PRĀYAŚCITTA In ancient Bhārata sacred injunctions existed about religious rites to be performed for the atonement of sins committed. The following are a few of them. Murder is that act which ends in loss of life. One who kills a brahmin is a Brahmaghātaka. Even if murder is actually committed by one man, all those involved in a conspiracy for murder are murderers. If death occurs while treating a patient it is no murder. If death occurs when you punish your son, disciple or wife it is no sin. If he who has killed a brahmin or a cow commits suicide he will be absolved from his sin. Or he should go about begging with a skull and the organ of generation of any animal. If he spends twelve years begging eating little and with repentance in his heart the Brahmaghātaka will be absolved of his sin and he will become pure. If the murder is done to serve a purpose of his he should live as a beggar for twelve years but if it is not done to gain any end of his, he need live only for six years as a beggar. If a brahmin attempts to murder another brahmin he should observe the above vow for three years. If the attempt is made by a Kṣatriya he should double the period; if by a Vaiśya or Śūdra, triple the period If a brahmin kills a Kṣatriya he need observe only three fourths of the prāyaścitta. If a brahmin kills a Vaiśya or Śūdra he need observe only an eighth part of the prāyaścitta. If he kills a woman he should observe the punishment fixed for killing a Śūdra. If a brahmin does ‘gohatyā’ (killing a cow) he should practise penance drinking Pañcagavya (five products of the cow taken collectively). He should sleep in a cowshed and go about feeding the cow and should also give away cows as gift. If a gohatyā is committed by a person of any other caste, he need observe only three fourths of the prāyaścitta. Hitting the cows by fists, piercing their body with nails and cutting their horns are to be classified under gohatyā. If one kills a cat mongoose, frog dog, or a bird, one should drink milk for three days. Though wine, date-palm-juice sugar-cane-juice, black-palm-juice, tamarind-juice and toddy are intoxicants they are not classified under alcoholic liquors. Real liquor or surā is that made from rice flour. Drinking liquor is prohibited to Brahmins, Kṣatriyas and Vaiśyas. If any one of these castes drinks he should drink water after performing penance or live eating pippalī (long pepper) for a year or eat oil cake at night for a year. If one drinks water in a pot used for taking liquor one should observe the prāyaścitta for seven days. If he drinks water from a cāṇḍāla he should observe the prāyaścitta for six days. If one eats rice from a cāṇḍāla one should observe Cāndrāyaṇa. (an expiatory penance of decreasing and then increasing food according to the waxing and waning of the moon). If one eats food in the house of a Śūdra during times of distress, one would be absolved of the sin by repentance alone. Taking another man's property and appropriating it to himself is called theft. He who steals gold should be struck on the head by a wooden pestle by the king and killed. Alternatively he should live for twelve years with matted hair, eating one time a day only such things as leaves, fruits and roots and lying on earth. He who steals diamonds, pearls, corals, copper, silver, iron, bronze and granite stones should fast for twelve years. He who enjoys sexual intercourse with his father's wife, own sister, daughter of his preceptor or wife of the preceptor should burn himself in a hot iron pot. Alternatively he should embrace a red hot iron idol of a woman and die.
[Chapters 183 and 184, Agni Purāṇa] .