History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c19.160

v2.c19.160

These provisions would considerably lessen the rigour of the caste system based purely on birth. But one feels grave doubts whether such a method of jātyutkarṣa or jātyapakarṣa (particularly the one based on occupation) was or could be ever enforced in actual life. It would have been impossible to remember descent in a particular way for five or seven generations. The want of unanimity among the original smṛtikāras and the commentators also points in the direction that the method advocated, though it might have originally some slight basis in fact, was only a hypothesis and an ideal. Hardly any examples of jātyutkarṣa in the way set out by Manu or Yāj. occur in the literature on dharma-śāstra or in inscriptions. In the inscriptions we have authentic cases of intercaste marriages only, but hardly anything further¹⁵⁶. From the Talguṇḍa pillar inscription of king Kākusthavarman of the Kadamba family we learn that the Kadambas were originally of brāhmaṇa lineage, that the founder of the family was a brāhmaṇa Mayūraśarman, who became exasperated with the Pallavas of Kāñcīpura and took up the sword to conquer the earth, that his descendants applied the affix ‘varman’ to their names (as if they were kṣatriyas, according to Manu II. 32) and Kākusthavarman (4th in descent from Mayūraśarman) married his daughters to Gupta and other kings¹⁵⁷. This shows that an originally brāhmaṇa family came to look upon itself as kṣatriya by virtue of pursuing the profession of arms and governing the people. In the Mahābhārata we meet with stories of kings who became brāhmaṇas. For example, Anuśāsana 30 speaks of Vītahavya, a king, as having become a brāhmaṇa; similarly Śalya (39. 36-37) speaks of Ārṣṭiṣeṇa, Sindhudvīpa, Devāpi and Viśvāmitra as having become brāhmaṇas at a sacred spot on the Sarasvatī. In the Purāṇas also there are stories¹⁵⁸ of kings like Viśvāmitra, Māndhātā, Saṁkṛti, Kapi, Vadhryaśva, Purukutsa, Ārṣṭiṣeṇa, Ajamīḍha and others as having risen to the status of brāhmaṇas. These are mythical sages and their rise is not stated to have been due to the principle of jātyutkarṣa¹⁵⁹. Ibbetson (Report on the census of the Punjab 1881, pp. 174-176) notes that brāhmaṇas following certain professions became degraded and that the caste was changed.