Caste and Race in India c7.12

c7.12

On the relations subsisting between the four classes the Rigveda has very little to say. The inferences that we can draw are also few. Rigvedic literature stresses very strongly the difference between the Ārya and the Dāsa, not only in their colour but also in their speech, religious practices, and physical features. The Brahmin class, by the end of the period, appears to have acquired almost all the characteristics of a caste. Though the general body of the Rigvedic evidence is not quite determinative, yet a stray reference to a false claim for being regarded a Brahmin, like the one contained in the seventy-first hymn of the tenth book of the Rigveda, points to this conclusion. The Brahmin is definitely said to be superior to the Kshatriya, whom he is able to embroil with his incantations or with his knowledge of rituals. He is said to ensure a king's safety in battle by his prayers and the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa lays down that a king's offerings are not acceptable to the gods unless they are offered with the help of a Purohita (chaplain), who, as we shall later on see, was generally a Brahmin. Wherever it is necessary, as in the Rājasūya sacrifice, for the Brahmin to pay homage to the king, the fact is explained in such a way as not to affect the superiority of the Brahmins. It is even suggested that the king rules by the authority delegated to him by the Brahmin.¹ The power of the king or the nobles to harass a Brahmin is recognized and as an antidote a speedy ruin is threatened. The necessity of co-operation between the Brahmin and the Kshatriya for the complete prosperity of both is often reiterated. The Brahmins are declared to be gods on earth. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa even sums up the rights and duties of the Brahmins, amongst which receiving gifts and observing purity of descent are mentioned. It is also said that no Brahmin should accept whatever has been refused by others, and the sanctity attaching to the Brahmin is carried so far in the Pañchaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa as to foreclose any inquiry into his claim to Brahmin-hood. It appears from a passage in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa that property of a Brahmin was exempt from the royal claim. The remains of the sacrificial food must be eaten by nobody but a Brahmin. According to the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa the murder of a Brahmin is alone a real murder, while the Yajurveda declares it to be a more heinous crime than that of killing any other man. It could only be expiated by a heavy ritual. In a legal dispute between a Brahmin and a non-Brahmin an arbitrator or a witness must speak in favour of the former. Though the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa enumerates freedom from being killed as a privilege of the Brahmins, the Pañchaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa declares that a Purohita might be punished with death for treachery to his master. According to a legend in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, the Brahmins regarded themselves as the spreaders of civilization.