The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c7.12

c7.12

Acting upon this, people began to look upon only the children by properly wedded women of the same caste as belonging to the caste of their father and the children resulting from the union of different castes as mixed castes, and this in the following way: the higher the caste of the mother and the lower the caste of the father, the lower became the caste of the issue. Thus, the child born of the union of a Brâhmaṇa with a Vaiśya girl was called an Ambaṣṭha, so it was called a Niṣâda when the union was with a Śûdra’s daughter; the issue of the marriage of a Kṣatriya with the daughter of a Śûdra was called Ugra; the children resulting from the opposite kind of union, namely, when the mother belonged to a higher and the father to a lower caste, were called in the descending order of their social rank, Sûta, Mâgadha, Vaideha, Âyogava, Kṣattri and Caṇḍâla. All these mixed castes were characterised as of low birth (apasada), the lowest and most contemptible was, according to the theory, the Caṇḍâla, because resulting from the union of a Brâhmaṇa’s daughter with a Śûdra. Through further combinations, through further alliances between the four recognised castes and the mixed castes and through marriages among the latter, there arose a further number of mixed castes. Among others—I only mention the names which occur to me in this connexion—the issue of the union of a Nishâda with a Śûdra wife was called Pukkasa and the Veṇa was the issue of the alliance between a Vaidehaka and an Ambaṣṭha woman. This, however, in no way exhausts the number of mixed castes; here come first the so-called Vrâtyas, who are the issue of legitimate unions of the three higher castes but who through neglect of religious obligation, that is, neglect of taking admission into their caste (upanayana) at the right time, lost the right to belong to that caste. Their descendants fall again into different groups of castes, according as they were orginally of Brâhmaṇa, Kshatriya or Vaiśya origin We shall in course of our enquiry come across them as Mallas, Licchavis and Naṭas who were all descended from the Vrâtyas of the Kshatriya caste. Innumerable despised mixed castes, again, are the offspring of those who through some fault—adultery, consanguineous marriage, abandonment of the prescribed profession—are excommunicated from the Aryan Society; thus we have the origin of the Kaivarta out of the union of a Nishâda with an Âyogava woman. To these mixed castes professions were assigned with as much strictness as in the case of the four official castes; for instance, to the Sûta was assigned the work of a cart-driver, to the Ambaṣṭha, the medical profession, to the Māgadha, trade, to the Niṣāda, the killing of fish, to the Pukkasa, the capturing and killing of the cave-dwelling animals, to the Caṇḍālas, the carrying of corpses and the execution of criminals.