The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s16.t3: (c) Vrātya and Varṇa-saṅkara
The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s16.t3
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(c) Vrātya and Varṇa-saṅkara
c7.s16.t3.1
And here we encounter a new form of race-contacts in political evolution. These consisted in blood-fusion between the diverse tribes, races or nations within the boundaries of India herself. These contacts were engendered as much by migrations as by military marches, conquests and settlements, and by economic necessity. The alleged inferior, despicable, “fallen”, depressed and similar orders of the Indian population found in these stirs and turmoils the chances for self-assertion. Another class of people likewise got opportunities of elevation in this kind of dynamic unrest. These were all those groups or communities which somehow or other did not happen to belong to but rested outside the groups representing the culture, wealth or political influence of the region. A very common name for both these classes,—the “fallen” and the “outsiders”—was *Vrātya* in certain periods.⁵¹
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⁵¹ J. W. Hauer: *Der Vrātya* Vol. I. (Stuttgart 1927), pp. 223-240, 334-335.
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But because of this kind of mobilization the *Vrātya* and others of the same standing came to acquire or conquer for themselves positions of dignity in the social structure. The demographic make-up of the state-systems of five thousand years or so in diverse regions of India was marked by *varṇa-saṅkara*, miscegenation, confusion of castes, elevation of the fallen, Aryanization of the non-Aryan, Hinduization of the non-Hindu. The rôle of the *Vrātya* as a creative factor in Indian demography is fundamental. Equally fundamental is the place of *varṇa-saṅkara* (caste-mixture) as well as *anuloma* and *pratiloma* marriage (union of the “higher” with the lower castes) in the social system of the Hindus.
c7.s16.t3.4
The “legal fiction” or “pious wish” of caste “restrictions” was positively broken in upon by the *Real-* *politik* of race-mixture and inter-caste marriage, i.e *varṇa-saṅkara*. The purity of stocks was thus as much a myth in India as in Europe. The intermingling between castes or races implied a veritable democratization of Indian society and culture. The *Vrātya* and the *varṇa-saṅkara* were thus some of the "folk elements" which served to enrich and strengthen the foundations of Hindu civilization.⁵²
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⁵² B. K. Sarkar: *The Folk-Element in Hindu Culture* (London 1917); cf. in this connection the analysis of problems in the relations between the higher and the lower classes in P. Sorokin: *Social Mobility* (New York 1927) chs. x, xi, xii; and *Contemporary Sociological Theories* (New York 1928) pp. 547-551.
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The impact of the *Vrātya* and *varṇa-saṅkara* on Indian culture has had important bearings on the origin and character of the *Nītiśāstras* as of all the other theoretical disciplines and practical arts and crafts. Not the least important feature of this aspect of Indian as of European "geopolitics" consists in the fact that castes and races might rise and fall or disappear but that civilization advanced almost invariably from precedent to precedent,—nay, perhaps more liberalized and more democratized.⁵³
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⁵³ In regard to the question of alleged "superior" and "inferior" races see F. Hankins: *The Racial Basis of Civilization* (New York 1924) which critically examines the doctrines embodied in Aryanism, Anglo-Saxonism, Nordicism etc.
c7.s16.t3.8
The normal data of Indian political history yield then the following results. Culture-contact as an element in social mobility, or social mobility as an element in culture-contact was responsible in India as elsewhere for "internationalism" as understood in the sense of impacts of the geographically extra-Indian peoples on the Indian and *vice versa*. Then there arose transformations in economic, social and political stratification within the Indian boundaries in every region as well as every age. Thirdly, the mingling of races, Indian as well as extra-Indian, in flesh and blood was a constant determinant in the entire process of family, community or society-making through the ages. The fusion of castes may be taken for certain purposes as but an aspect of the mingling of races. In other respects also inter-caste marital alliances constituted the basic factors in the social organization. And last but not least, the alleged “lower” races or castes and the alleged “outsiders,” i.e. non-Aryans, non-Hindus and what not were getting access to the “upper ten thousands” in blood, ritual, wealth and political power. In the *Sāstras* on law, politics and social mores one will have to read the influence of all these aspects of “sociations,” “social interactions,” “social processes,” “social relations,” or *Beziehungen* as discussed in contemporary sociology.⁵⁴
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⁵⁴ F. Tönnies: *Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft* (Leipzig 1887), G. Tarde: *Les Lois de l'Imitation* (Paris 1890), *L'Opposition Universelle* (Paris 1898), *Les Lois Sociales* (Paris 1898), E. Durkheim: *De la Division du Travail Social* (Paris 1893), E. A. Ross: *Principles of Sociology* (New York 1923); E. S. Bogardus: *Fundamentals of Social Psychology* (New York 1924); J. J. von Schmid: “Les Rapports entre la Collectivité et l'Individu dans l'Evolution de la Pensée sociologique” (*Revue de l'Institut de Sociologie*, Brussels, 1936, no. 2).