Part 41

The general result of the foregoing texts is that several contradictory accounts have been given of the origin of caste, and that these are for the most part unintelligible. Caste is described as a late episode in creation, and as born from different parts of different gods, from the mortal Manu, from abstract principles, and from non-entity. It is also described as coeval with creation, as existing in perfection during the Krita period, and subsequently falling into sin. It is also said that only Brahmans existed at first, the others only at later periods. Then the rationalistic theories of the Santiparvan upset the very foundation of caste, viz. hereditary transmission of the caste character.[10] It seems clear that when the Vedas were composed, many persons who were not Brahmans acted as priests, and saints, the "preceptors of gods," by their "austere fervour," rose from a lower rank to the dignity of Brahmanhood. Originally, indeed, access to the gods by prayer and sacrifice was open to all classes of the community. As the Brahmans grow in political importance, they make religion an exclusive and sacred business. We find them deciding questions of succession to the throne, and enforcing their decisions. While in the earlier literature there are several instances of Brahmans receiving instruction from the hands of Kshatriyas, in the Puranas and Manu death is made to overtake Kshatriyas who are not submissive to the Brahmans; and in one case Visvamitra, the son of Gadhi, actually obtains Brahmanhood as a reward for his submission. It seems certain that many of the ancient myths were expressly manufactured by the Brahmans to show their superiority in birth and in the favour of Heaven to the Kshatriyas--a poetical effect which is sometimes spoiled by their claiming descent from their rivals. This brings us to a consideration of the theories which have been started to account for the appearance of Brahmanic caste, as it is stereotyped in the Laws of Manu. James Mill, who invariably underestimated the influence on history of "previous states of society," suggested that the original division must have been the work of some inspired individual, a legislator or a social reformer, who perceived the advantages which would result from a systematic division of labour. The subordination of castes he accounts for by the superstitious terror and the designing lust of power which have so frequently been invoked to explain the natural supremacy of the religious class. Because the ravages of war were dreaded most after the calamities sent by heaven, he finds that the military class properly occupy the second place. This arrangement he apparently contemplates as at no time either necessary or wholesome, and as finally destroyed by the selfish jealousies of caste, and by the degradations which the multiplication of trades made inevitable. Heeren[11] and Klaproth have contended that the division into castes is founded on an original diversity of race, and that the higher castes are possessed of superior beauty. The clear complexion and regular features of the Brahmans are said to distinguish them as completely from the Sudras as the Spanish Creoles were distinguished from the Peruvians. "The high forehead, stout build, and light copper colour of the Brahmins and other castes allied to them, appear in strong contrast with the somewhat low and wide heads, slight make, and dark bronze of the low castes" (Stevenson, quoted by Max Muller, _Chips_, ii. p. 327).[12] This explanation is, however, generally conjoined with that founded on the tradition of conquest by the higher castes. There is no doubt that the three castes of lighter colour (traivarnika), the white Brahmans, the red Kshatriyas, the yellow Vaisyas, are, at least in the early hymns and Brahmanas, spoken of as the Aryas, the Sanskrit-speaking conquerors, in contradistinction to the dark cloud of the Turanian aborigines Dasyus. In fact arya, which means noble, is derived from arya, which means householder, and was the original name of the largest caste, now called Vaisyas. The great Sanskrit scholar, Rudolf von Roth (1821-1895), in his _Brahma und die Brahmanan_[13] held that the Vedic people advanced from their home in the Punjab, drove the aborigines into the hills, and took possession of the country lying between the Ganges, the Jumna and the Vindhya range. "In this stage of complication and disturbance," he said, "power naturally fell into the hands of those who did not possess any direct authority," i.e. the domestic priests of the numerous tribal kings. The Sudras he regarded as a conquered race, perhaps a branch of the Aryan stock, which immigrated at an earlier period into India, perhaps an autochthonous Indian tribe. The latter hypothesis is opposed to the fact that, while the Sudra is debarred from sharing three important Vedic sacrifices, the Bhagasata Purana expressly permits him to sacrifice "without _mantras_," and imposes on him duties with reference to Brahmans and cows which one would not expect in the case of a nation strange in blood. But unless a previous subordination of castes among the conquering race be supposed, it seems difficult to see why the warrior-class, who having contributed most to the conquest must have been masters of the situation, should have consented to degradation below the class of Brahmans. The position of the Sudra certainly suggests conquest. But are there sound historical reasons for supposing that Brahmans and Sudras belonged to different nations, or that either class was confined to one nation? The hypothesis was held in a somewhat modified form by Meiners,[14] who supposed that instead of one conquest there may have been two successive immigrations,--the first immigrants being subdued by the second, and then forming an intermediate class between their conquerors and the aborigines; or, if there were no aborigines, the mixture of the two immigrant races would form an intermediate class. In the same way Talboys Wheeler[15] suggested that the Sudra may be the original conquerors of the race now represented by the Pariahs. Most of these explanations seem rather to describe the mode in which the existing institutions of caste might be transplanted from one land to another, from a motherland to its colonies, and altered by its new conditions. Military conquest, though it often introduces servitude, does not naturally lead to the elevation of the priesthood. It is unscientific to assume large historical events, or large ethnological facts, or the existence of some creator of social order.[16]

