The Five Punishments (Chinese: 五刑; pinyin: wǔ xíng; Cantonese Yale: ńgh yìhng) was the collective name for a series of physical penalties meted out by the legal system of pre-modern dynastic China.[1] Over time, the nature of the Five Punishments varied. Before the time of Western Han dynasty Emperor Han Wendi (r. 180–157 BC) they involved tattooing, cutting off the nose, amputation of one or both feet, castration and death.[2][3] Following the Sui and Tang dynasties (581–907 AD) these were changed to penal servitude, banishment, death, or corporal punishment in the form of whipping with bamboo strips or flogging with a stick. Although the Five Punishments were an important part of Dynastic China's penal system they were not the only methods of punishment used.

Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term third is usually understood to mean "other", though some anthropologists and sociologists have described fourth[1] and fifth[2] genders. The state of personally identifying as, or being identified by society as, a man, a woman, or other is usually also defined by the individual's gender identity and gender role in the particular culture in which they live. Most cultures use a gender binary, having two genders (boys/men and girls/women).[3][4][5] In cultures with a third or fourth gender, these genders may represent very different things. To Native Hawaiians and Tahitians, Māhū is an intermediate state between man and woman known as "gender liminality".[6][7] Some traditional Diné Native Americans of the Southwestern US acknowledge a spectrum of four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, and masculine man.[8] The term "third gender" has also been used to describe the hijras of South Asia[9] who have gained legal identity, fa'afafine of Polynesia, and Balkan sworn virgins.[10] A culture recognizing a third gender does not in itself mean that they were valued by that culture, and often is the result of explicit devaluation of women in that culture.[11] While found in a number of non-Western cultures, concepts of "third", "fourth", and "some" gender roles are still somewhat new to mainstream Western culture and conceptual thought.[12] The concept is most likely to be embraced in the modern LGBT or queer subcultures.[citation needed] While mainstream Western scholars—notably anthropologists who have tried to write about the South Asian hijras or the Native American "gender variant" and two-spirit people—have often sought to understand the term "third gender" solely in the language of the modern LGBT community, other scholars—especially Indigenous scholars—stress that mainstream scholars' lack of cultural understanding and context has led to widespread misrepresentation of the people these scholars place in the third gender category, as well as misrepresentations of the cultures in question, including whether or not this concept actually applies to these cultures at all.[13][14][15][16]

A eunuch (/ˈjuːnək/ (listen) YOO-nək)[1] is a male who has been castrated.[2] Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function.[3] The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium BCE.[4][5] Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures: courtiers or equivalent domestics, for espionage or clandestine operations, castrato singers, concubines or sexual partners, religious specialists, soldiers, royal guards, government officials, and guardians of women or harem servants. Eunuchs would usually be servants or slaves who had been castrated to make them less threatening servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence.[6] Seemingly lowly domestic functions—such as making the ruler's bed, bathing him, cutting his hair, carrying him in his litter, or even relaying messages—could, in theory, give a eunuch "the ruler's ear" and impart de facto power on the formally humble but trusted servant. Similar instances are reflected in the humble origins and etymology of many high offices. Eunuchs supposedly did not generally have loyalties to the military, the aristocracy, or a family of their own (having neither offspring nor in-laws, at the very least). They were thus seen as more trustworthy and less interested in establishing a private "dynasty". Because their condition usually lowered their social status, they could also be easily replaced or killed without repercussion. In cultures that had both harems and eunuchs, eunuchs were sometimes used as harem servants.

Chanakya as depicted on the cover of R. Shamasastry's 1915 translation of Arthashastra

 

Chanakya (Sanskrit: चाणक्य; IAST: Cāṇakya, pronunciation (help·info); 375–283 BCE) was an ancient Indian polymath who was active as a teacher, author, strategist, philosopher, economist, jurist, and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kauṭilya or Vishnugupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise, the Arthashastra,[3] a text dated to roughly between the fourth century BCE and the third century CE.[4] As such, he is considered the pioneer of the field of political science and economics in India, and his work is thought of as an important precursor to classical economics.[5][6][7][8] His works were lost near the end of the Gupta Empire in the sixth century CE and not rediscovered until the early 20th century. Around 321 BCE, Chanakya assisted the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta in his rise to power and is widely credited for having played an important role in the establishment of the Maurya Empire. Chanakya served as the chief advisor to both emperors Chandragupta and his son Bindusara.[9]

 

Sanskrit (/ˈsænskrɪt/; attributively संस्कृत-, saṃskṛta-;[15][16] nominally संस्कृतम्, saṃskṛtam, IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm][17][d]) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages.[19][20][21] It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age.[22][23] Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions.[24][25] As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies.[26] Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties.[27][28] The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda, a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from what is today Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India.[29][30] Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax.[31] Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit, a refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars,[e] the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini.[32] The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa, wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit.[f][33] The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit.[34] In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language.[9] The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to the most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer.[35] As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity,[36][37] as a single text without variant readings,[38] its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European.[35] Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around the turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts, and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari.[a][12][13] Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India's Eighth Schedule languages.[39][40] However, despite attempts at revival,[8][41] there are no first language speakers of Sanskrit in India.[8][10][42] In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue,[g] but the numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language.[6][7][8][43] Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule.[44] Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants.

Chanakyaniti (written 4th–3rd century BCE) is a collection of aphorisms written by Chanakya.[1][2] Its first European translation was done in Greek language in the 19th century.[3]