History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s4.2

v3.c41.s4.2

"The people called Hāḍi, Doma, Chāṇḍāla and Badhatau, are not reckoned among any caste or guild. They are occupied with dirty work like the cleansing of the village. They are considered as one sole class. In fact they are considered like illegitimate children and they descend from Śudra father and Brahmani mother as children of fornication. Therefore, they are outcasts". (Sachau Vol. I chap. X). The above extract shows that even in Al-Beruni's time (1030 A. D.) there were two main divisions of the outcasts, the second one being the worse of the two. Indeed Khurdadba (900 A. D.) also mentions two untouchables' castes viz. the Chāndāla and the Lahuda. The latter viz. Lahuda were rope-dancers or natas. Thus this two-fold division is very old and the eight untouchables of the Lahuda class mentioned by Al-Beruni are exactly those enumerated in a Smṛiti text viz. the fuller, the shoe-maker, the weaver, the basket-maker, the rope-dancer, the fisherman, the hunter and the juggler. That they intermarried except the first three is a strange observation which perhaps may be a mistake. At any rate in modern times, they do not, following the usual tendency of all Hindu sub-castes to restrict marriage to their own self. It passes understanding why the fuller, the weaver and the basket-maker should have been treated as untouchable. They had no doubt been treated as such until recently. Being a subdivision with work not unclean and with marriage restricted to itself as mentioned by Al-Beruni, their untouchability was nominal. And since they have now become touchable, there is no reason why the other five classes of the same list should remain untouchable. The word Dom is not found in the Smṛitis nor Hādi and the word Badhatau is inexplicable. These four untouchable castes performed uncleanly work and must have, therefore, been treated as most untouchable.