Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47: Social Organisation
Indische Paläographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47
- Language
- German
Contents
- c47.s1 A. Historical — 15 parts
- c47.s2 B. Descriptive — 7 parts
Social Organisation
A. Historical
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§ 13. **Tribe.** — In the outline given in the Introduction it was shown that throughout the greater part of continental India, the region most influenced by foreign blood, distinctions of race have been practically effaced by centuries of cross-breeding. It is to be noted, however, that wherever a race can still be geographically demarcated from its hybrid neighbours the ethnic constitution tends to be tribal, consisting, that is, of groups with a common name, the tradition of kinship or descent from a common ancestor, human, demi-god or wild animal, as the case may be, and claiming or occupying a definite territory. The system on which the tribe is organised varies considerably according to the race and the conditions under which it lives. That most intimately connected with India proper is found amongst the Kōl-Dravidians of the Central Belt. Here, the tribe is subdivided into numerous exogamous sections, each bearing the name of a plant or animal of the locality, and marrying almost invariably within the tribe itself, or, at most, not beyond an adjacent and probably kindred community of similar organisation and form of religious and domestic ceremonial. The Mongoloid tribes of Assam and the eastern frontier are also divided into sections professing blood-relationship, and therefore not marrying within the section, but trusting to their fellow-tribesmen of other divisions to provide them with brides, either by arrangement or capture. On the opposite frontier, the tribal constitution of the Paṭhān and Balūch races is of a markedly different type. The Balūch tribe is bound together by political rather than ethnic ties, owning allegiance, that is, to a common Chieftain; but amongst the clans which go to form this unit, there is found very often, if not usually, the tradition of blood-kinship, surrounded by a fringe of strangers who have affiliated themselves to the community for the purpose of mutual defence, and who, after a term of probation, are admitted to full tribesmanship. The subdivisions of these clans are exogamous, and there is a tendency, but nothing stronger, towards endogamy within the tribe. Amongst the Paṭhāns the tribe is more closely knit, and the bond is kinship in the male line. As amongst the Balūch, however, strangers are admitted to qualified membership, tending, in time, to be treated, by fiction, as kinship. There is not the element of allegiance to a common Chief, though in many cases such dignitaries do exist and are regarded as warlords and representatives of the tribe in dealing with the outer world. But the internal management of tribal affairs is vested in a tribal Council, composed of the Heads of clans or other subdivisions of the main body. Marriage takes place, as a rule, within the race, and in practice is regulated by Muslim, not tribal, prescriptions regarding affinity. The influence of these races, especially of the Paṭhān, upon the whole population of the western Panjāb, has had the result of substantially modifying the social structure, elevating the tribal, or blood connection, enlarging the marriage field, and generally promoting the adoption of the freer life of the Highlands in preference to the stricter and more elaborate system which prevails throughout Brāhmanic India.
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§ 14. **Caste.** It is with the latter, however, that this review is mainly concerned, and the only object of the above remarks is to differentiate the organisation of, so to speak, the pure races of India from that of the great mass of the population. Amid the bewildering variety of the complicated civilisation of this last the one and only characteristic which can be said to be universal is the sentiment which underlies the scheme of life upon which the whole of the social edifice is based and its component parts are respectively distinguished and coordinated. This sentiment, moreover, may be said to be the very spinal cord of the main religion of the country, supplying the vitality and support which neither doctrine nor ritual are sufficiently coherent to provide. By its means, Brāhmanism has become, as has been said by a competent observer, “a way of life, “interwoven into the whole of existence and society; placing every natural habit and duty upon a religious basis so entirely that it is impossible “for a Brāhmanist to draw a distinction between sacred and profane. A “man’s religion means his customary rule of every-day life. His whole “social identity belongs to his religion”. (Lyall, Asiatic Studies.) This omnipresence of the religious sanction and the rigidity which it imparts to diversity elsewhere susceptible of diminution or effacement is not only the most prominent feature of the social organisation of India, but is also peculiar to the latter, marking it out as distinct from any other civilisation in the world. In other respects, there is little in the system which is not to be found, or which has not at some time or other existed, in other countries, even of the West, though it has there been long ago worn away by other influences. The crystallisation of certain bodies into definite orders or classes, for instance, is a common, almost a universal, trait, and amongst them the tendency to become hereditary and as exclusive or aspiring as circumstances allow may almost be called natural. A superior and conquering race, again, has been known elsewhere to settle for generations alongside of a population in every way inferior to it, compelling the latter into servile conditions and drawing upon it for wives and concubines without making any return in kind. Sacerdotalism, too, has had its day of supremacy elsewhere than in India. Restrictions in regard to the choice of a wife and upon participation in meals of a commemorative or other ritualistic significance, are, of course, common property. But in no other case has the position of a sacerdotal class been so firmly established nor has its influence so deeply permeated the whole of a vast community, as to enable it to prescribe, under the sanction of religion, a code of elaborate prescriptions on domestic and personal conduct which is accepted by all as the ideal, according to the relative conformity with which the rank of every group of the society, from top to bottom, is unalterably settled. A system of this description, which, practically unchanged in its main principles, has for many centuries regulated the lives of millions; which is absorbing every generation more and more of the tribal population of a lower type brought into contact with it, and which has not only successfully resisted, but has even been to a great extent assimilated by so dogmatic and uncompromising a rival as Islām, must obviously have its roots very deep indeed in the proclivities and traditions of the multitudes living under it.
