10. _To exercise no violence against priests, philosophers, persons subjecting themselves to penance, farmers, and women._--When I was in India, a Brahman received a violent blow from a petty officer, on the high road between _Padmanaburam_ and _Tiruvandaram_. The offender was immediately seized; and the king of Travancor, _Rama Varmer_, caused his little finger to be cut off. A _Mucoa_, or fisherman, laid hold of the wife of a _Nayr_, and endeavoured to compel her to submit to his embraces. The woman called out; and the _Mucoa_ being seized was carried before a judge, who, finding the crime proved, sentenced him to lose his right hand. At _Alangàtta_ I saw a _Nayr_, who instructed young persons in writing, and who held the iron style necessary for that purpose in the interior part of the joint of his arm, because the king of Cochin, as a punishment for his offering violence to a woman, had ordered his hand to be chopped off. To touch a woman against her will is allowed to no person, not even the king’s ministers and officers, unless the king expressly commands it. If women are guilty of any thing that deserves punishment, they may be deprived of their liberty, and sold as slaves; but to hang them, or put them to death in any other manner, is contrary to the laws of India. 11. _To with-hold from no workman, artisan, or day-labourer, his due wages._ 12. _Never to enter a temple, or any sacred place, without having first purified one’s self in a river or Kulam (consecrated pond)._--The _Parreas_ or skinners, the _Palleyas_ or slaves, who cultivate the fields under the inspection of the _Vayshyas_, and other people of the like kind, who belong to the lowest classes, dare never enter a temple which is destined for the higher classes. These mean classes are called _Nisher_, and have pagodas of their own. On grand festivals, celebrated by the whole nation, such as that of the goddess _Bagavadi_, they must deposit their offerings before the door of that temple in which the higher orders assemble, and be contented to worship the deity in it at a distance. In general, almost the same divisions, and the same degrees of rank, are found among the Indians, as those which were common among the Jews. These are the chief laws of the Indians. They are contained in a book entitled _Maha Tobassi Dhermaragia Guru_, a copy of which is preserved in the Borgian Museum at Velitri; also in the Peguan text of the book _Kamuva_, preserved in the library of the _Propaganda_, and which is written with black letters on palm leaves gilt. Some of them may be found also in the book _Amarasinha_, in _Manusmrti_, and in _Magala Tara_, the latter of which has been translated from the original _Pali_ by Father Amato, and is now in the possession of Cardinal Borgia. All these laws are of Indian origin, as I have shewn in my _Systema Brahmanicum_[164]. * * * * *