The Rashtrakutas and their Times c21.22

c21.22

We have next to consider the case of the weaver, the sailor, and the hunter of wild animals and birds, who are included by Alberuni among the untouchables of the first group. From Manu(11) we learn that members of the Mārgava and Āyogava sub-castes, who were supposed to have sprung from pratiloma unions, were assigned the professions of the sailor and the hunter; that would explain why they were regarded as untouchables. The weaver, however, whom Alberuni regards as untouchable, is nowhere regarded as such in the Smriti literature, and if we follow Alberuni, we shall have to suppose that the famous weaving industry of ancient India was a monopoly in the hands of the untouchables. There is no evidence, however, to show that such was the case. According to Bṛhadyama Smriti(12) it would appear that the Hindus of our period regarded it as sinful to touch a person who was dealing in red cloth and, according to Āpastamba Smriti,(13) it was extremely undesirable to touch or wear blue cloth or colour. It would seem that notions like these were responsible for the theory that persons, who produce or deal in red or blue cloth, were impure. If Alberuni's information about the weavers being regarded as untouchables is correct, we shall have to suppose, as the Smriti literature leads us to believe, that it refers only to a section of that class engaged in producing red or blue cloth which was losing in the estimation of the orthdoxy. It may be pointed out that at present the tailors are divided in Maharashtra into two castes; the members of one caste are called Shimpis (ordinary tailors) and those of the other Nili Shimpis (i. e. tailors dealing with blue cloth). The latter are held by the former in low estimation, and no interdining or intermarriages are possible between the members of these two sub-castes. It is clear that the Nili Shimpis are regarded as degraded because they had not tabooed blue cloth tailoring in middle ages. It is possible that weavers also in our period may have formed two similar classes. It is, however, difficult to say whether the section dealing with the manufacture of red and blue cloth was actually regarded as untouchable, as Alberuni would have us believe, or whether it was merely held in lower estimation. The probability seems to be that the latter was the case.