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Whether it be indigenous to India, or whether it existed in an embryonic form amongst the Āryas before their great dispersal, is a question which has been the subject of wide and erudite discussion. Probably it is insoluble, most theories of primitive society being apt, according to Sir Henry Maine, to land the adventurer in a region of mud-banks and fog. This, remarks the author of the last Census report (1901, p. 546), "is more especially the case in India, where the palaeological *data* available "in Europe hardly exist at all, while the historical value of the literary "evidence is impaired by the uncertainty of its dates, by the sacerdotal "predilections of its authors, by their passion for wire-drawn distinctions "and symmetrical classifications, and by their manifest inability to draw "any clear line between fact and fancy, between things as they are and "things as they might be, or as a Brāhman would desire them to be".
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§ 15. The social divisions which form the units of the system in question are known in the West by the name of Castes, which was given them by the early Portuguese travellers. It is said to be derived from the Latin word *casta*, pure or unmixed, in itself connoting segregation, and was applied by Camoens, for instance, in the sense of tribe or even race, to the Pulayan or helots, in contradistinction to the Nāyar, their conquerors. It needs but a very short time in the country to bring home to the most casual observer the ubiquity of the institution, and to make him acquainted with some of its principal exoteric features. He might possibly feel himself in a position to define it, an enterprise from which after longer experience he would shrink, as the more caste is studied, the more numerous are the qualifications found to be advisable in describing it. It is necessary, however, for the purposes of this review, to set forth in terms as definite as the case allows the leading features of the community which forms the main subject of this work. Of the many definitions which have been given by various authors, the most satisfactory, on the whole, is that adopted by Mr Gait, the joint author of the last (1901) Census Report, in dealing with the castes of the Province of Bengal, "A caste", he says (p. 354), "is an endogamous group or a collection of "endogamous groups, bearing a common name, the members of which "by reason of similarity of traditional occupation and reputed origin are "generally regarded ..... as forming a single homogeneous community, "the constituent parts of which are more nearly related to each other "than they are to any other section of the society". From this it appears, then, that the members of a caste may only marry within its limits; but nearly every caste is made up of sections upon whom the same restriction is imposed with reference to their limits, the title of the subdivision being added to that of the main aggregate. The occupation, again, which is common to the latter, is a traditional one, and is not by any means necessarily that by which all, or even most, of the group make their living in the present day. On the other hand, the common origin, which is now claimed by most, is largely a matter of fiction, accepted, however, without cavil. The factor of public opinion, too, is of some importance in the definition, since the view taken by an aspiring section of a caste of its relationship to the main body is apt to differ from that accorded to it by the other castes amongst whom its lot is thrown, whilst the acquaintance of the upper classes with the organisation of those below them, and their interest in it are of the slightest, until perhaps an encroachment comes within measurable reach of their own position. It sometimes happens, therefore, that a subdivision by retaining its own title but substituting a fresh one for that of its main caste, obtains a jumping-ground for a new start in society, which may impose upon the outer world but not upon the immediate surroundings. Reverting, for a moment to the definition, it may be noted that while endogamy is the chief characteristic of the organisation, an exception is found in the case of the Rājput, or military caste, which is based upon exogamous clans or tribes. These have in many cases fixed their own circle of intermarriage within the caste on considerations other than those current amongst the rest of the Brāhmanic community. There are apparently ethnic reasons for this peculiarity, to which reference will be found below.
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§ 16. The caste system being an institution essentially and exclusively Indian, the question arises whether its origin is to be sought amongst the Āryan immigrants or to be ascribed to those whom they found in possession of the field. Or, again, assuming that it is the resultant of the contact of the two social systems, what is the influence respectively attributable to each? The view now very generally held is that it is the product of no single cause, but that to its establishment in the form in which it now prevails, several factors, Āryan, pre-Āryan and hybrid, have at different times contributed. Of these by far the most prominent is the hieratic influence by which the main principles of the system were fixed and the standard set by which social position is graduated. That influence derives its authority entirely from the Vedic tradition, so it becomes necessary to see what information is obtainable from that source regarding the social organisation of the community amongst whom it originated. As in regard to all else concerning the earlier life of that community, reference must here be restricted to the Sūktas of the Ṛksaṁhitā. These compositions must of course be defective in some respects, and from their character and the occasions they were intended to serve they cannot be expected to furnish a complete and detailed picture of the organisation of the body to which they relate. Nevertheless, the general conditions of life among those peoples were simple, and the relations between those who offered the sacrifice and the divine power whose good offices were solicited through it were so intimate and practical, that from the large collection of effusions handed down to posterity a very fair general notion can be formed of the leading facts relevant to the subject under consideration.