As Benjamin Constant[17] points out, caste rests on the religious idea of an indelible stain resting on certain men, and the social idea of certain functions being committed to certain classes. The idea of physical purity was largely developed under the Mosaic legislation; in fact the internal regulations of the Essenes (who were divided into four classes) resemble the frivolous prohibitions of Brahmanism. As the daily intercourse of men in trade and industry presents numberless occasions on which the stain of real or fancied impurity might be caught, the power of the religious class who define the rules of purity and the penalties of their violation becomes very great. Moreover, the Hindus are deeply religious, and therefore naturally prepared for Purohiti or priest-rule. They were also passionately attached to their national hymns, some of which had led them to victory, while others were associated with the benign influences of nature. Only the priest could chant or teach these hymns, and it was believed that the smallest mistake in pronunciation would draw down the anger of the gods. But however favourable the conditions of spiritual dominion might be, it seems to have been by no more natural process than hard fighting that the Brahmans finally asserted their supremacy. We are told that Parasurama, the great hero of the Brahmans, "cleared the earth thrice seven times of the Kshatriya caste, and filled with their blood the five large lakes of Samauta." Wheeler thinks that the substitution of blood-sacrifices for offerings of parched grain, clarified butter and _soma_ wine marks an adaptation by the Brahmans of the great military banquets to the purposes of political supremacy. It is not, therefore, till the Brahmanic period of Indian history, which ends with the coming of Sakya Muni, in 600 B.C., that we find the caste-definitions of Manu realized as facts. These are--"To Brahmans he (i.e. Brahma) assigned the duties of reading the Vedas, of teaching, of sacrificing, of assisting others to sacrifice, of giving alms if they be rich, and if indigent of receiving gifts."[18] The duties of the Kshatriya are "to defend the people, to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the Veda, to shun the allurements of sensual gratification." The duties of a Vaisya are "to keep herds of cattle, to bestow largesses, to sacrifice, to read the scripture, to carry on trade, to lend at interest, and to cultivate land." These three castes (the twice born) wear the sacred thread. The one duty of a Sudra is "to serve the before-mentioned classes without depreciating their worth."[19] The Brahman is entitled by primogeniture to the whole universe; he may eat no flesh but that of victims; he has his peculiar clothes. He is bound to help military and commercial men in distress. He may seize the goods of a Sudra, and whatever the latter acquires by labour or succession beyond a certain amount. The Sudra is to serve the twice born; and even when emancipated cannot be anything but a Sudra. He may not learn the Vedas, and in sacrifice he must omit the sacred texts. A Sudra in distress may turn to a handicraft; and in the same circumstances a Vaisya may stoop to service. Whatever crime a Brahman might commit, his person and property were not to be injured; but whoever struck a Brahman with a blade of grass would become an inferior quadruped during twenty-one transmigrations. In the state the Brahman was above all the ministers; he was the raja's priest, exempt from taxation, the performer of public sacrifices, the expounder of Manu, and at one time the physician of bodies as well as of souls. He is more liable than less holy persons to pollution, and his ablutions are therefore more frequent. A Kshatriya who slandered a Brahman was to be fined 100 panas (a copper weight of 200 grains); a Vaisya was fined 200 panas; a Sudra was to be whipped. A Brahman slandering any of the lower castes pays 50, 25 or 12 panas. In ordinary salutations a Brahman is asked whether his devotion has prospered; a Kshatriya, whether he has suffered from his wounds; a Vaisya whether his health is secure; a Sudra whether he is in good health.[20] In administering oaths a Brahman is asked to swear by his veracity; a Kshatriya by his weapons, house or elephant; a Vaisya by his kine, grain or goods; a Sudra by all the most frightful penalties of perjury. The Hindu mind is fertile in oaths; before the caste assembly the Dhurm, or caste custom, is sometimes appealed to, or the feet of Brahma, or some cow or god or sacred river, or the bel (the sacred creeper), or the roots of the turmeric plant. The castes are also distinguished by their modes of marriage. Those peculiar to Brahmans seem to be--1st, Brahma, when a daughter, clothed only with a single robe, is given to a man learned in the Veda whom her father has voluntarily invited and respectfully receives; 2nd, Devas or Daiva, when a daughter, in gay attire is given, when the sacrifice is already begun, to the officiating priest. The primitive marriage forms of Rashasas or Rachasa, when a maiden is seized by force from home, while she weeps and calls for help, is said to be appropriate to Kshatriyas. To the two lower castes the ceremony of Asura is open, in which the bridegroom, having given as much wealth as he can afford to the father and paternal kinsman and to the damsel herself, takes her voluntarily as his bride. A Kshatriya woman on her marriage with a Brahman must hold an arrow in her hand; a Vaisya woman marrying one of the sacerdotal or military classes must hold a whip; a Sudra woman marrying one of the upper castes must hold the skirt of a mantle.

