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Danda

Definition

The graded scheme of punishment set out in the Dharmashastra tradition, whose severity varied with the gravity of the offence and the caste of the offender and victim.

Related terms

Corporal Punishment
Punishment inflicted on the body, such as flogging, branding or mutilation, historically administered in public as a deterrent.
Lex Talionis
The principle of proportionate retaliation, an injury for an equivalent injury, codified in the Code of Hammurabi and the Hebrew Bible.
Panopticon
Jeremy Bentham's 1791 design for an institution built around a central observation tower, letting a single supervisor watch many inmates who cannot...
Penitentiary Movement
The early nineteenth-century reform movement that built prisons designed to induce penitence through labour, isolation and religious instruction rather than corporal pain.
Penology
The branch of criminology concerned with the theory and practice of punishment and imprisonment. It examines the aims of punishment (retribution, deterrence,...

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