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§ 17. It appears, then, that at the comparatively advanced stage of progress which the Vedic Āryas had attained by the time represented in even the earliest invocations of the collection, the community was organised into clans, or groups of related families which, in turn, were collected into tribes, to which the clan was subordinate. Various other terms are met with implying subdivision of either tribe or clan. They all refer to a pastoral life and indicate a by no means high degree of cohesion.
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Alongside of these sections were two classes or orders, evidently of later development: the nobles, headed by a Chieftain, and the ministers of religion, who conducted the public sacrifices. The mass of the community below these orders is collectively referred to as the "clans", or "peoples", always in the plural. The Family, as a unit, was strongly developed. Its worship was purely individual, strictly secluded from that of its neighbour, and conducted in private by the Paterfamilias conjointly with his wife. The tribal sacrifices were open to the "clans", and were conducted, at least in the stage to which the Sūktas relate, in the presence of the Chief of the tribe, by a priest acting on his behalf. It seems probable that the ritual had by then reached a pitch of complication which necessitated the employment of trained professionals, but the performance of this act of faith was not otherwise the exclusive privilege of the sacerdotal class, for occasionally scions of ruling families officiated, and there are cases in which the right of the priest was disputed by others. It is obvious, however, that the duties fell more and more into the hands of trained experts, irrespective of the personal separatism which tends to attach itself to a sacrificial priesthood, as the ceremonial became more elaborate, and still more, after the invocations which accompanied it had ceased to be improvised and the compositions of the older Psalmists were recited in a regular liturgy. The experts closed their ranks against the layman, and became a class by themselves, whether they maintained their numbers by heredity or recruitment. It may reasonably be assumed, too, that the order of nobles, especially in the case of tribal chieftains, would gradually tend towards a hereditary character, though the frequency of intertribal strife and the migratory life of the communities militated against the consolidation of political authority in such hands.
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§ 18. So far, it may be observed, there is nothing in the above more or less hypothetical social organisation of this branch of the people conventionally called Āryan which materially differs from what is known to have prevailed amongst the others branches of whom the early history is on record. It was after the Vedic tribes had debouched upon the plains of north-western India that their social system assumed its unique and special features. Here, two new factors awaited them, each being insufficient by itself to determine the future course of their civilisation, though the combination of the two led to that result. The immigrants came into contact, in the first place, with a race far below them in physical and social characteristics; and they found themselves, in the second, in the presence of a vast and fertile expanse of country over which the inferiority of their opponents allowed them to spread freely. Whatever may have been the difficulties in dealing with the Dasyus which were at first experienced by the Āryas, the superiority of the latter ultimately asserted itself in an incontestable manner, and those who resisted them were either reduced to subjection on their native soil, or rolled back before the advance of the new-comers. That the Āryas failed to take advantage of their opportunities to establish themselves upon a national basis appears to be ascribable to the fact that, except in race, they were any thing but a homogeneous body.
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Tribe was constantly at war with tribe, and in their slow onward progress there had been no signs of combined general effort. It is true that after they had been some time in the plains larger aggregates were occasionally formed by military Chiefs, but they were unstable and perpetually being dispersed and re-formed in the vicissitudes of tribal contests. The stable element, then, in the colonisation, was not supplied by the Court and its army, but by the village. This community seems to have been an institution of very early date amongst the Vedic tribes, and was established upon a clan, or even a family, basis, cemented by the possession of a definite tract of pasture or arable land. The opportunity for forming detached and independent settlements of this kind was favourable. Land was plentiful, and whilst the supply of menial labour was provided by the Dasyus retained in subjection upon the soil of which they had been dispossessed, the danger of reprisal by the rest was removed as the more adventurous bodies of the Āryas extended their frontier further and further into the interior. The necessity of combination for mutual defence against the alien waned therefore into insignificance.
