Page 169.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Valmiki and Griffith, Ralph T. H. (Ralph Thomas Hotchkin)
I longed with all my lawless will
Some elephant by night to kill.
One of the regal or military caste was forbidden to kill an elephant except in battle.
Thy hand has made no Bráhman bleed.
“The punishment which the Code of Manu awards to the slayer of a Brahman was to be branded in the forehead with the mark of a headless corpse, and entirely banished from society; this being apparently commutable for a fine. The poem is therefore in accordance with the Code regarding the peculiar guilt of killing Brahmans; but in allowing a hermit who was not a Divija (twice-born) to go to heaven, the poem is far in advance of the Code. The youth in the poem is allowed to read the Veda, and to accumulate merit by his own as well as his father's pious acts; whereas the exclusive Code reserves all such privileges to Divijas invested with the sacred cord.” Mrs. Speir's Life in Ancient India, p. 107.