How little the system described by Manu applies to the existing castes of India may be seen in these facts--(1) that there is no artisan caste mentioned by Manu; (2) that eating with another caste, or eating food prepared by another caste, is not said by him to involve loss of caste, though these are now among the most frequent sources of degradation. The system must have been profoundly modified by the teaching of Buddha: "As the four rivers which fall into the Ganges lose their names as soon as they mingle their waters with the holy river, so all who believe in Buddha cease to be Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras." After Buddha, Sudra dynasties ruled in many parts of India, and under the Mogul dynasty the Cayets, a race of Sudras, had almost a monopoly of public offices. But Buddha did not wish to abolish caste. Thus it is related that a Brahman Pundit who had embraced the doctrines of Buddha nevertheless found it necessary, when his king touched him, to wash from head to foot.[21] Alexander the Great found no castes in the Punjab, but Megasthenes had left an account of the ryots and tradesmen, the military order and the gymnosophists (including the Buddhist Germanes) whom he found in the country of the Ganges.[22] From his use of the word gymnosophist it is probable that Megasthenes confounded the Brahmans with the hermits or fakirs; and this explains his statement that any Hindu might become a Brahman. Megasthenes spent some time at the court of Sandracottus (Chandragupta Maurya), a contemporary of Seleucus Nicator. All the later Greeks[23] follow his statement and concur in enumerating seven Indian castes--sophists, agriculturists, herdsmen, artisans, warriors, inspectors, councillors. On the revival of Brahmanism it was found that the second and third castes had disappeared, and that the field was now occupied by the Brahmans, the Sudras, and a host of mixed castes, sprung from the original twelve, Unulum and Prutilum, left-hand and right-hand, which were formed by the crossing of the four original castes. Manu himself gives a list of these impure castes, and the Ain-i-Akbari (1556-1605) makes the positive statement that there were then 500 tribes bearing the name of Kshatriya, while the real caste no longer existed. Most of these subdivisions are really trade-organizations, many of them living in village-communities, which trace descent from a pure caste. Thus in Bengal there are the Vaidya or Baidya, the physicians, who, Manu says, originated in the marriage of a Brahman father and a Vaisya mother.

