Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s1.2
Indische Paläographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s1.2
- Language
- German
c48.s1.2.1
§ 25. In spite of the unique and universally recognised position the Brāhmans hold in the estimation of the multitude, they have never formed themselves into a single and homogenous body. Their very dispersal over the length and breadth of the continent, in communities different in origin, speaking different languages and eating different food, makes such cohesion impracticable. It has, indeed, had the effect of making them perhaps the most heterogeneous collection of minute and independent subdivisions that ever bore a common designation. Possibly, too, the absence of territorial settlement to which reference was made above, lends greater weight and permanence to a subdivision based on considerations other than those connected with landed property, and has promoted, accordingly, the stricter observance of caste separatism. However this may be, the main lines of distribution are geographical, beginning with the ancient partition of the Brāhmanic order into the five Gauḍa, or Northern sections, and the five Drāvida, of the South. To the former belong the Gauṛ, from Gonda in Oudh, the Kanaujia, of the Central Doāb, the Sārasvata of the upper Jamnā, the Maithila, of Tirhūt, and the Utkala of Orissa. South of the Vindhya come the Mahārāṣṭra, of the Dekkan, the Karṇāṭa, of Mysore and the neighbourhood, the Āndhra of Telingāna and the Drāviḍa of the Tamil country.
c48.s1.2.2
Added to these are the Gurjara of the west, who, curiously enough, though grouped amongst the southerners, are all northern in their origin. Except in the case of the three first mentioned, these divisions are of little practical significance in the everyday life of the present time, since they are severally partitioned into numerous main subdivisions, each of which is in turn, again, minutely split up into a still greater number of separate endogamous communities. The majority of the larger castes thus constituted have a territorial origin, generally well to the north of where they are now settled, except, of course, amongst those still occupying the traditional centres of Brāhmanism, such as the Gauṛ, Kanaujia and Sārasvata. Subordinate to these are the local offshoots, which are very generally attributable to schism on points of ceremonial or food, and, in the Drāviḍa country, to sectarian or doctrinal disagreement. From time to time, too, the scheme has to be expanded to admit some new recruits from outside the fold, who are usually placed low down on the scale, though not irrevocably doomed to remain there, if circumstances turn out favourable to their advancement. Throughout the local community, the rank of each subdivision relatively to the rest is fixed by a convention effectively backed by the public verdict; but this graduation is not necessarily recognised at a distance or where a different language is spoken.
c48.s1.2.3
In every linguistic group, moreover, there are certain classes which, though called Brāhmans by the public, and enlisted to perform some of the ceremonial functions of the Brāhman, are either not recognised by other Brāhmans, or are relegated by them to a degraded position, inferior, in reality, to that to which many of the non-Brāhman castes are admitted. The acme of subdivision in combination with ceremonial exclusiveness, is probably reached among the Kanaujia, of whom it is said in their native Province, “Three Kanaujia, thirteen cooking-fires”. The Gurjara Brāhmans, again, are popularly credited with 84 divisions, but this being a popular expression of multitude in general, the number actually found, viz. 79, may be taken as fairly correct, especially as all the larger items in that lengthy list have their respective sub-castes. The Brāhmans of the Dekkan are perhaps as little split up into sections as any, but on the coast-strip of the Konkan the subdivision is more minute, owing, probably, to the foreign strain introduced from time to time. The Brāhmans of Bengal and Madras, where the system is of later introduction, hide a complicated interior under a comparatively small number of main divisions, especially in the latter, where caste has been affected by the doctrinal schisms of which the clouth since the days of S'aṅkarācārya and Rāmānuja, has been prolific.