Previous Year Question
According to Kautilya's Arthashastra, which of the following are correct?
A person could be a slave as a result of a judicial punishment.
If a female slave bore her master a son, she was legally free.
If a son born to a female slave was fathered by her master, the son was entitled to the legal status of the master's son.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
Correct Answer: D
Detailed Solution
Statement 1 is correct. Book III, Chapter 13 of Kautilya's Arthashastra lays down rules concerning slaves and labourers. The original Sanskrit text specifically refers to a “daṇḍa-praṇīta” and provides that such a person could discharge the penalty through labour. A standard older translation explains this category in terms of a person placed in servitude on account of a fine or court decree. Thus, judicial punishment could result in a condition of slavery or penal servitude.
Statement 2 is correct. Arthashastra 3.13.23 states in the original Sanskrit: “svāminaḥ svasyāṃ dāsyāṃ jātaṃ samātṛkam adāsaṃ vidyāt.” It means that when a child is born to a female slave by her master, both the child and its mother are to be regarded as non-slaves, that is, free.
Statement 3 is also correct. Such a child was not retained in the ordinary status of a slave; a son fathered by the master received legal recognition within the master's family on the basis of that paternity. This is what statement expresses as the “legal status of the master's son.” The primary foundation for the free status of the mother and child occurs in Arthashastra 3.13.23.
Another important feature of Kautilya's rules is that slave status was not necessarily irreversible. The same chapter contains provisions for redemption and manumission, punishment for selling or pledging a pregnant female slave without adequate provision, and punishment for reselling a slave after liberation.