As Colebrooke said, Brahmans and Sudras enter into all trades, but Brahmans (who are profoundly ignorant even of their own scriptures) have succeeded in maintaining their monopoly of Vedic learning, which really means a superficial acquaintance with the Puranas and Manu. Though they have succeeded in excluding others from sacred employment, only a portion of the caste are actually engaged in religious ceremonies, in sacred study, or even in religious begging. Many are privates in the army, many water-carriers, many domestic servants. And they have, like other castes, many subdivisions which prevent intimate association and intermarriage. The ideal Brahman is gone: the priest "with his hair and beard clipped, his passions subdued, his mantle white, his body pure, golden rings in his ear." But the hold which caste has on the Hindu minds may, perhaps, be most clearly seen in the history of the Christian missions and in comparatively recent times. The Jesuits Xavier and Fra dei Nobili did everything but become Brahmans in order to convert the south of India--they put on a dress of cavy or yellow colour, they made frequent ablutions, they lived on vegetables and milk, they put on their foreheads the sandalwood paste used by the Brahmans--and Gregory XV. published a bull sanctioning caste regulations in the Christian churches of India. The Danish mission of Tranquebar, the German mission of the heroic Schwarz, whose headquarters were Tanjore, also permitted caste to be retained by their followers. Even the priests of Buddha, whose life was a protest against caste, re-erected the system in the island of Ceylon, where the _radis_ or _radias_ were reduced to much the same state as the Pariahs.[24] Protestant missions have made but little progress, even in recent years. The number of native converts to Christianity rose from 1,246,000 in 1872 to 2,664,000 in 1901; these figures, however, are by themselves rather misleading, for Christianity appears to have touched the higher classes in India not at all, only the out-castes.

