prayaschitta
Prayaschitta is the religious and moral consequence of wrongdoing in classical Hindu law. The Dharmashastras, especially the Yajnavalkya Smriti, devote a separate section to it, alongside achara (conduct) and vyavahara (legal procedure). It prescribed acts such as fasting, gifts, pilgrimage or recitation to purify the offender.
It differs from danda, the punishment imposed by the king through the State. A wrong could attract both: danda for the injury to society and prayaschitta for the spiritual taint. In jurisprudence answers it is used to show that ancient Indian thought separated sin and expiation from secular punishment, and to discuss reformative ideas of punishment.
Example
The Smritis treated prayaschitta as expiation for sin, distinct from the danda imposed by the king for the same offence.
See also
danda · dharmashastra · smriti · theories of punishment
Read more in the study notes
- Law and Lawyers: Parsi Rustomji, truth at the Bar and Gandhi's legal philosophy (English)
- Dharma and the sources of Hindu law (Family Law I - Hindu Law)
- Theories of punishment (Jurisprudence)
- Notion of punishment in law: meaning, history and purpose (Penology and Victimology)
- The problem of punishment: State force against citizens, kinds and theories of punishment (Political Science - State and Political Obligations)
- Rome, the Church and St. Thomas Aquinas (Political Science - Theory and Thoughts)