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The tie of tribe, never very strong or well defined, would naturally be subordinated to that of territorial ownership, especially if the smaller unit were founded on blood-relationship and settled communal interests, and there was no common end which made an urgent appeal for collective action. In these circumstances, the dispersal of the original Vedic communities far and wide under new and more prosperous economic conditions tended towards the development of a parochial separatism, which possibly the presence of large bodies of alien helots may have helped to divert from wider political conceptions. The village community being left, on this hypothesis, to itself, organised its members on lines suggested by its requirements, which multiplied, of course, in proportion to the increased resources afforded by a settled life. At the head of the social scale stood, as now, the possessor of land and beeves; at the foot, the stunted and swarthy alien. Between these extremes room had to be found for the increasing number of handicraftsmen, as well as for the hybrid progeny of the Ārya by Dasyu women. What with the absorbing interests of this bucolic microcosm, and the absence of any specially powerful motive for political combination into larger units, the gap between the masses and the military dominant class tended to widen, and the fortunes of the ruling houses became a matter of comparatively little importance to the village. There remained, however, the tie of race.
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Whatever may have been the strength of this in pre-Vedic times, it became very prominent, as has been stated in the Introduction, when the Āryas came into collision with the Dasyus. The one term used collectively of the whole of the former community is the "colour" of the Ārya as contrasted with that of their foes. In the invocations, until, that is, a period is reached when bodies of other and non-Vedic Āryas appeared upon the scene, this characteristic is made practically equivalent to worship. The worship, in turn, was that of the Family, originally expanded on special occasions to the sacrifice offered under the auspices of the Chieftain for his tribe. The latter ceremony may easily have waned without affecting the essential daily rites of the household, to which, indeed, the dispersal of the tribe and the constant presence of the Dasyu helots at the gate might be assumed to lend additional value. Nor, again, would the expansion and re-formations of the Āryan community tend to diminish the influence of the professional, or Brāhmanic, ministry. This had probably grown into a closed body before the dispersal, but it was attached in the first instance to the person of the Chieftain, and obviously could not be otherwise than dependent upon those on whose behalf the priestly offices were undertaken. The Brāhman, then, was bound to follow the fortunes of the rest of the community, and scatter as they did.
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They, in turn, could not well dispense with the services he alone was competent to render. The language of the invocations had become obsolete, but texts from them were an essential part of every ceremony, and had passed, it would seem, into the stage of spells, potent only in the mouths of those who had professionally learnt them, a class which had taken care to prevent others from participating in that advantage. The value of this qualification increased, naturally, as the various bodies of those who placed their faith in it receded further from their traditional race-unity. There were other conditions, too, favourable to the growth of sacerdotal influence, and to the transfer of the attention of the hieratic order from the fluctuating fortunes of the military aristocracy, (by whom, moreover, its exclusive and privileged character was by no means uncontested,) to the more amenable medium of the incoherent democracy of the village, where the circumstances were evidently open to organisation.
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A good foothold was provided in the high value placed upon the purity of the family blood, the maintenance of which was the predominant object of the Vedic social system, as it seems to have been that of other Āryan communities in their early days. The ideals and practice of the upper classes in regard to such a question constitute the hall-mark, as it were, of gentility — in the older sense of that term. Their natural tendency, accordingly, is to filter downwards through the society, each section adopting, as it attains a secured position, some measure of precaution against degradation through admixture with bodies which it considers its inferiors. Whether this sentiment of exclusiveness hardens into separatism or is merged in wider conceptions depends upon the circumstances in which the community happens to find itself during the early period of its settled existence. Pressure from outside may necessitate a political organisation which reacts upon the domestic structure, or the struggle for life within the community itself may tend towards a more comprehensive grouping. In the advance of the Āryas into India neither of these motives seems to have been predominant. The way was open, therefore, for the confluence of the two peaceful currents which had throughout all vicissitudes preserved their continuity — the sentiment of family purity and the hieratic administration of the ancestral worship.
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In regard to the former, the foundations of a closed order based on heredity had been laid, as mentioned above, amongst the priests and the nobles, at a very early period, and the bias in favour of such distinctions amongst the "clans" was necessarily accentuated by the contiguity of the dark races, on the one side, and the evolution within their own community of occupations unrecognised, because unknown, in Vedic tradition. Manual industries, it should be borne in mind, were invariably depreciated by the Ārya of the west, where they were relegated to the servile population; and in India, whether they were carried on by the Dasyu, the half-breeds, or the poorer members of the Clan, they could not fail to bring into prominence the possibility of contamination or abasement of position, either on racial grounds or by reason of the inherent or conventional impurity of the calling. In these circumstances, the idea which seems to have been adopted to prevent the flowing tide of impurity from submerging the cherished landmarks of pride of family and of race, was to establish an alliance between conventional purity of race or calling with the ancestral religion of which the Brāhman was the sole exponent. The situation could be stereotyped by the establishment of the distribution of society upon divine ordinance. It is true that as is now generally admitted, Caste, still less the Caste-system — which is the subject now in hand — did not exist amongst the Āryas of the Sūkta period.