It is still the general law that to constitute a good marriage the

## parties must belong to the same caste, but to unconnected families.

Undoubtedly, however, the three higher castes were always permitted to intermarry with the caste next below their own, the issue taking the lower caste or sometimes forming a new class. A Sudra need not marry a wife of the same caste or sect as himself. In 1871 it was decided by the judicial committee of the privy council that a marriage between a zemindar (land-owner) of the Malavar class, a subdivision of the Sudra caste, with a woman of the Vellala class of Sudras is lawful. Generally also a woman may not marry beneath her own caste. The feeling is not so strong against a man marrying even in the lowest caste, for Manu permits the son of a Brahman and a Sudra mother to raise his family to the highest caste in the seventh generation. The illegitimacy resulting from an invalid marriage does not render incapable of caste; at least it does not so disqualify the lawful children of the bastard. On a forfeiture of caste by either spouse intercourse ceases between the spouses: if the out-caste be a sonless woman, she is accounted dead, and funeral rites are performed for her; if she have a son, he is bound to maintain her. It is remarkable that the professional concubinage of the dancing-girl does not involve degradation, if it be with a person of the same caste. This suggests that whatever may be the function of caste, it is not a safe guardian of public morality. The rules as to prohibited degrees in marriage used to be very strict, but they are now relaxed. An act of 1856 legalized remarriage by widows in all the castes, with a conditional forfeiture of the deceased husband's estate, unless the husband has expressly sanctioned the second marriage. The later Indian Marriage Act was directed against the iniquitous child marriages; it requires a _minimum_ age. In many ways the theoretical inferiority of the Sudra absolves him from the restraints which the letter of the law lays on the higher castes. Thus a Sudra may adopt a daughter's or sister's son, though this is contrary to the general rule that the adopter should be able to marry the mother of the adopted person. The rule requiring the person adopted to be of the same caste and _gotra_ or family as the adopter is also dispensed with in the case of Sudras. In fact, it is only a married person whom a Sudra may not adopt. As regards inheritance the Sudra does not come off so well in competition with the other castes. "The sons of a Brahamana in the several tribes have four shares or three or two or one; the children of a Kshatriya have three portions or two or one; and those of a Vaisya take two parts or one." This refers to the case permitted by law, and not unknown in practice, of a Brahman having four wives of different castes, a Kshatriya three, and so on. But all sons of inferior caste are excluded from property coming by gift to the father; and a Sudra son is also excluded from land acquired by purchase. It must be recollected, however, that under an act of 1850, _loss_ of caste no longer affects the capacity to inherit or to be adopted. In cases of succession _ab intestato_ on failure of the preceptor, pupil, and fellow-student (heirs called by the Hindu law after relatives), a priest, or any Brahman, many succeed. Where a Sudra is the only son of a Brahman, the Sapinda, or next of kin, would take two-thirds of the inheritance; where he is the only son of any other twice-born father, the Sapinda would take one-half. Possibly, the rule of equal division among sons of equal caste did not at first apply to Brahmans, who, as the eldest sons of God, would perhaps observe the custom of primogeniture among themselves. On the other hand it was laid down in the judicial committee in 1869, contrary to the collected opinions of the Pundits of the Sudder court, that, in default of lawful children, the illegitimate children of the Sudra caste inherit their putative father's estate, and, even if there be lawful children, are entitled to maintenance out of the estate. It had previously been decided by Sir Edward Ryan in 1857 that the illegitimate children of a Rajput, or of any other member of a superior caste, have no right of inheritance even under will, but a mere right to maintenance, provided the children are docile. It seems then that the Kshatriya and Vaisya castes, though in one sense non-existent, still control Hindu succession.

With regard to Persia the _Zend Avesta_ speaks of a fourfold division of the ancient inhabitants of Iran into priests, warriors, agriculturists and artificers; and also of a sevenfold division corresponding to the seven amschespands, or servants of Ormuzd. This was no invention of Zoroaster, but a tradition from the golden age of Jemshid or Diemschid. The priestly caste of Magi was divided into Herbeds or disciples, Mobeds or masters, and Destur Mobeds or complete masters. The last-named were alone entitled to read the liturgies of Ormuzd; they alone predicted the future and carried the sacred _costi_, or girdle, _havan_, or cup, and _barsom_, or bunch of twigs. The Zend word _baresma_ is supposed to be connected with Brahma, or sacred element, of which the symbol was a bunch of kusa grass, generally called veda. The Persian and Hindu religions are further connected by the ceremony called Homa in the one and Soma in the other. Haug, in his _Tract on the Origin of Brahmanism_ (quoted by Muir, _ubi supra_), maintains that the division in the _Zend Avesta_ of the followers of Ahura Mazda into Atharvas, Rathaesvas, and Vastrya was precisely equivalent to the three superior Indian castes. He also asserts that only the sons of priests (Atharvas) could become priests, a rule still in force among the Parsis. The Book of Daniel rather suggests that the Magi were an elective body; and as regards the secular classes there does not seem to be a trace of hereditary employment or religious subordination. There is a legend in the Dabistan of a great conqueror, Mahabad, who divided the Abyssinians into the usual four castes; and Strabo mentions a similar classification of the Iberians into kings, priests, soldiers, husbandmen and menials.

At one time it was the universal opinion that in Egypt there were at least two great castes, priests and warriors, the functions of which were transmitted from father to son, the minor professions grouped under the great castes being also subject to hereditary transmission. This opinion was held by Otfried Muller,[25] Meiners of Gottingen, and others. Doubts were first suggested by Rossellini, and after Champollion had deciphered the hieroglyphic inscriptions, J.J. Ampere[26] boldly announced that there were in Egypt no castes strictly so called; that in

## particular the professions of priest, soldier, judge, &c., were not