The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s4.78

Language: English

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These irregular allusions to taxes are truly the main points wherein the two great supporting castes touch each other in our Epic, and but little remains to indicate the formerly proud condition of the herdsman; for, as Pūshan, the Vedic god of the cattle-dealers, was fabled to have lost his teeth and been obliged to live on mush, so the power of his pet-caste had decayed. I have elsewhere† sought to show that in late legal literature there is a distinct separation of the third caste from the other two, and a tendency almost to put the people on a par with the slave; and this is seen in the Epic: not alone in such allusions as simply indicate that the people were regarded mainly as a tax-paying machine, but in forms of expression like, for example, ‘The warriors were like the people, waiting upon the twice-born and bringing gems’ (ii. 49. 35);

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or in such facts as this: that the term applied to represent the relation of the third caste to both the military and priestly presents the idea of distinct subordination.‡ Also, when the castes are grouped, as in describing a procession, the natural arrangement seems to be not to put the three Aryan castes against the slave-caste, but to unite the slave-caste and people-caste as one group over against the warrior- and priestly-castes as another distinct group.§ Also, in this connection, the wording of God in the Great Song (Bhagavad-Gītā) is significant: ‘Whoever they be that seek their rest in Me, even they that are of low worth, even women, men of the people-caste, and slaves—even these find bliss.’‖ Also the fact that a difference is made between the rights of the people and warriors in the matter of fasting may be mentioned, couched in these words: ‘Fasting three nights or two nights is enjoined only for priests and warriors; but if men of the people-caste and slaves should institute such a fast through delusion of mind, they would get no reward for it.’* The favors granted to the people-caste are the same as to the slaves; the only difference being in the form of words expressing this. ‘To the people-caste the king should give protection; to the slave-caste, non-injury.’† In all these cases, late as they are, we see the reflex of an unacknowledged process of amalgamation between the people-caste and the un-Aryan population. This process has two phases.

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First, the inevitable tendency of the third estate to take up with new work, needful and profitable, but not sanctioned by usage; this was a natural drifting away from the Aryan aristocrats. Second, the long-continued and ever-increasing binding together of the warrior- and priestly-castes, practically leading to an exclusion of the third estate from the inner and intenser Arya-hood of the two more powerful orders. The people-caste was partially seduced and partially pushed out of the national ring. They stood on the edge between good blood and barbarous. As was likely to be the case, the caste that patronized them most and flattered them with sweet words was the priestly. Such proverbs as they have left show us, however, that all regard for the caste was based on an appreciation of the bakshish they could give. ‘He is blessed with fulfilment of all his desires who gives a night’s rest to a man of the people’ (iii. 200. 122) is a remark polite enough to make us think this man a person of importance; but when a reason for honoring him is vouchsafed, it is merely that he has wealth. A poor man of the people was of no consequence. In fact, he is in such circumstances advised to become a slave at once (M. x. 98; but in V. P. iii. 8 he is told to adopt the warrior’s life). How nearly on a social par with the slave the man of the people stood is well shown by the frightened exclamation of King Drupada when he finds his daughter gone: ‘What,’ he exclaims, ‘my daughter gone?

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Oh, whither? Who has taken her away? Is it possible that any base-born slave or tax-paying man of the people has carried her off? Is it possible that the muddy foot (of such a man) has been placed on my head, and that this wreath of flowers (my daughter) has been cast upon a graveyard (that wretch)?’ (i. 192. 15). It is only in its sustaining or ‘supporting’ power that the people-caste finds a begrudged honor; for in this regard the royal power and the power of the farmers is declared to be equal.*