A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.44

v1.c8.s2.44

But while we hear in the Ṛgveda of cattle-rearing and agriculture, of trade and industry, as well as of deeds of war and of sacrifices, there is not yet to be found in the hymns that caste-division, which imparts a peculiar stamp to the whole of the social life of the Indians of later times, and which, up to the present day, has remained the curse of India. Only in one single hymn, evidently late, are the four castes—Brāhmaṇa, Kṣatriya, Vaiśya and Śūdra—mentioned. Certainly there were warriors and priests, but of an exclusive warriorcaste there is in the Ṛgveda as little mention as of one or several lower castes of farmers, cattle-traders, merchants, artisans, and labourers. As in later times, so indeed already in the Ṛgveda, it was the custom that, at the king's side there stood a house-priest (Purohita) who offered the sacrifices for him. But we still hear often enough—even in the later Vedic period—of sacrifices and ceremonies, which the pater-familias performs alone without priestly aid. The wife takes part in these sacrifices; indeed, it is reckoned as absolutely essential, that the husband and wife together perform the sacred ceremonies. This participation of the wife in the sacrifices proves at all events that the position of woman in the oldest period of the Ṛgveda was not yet so low as later, when the law-books absolutely *forbid* women to sacrifice, and to repeat sacred texts. In the Ṛgveda (VIII, 31) we read of the married couple (dampatī—"householder and house-wife") who "with minds in harmony press the Soma, rinse and mix it with milk" and offer adoration to the gods. Manu, however, declares in his law-book, that it is displeasing to the gods when women sacrifice (IV, 206), and that women who offer the fire-sacrifice (Agnihotra) sink into hell (XI, 37). When we still hear in the Upaniṣads, that women also took an active share in the disputations of the philosophers, we must not wonder that in the hymns of the Ṛgveda women could without restriction—at feasts, dances, and such like—show themselves publicly. It is by no means necessary, as some scholars do, to think of courtesans, when it is said that beautiful women flock to the festival gathering. It is not to be denied, however, that already at the time of the Ṛgveda, many solitary, unprotected women—"brotherless maidens" as a poet calls them—gave themselves up to prostitution; but Pischel and Geldner,¹ in spite of all the trouble which they have taken to prove it, have not succeeded in proving that at that time already there existed a "grand system of courtesans" as in the time of Buddha in Vesali, or at the time of Perikles in Athens.