Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47.s1.9
Indische Paläographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47.s1.9
- Language
- German
c47.s1.9.1
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.
c47.s1.9.2
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.
c47.s1.9.3
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.
c47.s1.9.4
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.