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The materials for it, however, had been provided by their descendants, and it only remained for the Brāhmans, who were now in a position of power in the interior, to set their seal upon what they found ready to hand. The Puruṣa-Sūkta of the Ṛgveda, decreed by modern scholars to be the product of the latest Vedic period, verging upon that of the early Brāhmanic supremacy, is the Magna Charta of the caste system. In this composition, a divine origin is ascribed to four classes, the social position of each of which is thus irrevocably fixed. The two first are the Vedic orders above mentioned. Then comes a third, the title of which is derived from the Vedic term for the "clans" in the aggregate, whilst a place of degradation is made for the lower orders generally, in which, apparently, though the point is not certain, is merged the Dasyu community. Into this strictly demarcated classification were compressed all the numerous sections of the population existing at the time when the Brāhman Procrustes undertook its application to the facts of everyday life. In such an arrangement it is obvious that the leading place in the social hierarchy would be assigned to the Brāhman, and that any encroachment upon that supremacy would be amply provided against by the establishment of the principle of heredity in determining rank.
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Endogamy is here implied, as it is essential to the preservation of the family or caste purity that the mother of the heir should not be the medium by which any taint can be introduced into the blood. The principle underlying the scheme of organisation seems to have received universal recognition, possibly because the standard of purity in regard to function had already been fixed by public opinion, whilst that applied to social intercourse, being bound up to a great extent with religious ceremonial, would be graduated in accordance with the example set by the class which prescribed or regulated that branch of caste duty. It seems doubtful, indeed, whether the two lower classes of the Brāhmanic scheme ever had more than a literary existence, and were not a convenient expedient for severing the masses from the privileged classes. As a further security against a rivalry which in after times, perhaps through Buddhism, became troublesome, the Brāhmans, in due course, proclaimed the Kṣatriya order also to be extinct.
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§ 19. Assuming the above hypothesis to be well founded, it is clear that whilst the system upon which Indian society is organised is due to the influence of a hereditary priesthood, which acquired thereby a position of unparalleled supremacy, there is no need to "smell Jesuitry" in the history of its genesis, and to brand it as nothing more than the full-blown device of subtle and self-regarding Brāhmanism. It appears, in fact, that the sacerdotal element in its elaboration was met at least half-way by the inclinations of the lay public, as evinced by the form their civilisation had begun to assume. The sacrosanct position of the Brāhman being once established as the pivot of the system, the development of the latter proceeded on the lines indicated by the code of purity adopted by the priestly order. Recognition of the inherent sacredness and spiritual authority of the Brāhman became essential, and even the great sectarian movements in derogation of the exclusive privileges of the sacerdotal class left caste untouched, and ended, accordingly, in the actual, if not nominal, acceptance of that condition as the inevitable apex of the system they
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retained. Doctrinal orthodoxy, indeed, could not have had much weight in the social balance after the pantheon had been enlarged to admit the claims of popular local deities, and the non-Āryan beliefs and ritual had been adapted to the flexible requirements of the Brāhmans. Schism on religious grounds occurred, no doubt, in the earlier times, as it has continued to do, and fresh subdivisions were formed in consequence, but these involved no change in caste or social position unless they happened to entail the violation of prescriptions relating to the purity of the family or the individual. These prescriptions are the operative part of the system, regulating as they do, marriage, food, occupation, and intercourse with the rest of the community. They are thus of a quasi-public character and the breach of any of them brings the stigma of pollution not only upon the individual but upon the family and the castefellows who come into contact with the offender. They are, moreover, comparatively easy of detection, and are thus well within reach of the discipline of the caste tribunal, a consideration of some moment amongst the masses, with whom detail looms higher than in classes where tradition is stronger and position more assured.
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Other factors contributed, of course, to the consolidation of the system; and amongst them have been included the devout belief in the omnipresence of supernatural agency, permeating all classes from top to bottom, and predisposing them to submission to priestly authority. There is, again, the doctrine of metempsychosis, which, regarding the present as the direct heir of the past, lends valuable support to the notion of predestined lot in the successive births into this world to which all are subject. The apathetic character of the people, also, is taken into account, and the marked absence amongst them of the "noble discontent" with their circumstances which spurs men on to efforts to improve them. It is open to question however, whether the two last preceded the institution of the caste system, or not. Be this as it may, the most potent factor is the Brāhmanic standard of purity, and the desire to emulate it. This is the thread upon which is strung the astounding collection of otherwise independent communities into which the population of India is now divided and which multiplies almost every year the number of its units. It underlies the demarcation by race, in the form in which it chiefly prevails, whether amongst the village menials or the Hill tribes which have become or are becoming, castes, as they abandon customs which are incompatible with it.
