Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s1.4
Indische Paläographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s1.4
- Language
- German
c48.s1.4.1
The secular pursuits affected by the Brāhman vary considerably according to whether the caste is settled in the locality in large numbers, whether the tract is prospering, or whether the Brāhman first came into it as a pioneer and colonist or as a propagandist or an exile from another centre. Political employment has been congenial to the Brāhman from the time when the Purohita, or family sacrificer, was treated by the Rājan as his confidential adviser in the Sūkta period, and the caste has continued to throw up from time to time men who have been distinguished for their administration of Native States. The great chance of the Brāhman came, of course, under the Pēśvā rule, when the whole of the military organisation built up by the Marāṭhās fell to the disposal of the Citpāvan Brāhman of the Konkan; and for seventy years or more, the Dekkan was dominated from Poona, and the whole of the administration was conducted by the local and the coast Brāhman. Even in the present day, the Marāṭhā Brāhman has almost a monopoly of clerical employment throughout the Dekkan, Konkan and Karnatic, and with the traditions of former supremacy to encourage him, he stands quite in the van of his order in intelligence and general ability. In some other parts of the country the Brāhman is the only class besides the trader who can read and write to any practical purpose, and he thus becomes, of course, the scribe, if not the official accountant, of the village community.
c48.s1.4.2
Even in the tracts where a serious rival is found in a professional writing class, the Brāhman usually has a share in the State appointments to which the "literary proletariat" of India look mainly for their subsistence. Of the learned professions, Law and Instruction are the more attractive to this caste. A few take up the lower branches of Engineering, and still fewer the practice of Medicine, a following which is to a great extent barred to them by reason of caste-scruples in regard to the surgical training involved. In commerce they have not made their way beyond the universal venture in lending money to their neighbours, to which every Indian capitalist, according to his resources, is inclined. The Brāhman shares, also, the general aspiration to own land, either as an investment or as a possession honorific in the eyes of the lay world. Wherever they have settled in large masses, as in the Gangetic Doāb and Oudh, or in compact local colonies, which probably preceded their advance as a sacerdotal body, they have taken to cultivation on the same lines as the ordinary peasantry, except that they but very rarely put their hand to the plough, though they go as far as standing upon the crossbar of the harrow to lend their weight to that operation.
c48.s1.4.3
Owing to this caste-imposed restriction, probably, it may be noted that wherever the Brāhman has settled otherwise than as a part of a large general community, he is the centre of a well-defined system of predial servitude, his land being cultivated for him by hereditary serfs of undoubtedly Dasyu descent. This is the case with the Māsṭhān of Orissa and Gujarāt, and with the Haiga or Havīka of Kanara, and the Nambūtiri of the Malabar coast, all of whom have settled in fertile country. Where the pressure of circumstances is very severe, as in the desert States of Rājputāna, the Brāhman cultivator not only does the whole of his own work, including ploughing, but even sells his labour to other more fortunate occupants. A military career may appear to be somewhat alien to the traditions and inclinations of a sacerdotal class, nevertheless in the vicinity of the Ganges it has proved by no means unattractive to the Brāhman peasantry. The Bhūīnhār, or Bābhan, of the south eastern parts of the upper valley, are credited by some with Brāhman ancestry, which endowed them with enough of the Kṣatriya qualities to enable them to push forward in advance of the main body of their race, and to hold against the Kōl, or other previous possessor, the land they still occupy.
c48.s1.4.4
The nickname of Pandy, again, bestowed upon the rebel troops collectively by the British soldier, is no other than Pāṇḍē or Pañṟē, the title of the sub-division of the Kanaujia Brāhmans from which a high proportion of the recruits of this caste were then enlisted. Since 1857 it has been found that minute caste-scruples as to diet and contact are incompatible with the exigencies of modern field service, whilst the personal sanctity of the Brāhman private is 'apt to turn out inimical to the due observance of regimental discipline. Amongst the Muhiāl Brāhmans of the Panjāb, therefore, the pride of caste has given way before the taste for the profession of arms, and the would-be recruit of this community drops his Brāhmanhood when enlisting, and is enrolled under some other designation. In former days, when, as under the Pēśvās, Brāhmans were themselves at the head of the forces, and not in subordination to the foreigner, and when war was carried out on very different lines from those of to-day, commanders of this caste acquitted themselves worthily, and showed both resource and courage in the field.