is Manu’s instruction. [240] However, when the prior classes have performed the restoration as it is prescribed, they should not be branded on the forehead by the king but they should have to pay the highest fine. [241] A priest should be fined at the middle level for these offences, or he should be exiled from the kingdom with his money and his things. [242] But other (classes) who have committed these evils unintentionally should have their entire property confiscated; if intentionally, they should be banished.
[243] A virtuous king should not take for himself the property of a man who has committed a major crime; for if he takes it out of greed he becomes smeared with that fault. [244] He should throw that fine into the water and offer it to Varuṇa, or give it to a virtuous priest who knows the Veda. [245] Varuṇa is the lord of punishment, for he holds the rod of punishment over kings; a priest who has reached the far shore of the Veda is lord of the whole universe. [246] Wherever the king refrains from taking the property of evil-doers, there people are born at the proper time and live long lives. [247] And the crops spring up separately just as the common people sowed them, and children do not die, nor is anything born deformed.
[248] But if a man born of a lower class intentionally bothers a priest, the king, should punish him physically with various forms of corporal and capital punishment that make men shudder. [249] The injustice of the king is considered just as great when he inflicts corporal or capital punishment on a man who does not deserve it as when he sets free a man who does deserve it; but it is justice when he exercises strong restraint.
[250] The manner of deciding suits between two people in mutual disputation, under the eighteen causes of legal action, has thus been described.
[251] A king who thus properly fulfils his duties to maintain justice should try to take possession of countries that he has not yet possessed and should protect those that he has. [252] When he has thoroughly settled the country and built forts in accordance with the teaching, he should constantly make the utmost effort to pull out the thorns. [253] By protecting those who behave like Aryans and by cleaning out the thorns, kings whose highest concern is the protection of their subjects reach the triple heaven. [254] But if a king collects taxes without punishing thieves, his kingdom will be shaken and he will lose heaven. [255] If his kingdom is secure from danger by virtue of its reliance on a large army, it will constantly thrive like a well-watered tree.
[256] The king whose spies are his eyes should discover the two sorts of thieves, open and concealed, who steal other men’s possessions. [257] The open deceivers are those of them who live by various sorts of shady trading, while the concealed deceivers are burglars, forest bandits, and so forth. [258] People who take bribes, frauds, deceivers, and gamblers; those who live by announcing good luck; smooth operators and fortune-tellers; [259] great ministers and doctors who behave with impropriety; those who make use of their crafts in polite society; clever whores; [260] these and others like them he should recognize as open thorns for the people, as well as the others who work in secret, non-Aryans who assume the distinctive marks of Aryans.
[261] When he has discovered them through well-skilled secret agents who engage in the activities of those people and through spies in many positions, he should incite them (to crime) and bring them under his control. [262] When he has had accurately proclaimed the vices in each of their activities, the king should punish them properly, according to their strength and the offence. [263] For only by punishment can anyone suppress the evil of evil-minded thieves who prowl silently over the earth. [264] Assembly halls, roadside watering places, cake-stalls, whorehouses, places where wine or food is sold, crossroads, sacred trees, crowds, public spectacles, [265] gardens gone to seed, wild places, the houses of artisans, empty buildings, woods, and artificial groves – [266] these are the sorts of places that a king should have watched by troops of soldiers, stationed and on patrol, and by spies, to foil thieves. [267] He should detect them and destroy them by means of clever reformed thieves who associate with them, follow them, and become familiar with their various activities. [268] They should round them up on the pretext of food and other enjoyments, or for audiences with priests, or on pretexts of deeds of heroism. [269] As for those who do not come near there and those who have discovered the plot, the king should attack them and kill them, together with their friends, maternal relatives, and paternal relatives.
[270] A just king should not inflict physical punishment on a thief without the stolen goods, but he may punish him without hesitation if he has the stolen goods and the tools. [271] And he should also inflict physical punishment on all those who give food to thieves in villages or give them a place to stow their tools.
[272] If those who have been appointed to guard the districts, as well as the vassals who have been similarly ordered, remain neutral during attacks, he should swiftly punish them as if they were thieves. [273] And if a man who makes his living by religion should slip from the observance of his duties, the king should burn him with a fine, for he has slipped from his own duty. [274] When a village is being plundered, a dam broken, or a highway robbery committed while people look on, the people who do not hasten to do what they can should be banished with all their possessions.
[275] The king should inflict various forms of physical punishment on those who rob the treasury, persist in opposition to him, or plot with his enemies. [276] But if thieves break in and commit a theft at night, the king should cut off their two hands and have them impaled on a sharp stake. [277] On the first offence of a pickpocket, he should have two of his fingers cut off; on the second, one hand and one foot; and on the third, he should be killed. [278] The lord of the land should physically punish like a thief those who give (thieves) fire, foo
d, or a place to stow their weapons, and those who are accessories to the robbery.
[279] If a man destroys a pond he should be physically punished by drowning or by simple killing; but even if (the criminal) repairs it, he should pay the highest level of fine. [280] He should without hesitation inflict physical punishment on those who break into a storehouse, an arsenal, or a temple, and those who steal elephants, horses, or chariots. [281] If anyone steals water from a pond that was built in former times, or cuts off the supply of water, he should be be fined at the lowest level. [282] If anyone excretes anything impure on the royal highway when he is not in extremity, he should pay two ‘scratch-pennies’ and immediately get someone to clean up the impure substance. [283] But a person in extremity, or an old man or a pregnant woman or a child, should be spoken to and made to clean it up; this is a fixed rule. [284] All doctors who commit malpractice should be fined, at the lowest level for (malpractice on) non-humans and the middle level for humans. [285] A person who destroys a bridge, a flag, a pole, or images and statues should repair the entire thing and pay five hundred (pennies). [286] For adulterating unadulterated substances, or for breaking gems or boring them incorrectly, the fine is at the lowest level. [287] And a man who deals crookedly with straight people or has crooked prices should pay the lowest-level fine or the middle-level.
The Laws of Manu Page 32