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In function, again, which in its lower grades is closely connected with race, the social gradations are based upon the relative cleanliness of the pursuit, though not without a glance at the ancestry of those who have taken to it. Religious differences only lead to the formation of a separate caste, when as above indicated, they are accompanied by a departure from the social observances of the original body, upwards, it may be, or in the opposite direction. The constant multiplication of castes, indeed, is attributable for the most part either to the assumption by a section of an existing caste of a higher standard of purity than the rest in occupation, marriage regulations, or food; or, on the other hand, to the excommunication of a section from fire and water for a violation of the caste rules regarding such matters. This fissiparity of castes is a subject of great intricacy to which space does not allow more than cursory reference here. It is necessary to make some mention of it, however, in order to show that, rigid and compressive as may be the framework of society imposed by the caste system, it does not preclude mobility within the multitudinous cells of which it is composed, and provides, too, for the increase of their number by accretion from outside. It is perhaps still more important to note that the converse process does not take place.
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A section once split off does not rejoin, nor do different castes coalesce with each other to form larger communities of the same character. With the object of illustrating these features of the system in actual operation, a brief description of the more representative castes has been included in the latter portion of this review. Through this more information may be gained, it is hoped, than can be conveyed by a series of general statements, each of which, like most general statements concerning India, requires abundant qualification to meet local exceptions. It must never be forgotten that India is not a country but a collection of countries, and though caste as an institution is universal, and the basis of the system which has been the subject of the foregoing review is the same throughout, the form assumed by the superstructure raised upon that foundation differs materially in different regions. If any generalisation be sustainable, it would be, perhaps, that caste tends to be strong where the population is generally prosperous, and also where the system was adopted after it had reached maturity among those who were the means of introducing it. It tends to be weak, on the other hand, where the means of subsistence are less abundant, and occupations, therefore, cannot be so strictly demarcated as they are under more favourable conditions.
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The stage of civilisation, too, attained by the time Brāhmanisation set in, seems to have been a factor of some weight in determining the extent to which recognition should be accorded to local customs and beliefs.
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§ 20. Thus, in the south-Dravidian part of the peninsula, the caste system flourishes in full vigour; but it has simply been engrafted upon Tamil institutions, and, as far as the masses of the people are concerned, little change has been effected by it in their food or their special regulations regarding marriage; still less in their worship, in which the Brāhman takes no part except where one of the more powerful of the local maleficent goddesses has been adopted as a manifestation of some Purānic divinity. The lower orders there occupy a position of degradation differing from that of the corresponding castes further north in that a good many of them do not accept it; and having a working tradition of former power, if not supremacy, they are continually making efforts to get their claim to a higher rank recognised by their actual superiors. The subdivisions among them increase accordingly. On the other hand, the artisan castes are here found united to an extent unknown in the present day elsewhere. This combination is of long standing, and is probably the origin of the Right and Left-handed distribution of castes which is only found amongst the Tamil people. The South, again, having always been fertile in sectarian disputes, doctrinal schism amongst the local Brāhmans has resulted in some instances in separation in social intercourse, another development not found elsewhere.
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The Brāhmanism of Telingāna has considerably less of the pre-Āryan element, left in it, probably because there was partial colonisation of the Andhra region through Orissa or otherwise, by immigrants from the Ganges valley, before the Draviḍa region was reached. The inhabitants, accordingly, though lax in their observances compared to the Brāhmanists of the North, consider themselves higher in position than the Tamil castes, and when settled amongst the latter, avoid intermixture as far as possible. The greater prosperity of the South, however, has given to its caste system a strength and complexity not found in the present day in the less favourable conditions of the upland tracts. Along the East coast the Tamil features prevail almost till they join the Orissa system, which, probably from the isolation and the timid character of the population, has the reputation of being the most bigotted and priest-ridden of its kind. In Lower Bengal, the system is an exotic, as in Madras, and was introduced long after it had reached maturity in upper India. It took root however, under different auspices.
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The country was occupied by the Āryas or their hybrid descendants in the course of their general expansion down the valley, and the population encountered consisted of the wild tribes of the forest or amphibious dwellers in the Delta, Kōl or Mongoloid, easily subjected, like the Dasyu of the north, and not, like the Tamil communities, long settled on an agricultural basis, to be approached by missionary enterprise only, not by armed force. The subject classes seem to have been left to assimilate their organisation to that of their superiors without tradition or authority to guide them. When, at length, the official graduation of society was taken in hand by one of the more powerful local rulers, the flood of Islām overran the country before the new regulations had time to gain foothold amongst the people. It appears, therefore, from physical features and the titles of caste subdivisions that bodies were formed either by race, afterwards split up by function, or by community of function overriding race differences and often determined by locality. The relations between these bodies, therefore, are more than usually indefinite, and owing to the absence of a landholding aristocracy of the military order and the comparative weakness of the Brāhman immigrants, changes or claims to change of rank are more frequent here than in any other part of India.
