History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c21.14.4

v2.c21.14.4

Besides those who are not familiar with ancient or even modern Hindu notions must be warned against being carried away by the horror naturally felt at first sight when certain classes are treated as untouchable. The underlying notions of untouchability are religious and ceremonial purity and impurity. A man's nearest and dearest women relatives such as his own mother and wife or daughter are untouchable to him during their monthly periods. To him the most affectionate friend is untouchable for several days when the latter is in mourning due to death in the latter's family. A person cannot touch his own son (whose thread ceremony has been performed) at the time of taking meals. In this latter case there is no idea of impurity and in most of these cases there is no idea of superiority or inferiority. As many professions and crafts were in ancient times hereditary, gradually the idea arose that a man who belonged to a caste pursuing certain filthy or abhorred avocations or crafts was by birth untouchable. Medieval and modern usage had no doubt reached the stage that if a man belonged by birth to a caste deemed by custom to be untouchable he remained an untouchable whatever profession or craft he may pursue or even if he pursued no profession. But ancient and medieval writers thought otherwise and there was also great divergence of view as to who were untouchables and to what extent.