Caste and Race in India c8.163

c8.163

That intercaste marriages were not absolutely out of vogue even to the end of the period under review is proved by epigraphical and other data. But it seems that except in the case of a Brahmin marrying a Śūdra female the issue of such marriages were not singled out for special treatment, proper for a class different from that of the father or the mother. It is recorded by a Chinese traveller that the daughter of King Harsha, who was a Vaiśya, was married to a Kshatriya, and it does not appear that the children of the union were regarded as anything else than Kshatriyas.² A Jodhpur inscription of the latter half of the ninth century mentions the case of a Brahmin, who had two wives, one of whom was a Kshatriya lady. The children of this lady were classed as Kshatriyas.³ In the tenth century, Rājaśekhara, a Brahmin, took a Chahamāna lady to wife.⁴ An inscription from Bengal, belonging to the seventh century, describes a certain individual as "pāraśava" and makes him the issue of a Brahmin father and a Śūdra mother, which is in conformity with rules of the sacred laws.⁵ Bāṇa, in his Harshacharita, also tells us that his father, a Brahmin, had a Śūdra wife besides a Brahmin one, and describes her issue as his "pāraśava brothers".