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Amongst the lower classes these pretensions are usually based, as in the Tamil country, upon tradition, often not without foundation, of a former position far above that now assigned to them. For generations they have been deposed, but the prosperity they enjoy in modern times induces them to revive their dormant claim. Still more immature in its development is the caste system, if so it may be called, which prevails in the Assam valley. Setting on one side modern immigrants from Bengal and the Brāhman, there is but one community of even nominal Āryan origin. It is now held to represent the early Āryan immigrants, who reached the seclusion of the Brahmaputra valley before the caste system had been developed in Bengal or wherever these colonists originated. In their case the development was apparently retarded, first, by pressure of Mongoloid tribes around them, conducing to a united front; and, later, to the hold which Buddhism obtained for some time over this tract. The above caste, or racial community, included all the ordinary professions but they were not formed into castes, and even now that process is by no means complete. Even the higher classes are lax, too, as to intermarriage, and visit the mésalliance of a girl upon her individually, not upon her relations, as would be done in other parts of India. The Brāhman, too, falls into line with the rest, and disregards the stricter rules of his order as to marriage.
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Special arrangements exist for the incorporation into castes of the indigenous population; and the facilities they afford for a subsequent rise in rank on increased observance of conventional purity are unwontedly liberal. The same spirit is manifested in the relations between orthodox Brāhmanism and the Kōl and Dravidian tribes of the Central Belt. The tribes of Chutiā Nāgpur tend to get merged into the Bengal system, and those of the Sātpura and Vindhya, where conversion seems to lead to more complete breach with the older régime, gradually mix with the lower castes of cultivators in the plains. Between the Jamnā and the Ghogrā or even the Kōsī, the caste system seems to have developed upon what may be termed more normal lines than in any other part of India, as is, perhaps to be expected from the proximity to its birth-place. The process of evolution was seriously interrupted, however, by the Muslim occupation, which scattered the leaders of society and swept away many old landmarks. In course of time, the old order was reestablished in full force, though the traces of the cataclysm have never been quite effaced, especially amongst the functional castes. It is worth noting that in the upper Jamnā tract and well into the eastern Panjāb caste remains entirely unaffected by conversion to Islām. It is held by some, indeed, that by the elimination of the Rājput, or fighting man, the Muslim left the way more open to the Brāhman, whom they disdainfully ignored.
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At all events, the present social conditions of the region longest and most absolutely held by the Moghal régime appear to confirm conclusively the evidence afforded by the relations between Brāhmanism and the pre-Āryan worship of the south and centre, to the effect that the hold of caste upon the popular mind is altogether detachable from religious doctrine, and rests, as indicated above, upon its social restrictions. In the western Panjāb caste is weaker than in any other tract, and this seems to be attributable to the combination of two influences. First, there is the tribal sentiment, derived from the vicinity of the Paṭhān and Balūch, referred to earlier in this work. It found a ready acceptance amongst the Rājput and Jāṭ races of the plains, who were themselves organised upon a tribal basis, with a lightly worn veil of caste thrown over the arrangement. Then, again, the struggle for life in a comparatively infertile country conduced to the mobility of occupation to an extent seldom necessary in the richer tracts to the eastwards. The adoption of a lower class of calling under pressure of need leads, of course, to the loss of social position, but not, as it would on the Jamnā, to excommunication. Caste is also weak in the lower Himālaya, but for a totally different reason. These valleys are the only tracts to which the Muslim never penetrated, and, under the auspices of refugee Rājputs, society is there constituted upon a system untouched by foreign influence.
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The Chief is emphatically the fountain of honour, and can uplift or degrade a caste or even a family as he pleases. In the Panjāb Hills, therefore, caste is remarkably fluid. Every community above the menial aspires to rise by some means or other to the rank of that above it, whilst it takes wives from and eats with, that immediately below it.
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The various tracts which have been mentioned present the most strongly marked peculiarities in their caste systems, but in each of the rest there will be found certain characteristics in which it differs from others. Into these it is not proposed to enter except cursorily. In Sindh, for instance, the whole population embraced Islām, and the only large indigenous Brāhmanic caste left is that of the traders. The rest, however, have maintained both racial and functional divisions regulated generally on caste lines. The adjacent peninsulas of Gujarāt have been frequently occupied by aliens, and this fact, together with the fertility of the mainland, tends first, to great subdivision of castes, the titles of the sections indicating intermixture of races as in Lower Bengal, and then to strict observance of caste discipline, as in the Gangetic region. The Konkan, too, has had from time to time a strong influx of foreign Brāhmans, and this, along with its isolation, have helped to rivet firmly the priestly yoke upon the people. In Rājputāna, too, as is natural considering the history and character of the ruling classes, Brāhmanism is in high honour, though the difficulty of making a living in the desert portion of the tract allows a latitude of occupation among the poorer castes similar to that which, for the same reason, prevails amongst the probably kindred tribes of the middle Indus.
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Distinctions such as these are illustrated as far as space allows in the following pages of this work, where, in the description of its main constituent parts, is shown in actual operation the system of which the development and conjectural origin have been outlined above.
B. Descriptive
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§ 21. Regarding the subject in its ethnographic aspect, it is obvious that it must be a task of extraordinary, almost insuperable, difficulty to reduce to anything like accurate numerical terms the component parts of so vast and complex an organisation as that sketched above. It should be borne in mind that the object of the Census is to obtain a record not only of scientific value in the service of ethnography, but of practical importance in the every-day administration of the country. The social position and the numerical strength of different sections of the community are essential facts in connection, for instance, with public instruction or with measures for the promotion of the comfort or convenience of the locality. The Courts of Justice, again, are frequently called upon to decide questions of rank or privilege in which the relative numbers of the litigant parties are points relevant to the inquiry, and which cannot be safely left to the evidence of the disputants, in view of the "megalomania" which is probably at the bottom of the whole controversy. Even the identification of an individual cannot be satisfactorily established in the case of many of the more important social divisions by less than two or even three, successive questions, and often the credibility of a witness is decided by a casual detail of caste convention. On these considerations, and with an eye to the known probability of error in the direction of either excessive generality or excessive minuteness of description, provision was made at the Census for the return of social divisions under two headings, first, the main body, such as caste or tribe, and, secondly, the subdivision to which the individual may belong. In the larger communities, indeed the latter is the more distinctive designation, and was adopted, accordingly, as the unit of compilation in the returns prepared for local use. Lower than this it is unnecessary, for administrative purposes, that the inquiry should go; but it must be recognised that from the ethnological standpoint, the more minute subdivisions of the community are often more pregnant of suggestion or information than those of which they form a part, and must be adequately dealt with in any special investigation, such as that now engaging the attention of those employed upon the Indian Ethnographical Survey.
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It must also be understood that neither the Provincial nor the Imperial returns claim to present anything beyond a partial and very imperfect picture of the astounding fissiparity of the Brāhmanic social system in the full vigour of its present existence. The Imperial Table, even after a somewhat drastic process of compilation, contains nearly 2,400 separate items, and the project of expanding it to the full limits of the subject inevitably calls to the memory of the expert the concluding verse of the Gospel according to St John. Take, for instance, the feature of endogamy alone. Every subdivision recorded in a Provincial Table, covers, if the main body be widely spread, many others, none of which intermarries with the rest. Not only so, but the main body itself does not recognise any social tie with the body bearing the same name located in a distant part of the country, even though, as sometimes, happens, the same vernacular language may be spoken by both. Each of these local subdivisions, moreover, is divided into its respective endogamous sections; some of them professing a different religion, and occupying, perhaps, quite a different position in the social hierarchy of the neighbourhood from that of the synonymous section elsewhere. Even the Provincial groups, therefore, subjoined to the general aggregate in the Table, convey an impression of homogeneity not in correspondence with the actual fact.
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§ 22. With the above qualifications and reserve, then, the figures to be found in the Imperial returns must be taken as providing as trustworthy information as is now available upon this branch of the subject. In the Tables, the items are arranged in alphabetical order, a form of record which has its advantages from an official point of view, in that it raises no awkward questions as to position or precedence; and, if accompanied, as in the Madras list, by a brief practical account of the principal divisions, it is useful for reference on individual cases. There, however, its function ends, and some form of coordination becomes necessary before all these isolated nuggets of information can be got to collectively yield their tribute towards the common object of illustrating the main characteristics of the social organisation of the different regions of India. It is as well to admit at the outset that in view of the varied origin and history of the social divisions in question and of the various forms the social system has assumed, no classification upon a single a definite principle is possible. It is equally judicious to assume that, taking into consideration the diverse and often mutually inconsistent theories held as to the basis and general principles upon which the system rests, no such classification, even were it possible, would be universally accepted.
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Race, consanguinity, function, creed and policy cover respectively a considerable portion of the ground, but no one of them covers the whole or can be made the standard by which the divisions as they now exist can be graduated on the social scale. It might be thought that in view of the extreme value attached to conventional purity, and the minute rules in regard to it by which the intercourse between the different sections of the community is, by unanimous public opinion in each locality, undeviatingly regulated, a touchstone might be found in it by which social rank might be assayed. This, however, is not the case. Irrespective of the difficulty of obtaining a formal decision on individual cases, owing to prejudice and the general ignorance of the position of classes below them which prevails amongst those who would ordinarily be consulted, there is a marked difference in practice in regard to intercommunion between the greater part of Continental India and the Peninsula, and even between province and province. The criterion which would be adopted would be whether or not certain higher classes would take from the community in question water or certain kinds of food, and these lines of demarcation are in most cases so far apart, including that is, so many communities in each class, that they afford little or no graduation of the masses respectively enclosed within them, and without further internal subdivisions the groups are of little practical significance.
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Linked texts (1)
- Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit