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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9: Chapter V. Vedic Ideology (c. 2500-600 B.C.)

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9

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Chapter V. Vedic Ideology (c. 2500-600 B.C.)

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For the time being, it is out of the question to discuss the literature, political or otherwise, created by the Mohenjo Daro culture. Our oldest documents for some long time to come must be the Vedic. And as we are interested exclusively in *Nīti* or politics, i.e., political institutions and theories, in our present study it is worth while to define the kind of topics covered by this comprehensive category.

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For the purposes of the present author's *Political Philosophies Since 1905* (Madras 1928) politics has been taken to comprise five different topics: (1) constitution and law, i.e., public and private law, (2) economic policy, (3) international and inter-racial relations, (4) societal organization and (5) mental and moral philosophy. Our problem consists in discovering in the field of Hindu literature all those texts which bear on one or other of these five different aspects of group life.

The Categories and Chronology of Vedic Literature

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Important literary documents of Vedic ideology are four-fold: the *Rig*, the *Sāma*, the *Yajus* and the *Atharva Samhitās* or collections. The question cannot be taken to have been finally closed as to whether these four Vedic *Samhitās* represent any chronological sequence or only four different principles of classification or indexing. One should be justified in holding that the *Sāma* *Veda* which = *Rig Veda* for the purposes of chanting cannot be taken to belong to a later period of time than the *Rig Veda*. The recital of hymns and the chanting of the hymns must have constituted one institutional complex and therefore belonged to the same age. Similarly there is no sense in believing that the ritualistic material of the *Yajurveda* which is nothing but formulæ for the priests in connection with the hymns and chants of the sacrifice could have originated separately from or later than either the recital or the principles of chanting. The materials of the three Vedas constitute one organic whole, being but three aspects of one and the same socio-cultural *Gestalt* or form-complex. The synchronism of the three collections or *Samhitās* may be taken therefore to be an ideological, nay, a factual necessity.

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The hymns of the *Sāma Veda* are not however to be taken as direct' reproductions from those of the *Rig Veda*. The *Sāma Veda* has strung each one of its hymns together by taking verses out of the *Rig Veda* from here and there and everywhere. The *Sāma Veda*, besides, does not cover the entire ground of the *Rig Veda*.

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As for the *Atharva Veda* it seems to be a specialized collection of certain items and incidents in the "folk lore" of the age of which the "culture lore" was collected in the three other *Samhitās*. One can easily understand that the *Rik Samhitā* wanted to bring together the *Riks* (hymns) exclusively. This is why the charms, incantations, medical recipes, the manners and customs of the people etc., did not happen to find a place there. It is in these aspects of Vedic life that the *Atharva Samhitā* specialized. But simply because one specialization led to the collection of the *Riks* and the other to that of spells and incantations etc. we cannot be automatically forced to believe that the world of *Ṛiks* had nothing to do with the other items of life. Normally speaking, we should hold that the material of the *Atharva Veda* is as old as that of the *Rig Veda*. Oldest Vedic life comprised the experiences embodied in both these collections.

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Nay, one may take the *Rig Veda*, as does the French Indologist, Barth, to be younger than the *Atharva Veda*.¹ Only a part of the faiths of the period is opened up by the *Rig Veda*. The authors of the *Ṛiks* or rather their compilers have overlooked or ignored many of the institutions such as are to be found, for instance, in the *Atharva Veda*.

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¹ De la Vallée Poussin : *Indo-Européens et Indo-iraniens* (Paris 1924), p. 252.

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There is another problem to attack. Each of these four collections or *Samhitās* is incomplete as literature without certain appendages. These appendages are known as *Brāhmaṇas*. The *Brāhmaṇas*, again, are incomplete without the *Āraṇyakas*, and these last again are incomplete without the *Upaniṣads*. Logically, therefore, we should expect the four items, the *Samhitā* of a *Veda*, the *Brāhmaṇa* of the *Samhitā*, the *Āraṇyaka* of the *Brāhmaṇa*, and the *Upaniṣad* of the *Āraṇyaka* to go together, and constitute one complex. Naturally, therefore, the *Upaniṣad* may be taken to be as old as the *Veda*. It is almost senseless to believe that during certain periods people took interest only in the *Samhitā*, that afterwards they began to take interest in the *Brāhmaṇas*, that later they cultivated the *Āraṇyakas*, and that several hundred years after the compilation of the *Samhitā* people composed or compiled the *Upaniṣads*. From the standpoint of social experience a process of successive emergence of new classes of literature within the orbit of the same *Samhitā* would have hardly any meaning. Sociologically, we should rather be prepared for the circumstance that the *Upaniṣads* were being composed or compiled while the *Samhitās* were being brought together. The process was perhaps that of *pari passu* collection rather than of chronological sequence.

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The chief documents of Vedic literature may now be indicated as follows :

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| *Samhitās* | *Brāhmaṇas* | *Āraṇyakas* | *Upaniṣads* |
| *I. Rig Veda* | *1. Aitareya* | *Aitareya* | *Aitareya* |
| | *2. Kausitakī, or Sāmkhyāyana* | *Kausītakī* | *Kausītakī* |
| *II. Sāma Veda* | *1. Panchavimśa* | X | *Chhāndogya* |
| *= Rig Veda for chanting purposes* | *2. Jaiminīya* | *Jaiminīya* | *Kena* |
| *III. Yajur Veda* | | | |
| *(a) Black* | | | |
| *1. Taittirīya* | *Taittirīya* | *Taittirīya* | *Taittirīya* |
| *2. Kaṭhaka* | | | |
| *3. Maitrāyaṇī* | | | |
| *4. Kapiṣṭhala* | | | |
| *(b) White : Vājsaneyī* | *Śatapatha* | X | *Brihadāraṇyaka* |
| *IV. Atharva Veda* | *Gopatha* | X | X |

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But the problems of chronology cannot be dismissed or dealt with in a naïve manner simply because of logical or sociological necessity. The fact remains that we are dealing with long periods and extensive regions.

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To a certain extent the problems of Hellenic culture from the earliest pre-Homeric and Homeric times down to Lycurgus of Sparta (c 650 B.C.) and Solon of Athens (c 550 B.C.) may be taken as parallel to those of Vedic and pre-Vedic culture down to Bimbisāra, Mahāvīra and Sākyasimha (c 550 B.C.). The subsequent periods in Greece and India for about two centuries were likewise more or less similar both in form and content. The Socratic, post-Socratic, and Sophistic speculations down to Aristotle and Alexander (c 300 B.C.) might be easily treated as synchronous with the Upaniṣadic and post-Sākyan or "Buddhist" and other speculations of the Hindus down to Kauṭalya and Chandragupta Maurya (c 300 B.C.).

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The regional and racial factors of the Vedic culture-complex are essentially similar, although on a much larger scale, to those of the Homeric. The theatre of the Homeric culture-complex is furnished by such heterogeneous elements as Asia Minor, the islands and the mainland of Greece. And in the problems of chronology also Vedic India does not present a special case. These considerations might suggest relatively modest conjectures as to the antiquity of the most ancient strata of the Vedic texts. We have to fix our attention on the fact that Hesiod is generally assigned the ninth century B. C. and that Homer is not placed anywhere previous to the middle of the eleventh century B.C.

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Until the researches in the Mohenjo Daro fields compel the archæologists to push back the epochs of Vedic India in point of time it may not be reasonable, therefore, to think of the oldest Vedic texts as older than 1200-1000 B.C.

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Vedic literature may be conveniently although somewhat arbitrarily taken to be a literature of nearly a thousand years from, say, 1500-1200 B.C. i.e. the epoch of the Bharatas, the Tritsus and the Yadus etc., to the beginnings of Jainism and Buddhism, say, c. 600 B.C.² i.e. to the powerful kingdoms of Kāsī, Kośala, Magadha, and so forth. This is an extensive period and the literature indicates the rise and fall of myriads of races or tribes as well as the gradual submission of virtually the whole of Northern India to Vedic institutions and ideas.

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² *Supra*, pp. 62-65; N. C. Bandyopadhyaya: *Development of Hindu Polity and Political Theories* Part I. (Calcutta 1927), pp. 66-73, 129-152.

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In regard to the region and epoch of origin, each and every hymn, *sūkta*, rite, ruling, ceremony, incantation, magic and what not will have to be treated on its own merits. A generically Vedic culture can hardly be a sociologically scientific category. It presents a sub-continental *Gestalt* of multi-racial morphology and diverse socio-regional ecologies.

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Although the question is anything but clear, Vedic chronology can for certain purposes be tentatively taken to be as follows³ :

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³ *The Cambridge History of India* Vol. I. (1922), pp. 112-113, 147-149. Although the dates are being adapted from Keith's two papers in this *History* the interpretation of the Vedic complex as presented' here is fundamentally different from his (cf. pp. 114-116).

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| 1. | *Rig Veda Samhitā* | : | c 1200 B.C.—1000 |
| 2. | *Other Samhitās* | : | 1000 B.C.—800 |

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| 3. | *Brāhmaṇas* | : | 800—600 B.C. |
| 4. | *Upaniṣads* | : | 600—400 B.C. |
| 5. | *Sūtras* (i. *Srauta*, ii. *Gṛihya*, iii. *Dharma*) | : | 400—200 B.C. |

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While it is extremely difficult to avoid using the term Vedic in a generic manner as covering practically everything from the *Samhitā* to the *Upaniṣad* and the *Sūtra* it should be proper always to mark out the precise text and let it speak for itself. One word, "Vedic", must not be permitted to cover the most varied transformations or revolutions, racial and social, institutional as well as ideological, that took place in Northern India during nearly one thousand years from Sudāsa to Bimbisāra.

Vedic Positivism

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The ideals of the Ṛiṣis of the Vedic culture-complex are not very metaphysical or other-worldly, the atmosphere of sacrifices, hymns, prayers and gods notwithstanding. The literature is preoccupied with the annihilation of the enemy, the seizure of enemy properties, the distribution of the booty, the expansion of one's territory, and the attainment of the highest position in the society of men. It describes jealousies, ambitions, hatreds, wars, elections, harangues, and rivalries for accession to the throne.⁴

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⁴ Zimmer: *Altindisches Leben* (Berlin 1879), pp. 162-165

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The regime of *stena* (thieves) is feared in the *Rig Veda* (II. 23, 16). The *Atharva Veda* (XIX, 17) writes of the fears and dangers of the night, such as thieves, wolves and snakes. Criminology is in evidence.

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The *Rig Veda* (X, 173) furnishes us with a hymn sung on the occasion of installing an elected king. It speaks of the steadfastness of the rock, Indra, the heaven, the earth, and the mountain, and it calls upon the king to be true or loyal to the viṣ (folk).

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The *Atharva Veda* describes the ceremonies associated with the election of kings. In I, 9, prayer is being offered to Agni to the effect that he should advance the person that is being elected as king to the *śraiṣṭhya* i.e. the first place among the *sajāta* or kith and kin.

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The blessings to be showered on the elected king are likewise the stuff of some of the hymns of the *Atharva Veda*. In III, 4 one of the greetings to the king from the people is described as life up to the 100th year. Indra is prayed to in IV, 22 in order that the king may rise to the highest of human kings and become the only ruler of the world.

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The poets of the *Atharva Veda* likewise are not often carried away by extra doses of idealistic imagination. In IV, 11 we read certain things such as might inspire a Marxist to discover the "economic interpretation of history." The draft-ox is there described as "sustaining the earth and sky." He "sustains the wide atmosphere." He "sustains the six directions." He has "entered into all existence." "With his feet treading down debility, with his thighs extracting refreshing milk, with weariness go the draft-ox and the ploughman unto sweet drink."

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At another place (VI, 142) the barley is being asked to rise up and become "abundant with its own greatness,"

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to be "unexhausted like the ocean." The "increase of barley" as furnishing the material foundation of life and prosperity has further evoked from Viśvāmitra the following verse:⁵ "Unexhausted be thine attendants, unexhausted thy heaps, thy bestowers be unexhausted, thy eaters be unexhausted," says he. From food resources to population the entire gamut is embodied in this prayer of a Vedic *Ṛiṣi*.

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⁵ Whitney and Lanman: *Atharva Veda* (Harvard Oriental Series 1905), First Half, pp. 163-166, 387. For the homage to the cow (X, 10) see pp. 605-609.

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It is not necessary to be monistic enough to describe the *Atharva Veda* as nothing but a document of economic ideas and institutions. But such verses, and their name is legion, should compel indologists to banish from their mentality the ultra-Hegelian and romantic conception of Vedic literature as being nothing but religious, metaphysical or mystical. It is only necessary to be adequately oriented to Vedic positivism at the threshold of investigations into the literature and life of the thousand years previous to the rise of powerful kingdoms in the age of Bimbisāra, Mahāvīra, and Sākya the Buddha.

The Perspectives of Vedic Political Thought

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The right place of Vedic thought in the history of socio-political speculations requires yet to be appropriately grasped by indologists as well as students of sociology and comparative culture-history. Neither the polity nor the political thoughts of the Vedic *Ṛiṣis* (sages), should there be any, can be adequately explained if one approaches the subject from the angle of mythology and religion or from that of the life-history of the sacrificial priest like Vasiṣṭha or Viśvāmitra, nay, of the tribal chief like, say, Sudāsa. This is why, generally speaking, indologists are misled into one-sided views and fail to visualize the genuine problems of the "fire-sages." One does not require to be a tremendous Vedic philologist in order to understand the most elementary fact that the problems of those *Ṛiks* on fire were oriented essentially to *Rassenkampf* or race-struggle. The conflicts were both inter-group and intra-group. The fire-sagas were harnessed to colonising and expansion on the one hand and to inter-tribal war and peace on the other. Altogether, we encounter the atmosphere of jealousy and rage, for instance, like that of Viśvāmitra (*Rig Veda* III, 33, 53, 9-11) and the evocation and development of the aggressive personality of the *viṣ* (race, tribe or folk) group.

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An important, perhaps the most important item in the Vedic complex is the *viṣ* itself. It is not enough to know only the chief or the priest, oriented to warfare as each is. We cannot afford to ignore the real centre of political as well as social and economic interest in the Vedic *milieu*, namely, the *viṣ* (people).

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A paramount element in the public life of Vedic India is furnished by the wars of the colonising i.e. Aryan *viṣ*-groups with the Dasyus (original inhabitants). Wars among the colonising i.e. Aryan *viṣ* groups themselves, e.g., the five *kriṣṭayah*, *kṣitayah* or *jātāh*, namely, Yadu, Anu, Druhyu, Turvasa and Puru constitute a second factor of importance. External or foreign politics, to use modern categories, form the foundations of *viṣ* activities. It is the *viṣ* nucleus that is abroad "conquering and to conquer," and it is the "world-conquests" of these *viṣ*-groups that the fire-*riṣis* or sages are promoting in and through their *Ṛiks* (X, 84, 3).⁶

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⁶ See the chapter on "Völker und Stämme" in Zimmer: *Altindisches Leben* (Berlin 1879) pp. 103-104, 118-122, 127-128, 162-163: and A. B. Keith's chapter on "The Age of the *Rig Veda*" in the *Cambridge History of India*, Vol. I. (1922), pp. 81-86.

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Vedic polity cannot be identified with the polity of the chieftain and the priest. It is essentially the polity of the *viṣ*, the demos, the mass. It is the harangues in the "crowd" and addressed to the crowd, no matter whether in the form of hymns, prayers or incantations, that constitute the ideological ecology of the Vedic complex. It is the movements, the mobilizations *en masse*, the *charaiveti*⁷ (move on) of the folk that furnish the *élan vital* of Vedic men and women.

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⁷ *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*, VII, 15.

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The *Yajurveda Taittirīya Saṃhitā* (I. viii, 12) is well up in harangues. The following hymn tells its own tale:⁸

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⁸ Keith: *The Veda of Black Yajus School*, Part I. (1919) pp. 123-124.

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"Notified is Agni, lord of the house; notified is Indra, of ancient fame; notified is Puṣan, all-knower, notified are Mitra and Varuṇa, increasing holy order; notified are sky and earth of sure vows; notified is the goddess Aditi, of all forms; notified is he, N.N. descendant of N.N. in this folk, this kingdom, for great lordship, for great overlordship, for great rule over the people.

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"This is your king, O Bhāratas; Soma is the king of us Brāhmaṇas.

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"Thou art the bolt of Indra slaying foes;
with thee may he slay his foe.

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"Ye are overcomers of foes.

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"Protect me in front, protect me at the side, protect me from behind, from the quarters protect me: from all deadly things protect me."

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One of these harangues is worded as follows in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (VIII, 12-15):⁹ "Do ye proclaim him, O Indra, as overlord and overlordship, as paramount ruler and father of paramount rulers, as self-ruler and self-rule, as sovereign and sovereignty, as king and father of kings, as supreme lord and supreme authority." The manifesto goes on in the same strain. The *viṣ* is being told that "the lordly power has been born, the eater of the folk hath been born, the breaker of citadels hath been born, the slayer of *asuras* hath been born, the guardian of the holy power hath been born, the guardian of law hath been born."

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⁹ Keith: *Rigveda Brāhmaṇas* (Aitareya and Kausitaki), Cambridge, Mass., 1920, pp. 329-330.

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Another harangue may be quoted from the *Atharva Veda* (III, 3), which refers to the restoration of a king who has been deposed.

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"For the waters let king Varuṇa call thee"; says the hymn, "let Soma call thee for the mountains; let Indra call thee for these subjects (*viṣ*); becoming a falcon, fly unto these subjects.

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"Let the falcon lead hither from far the one to be called, living exiled in others' territory; let the two Aśvins make the road for thee easy to go; settle together about this man, Ye his fellows.

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"Let thine opponents call thee; thy friends have chosen thee against them. Indra and Agni, all the gods have maintained for thee security in the people.

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"Whatever fellow disputes thy call and whatever outsider,—making him go away, O Indra, then do thou reinstate this man here."\∗10

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\∗10 10 Whitney and Lanman: *Atharva Veda Samhita* (Cambridge, Mass. 1905), First Half, pp. 87-88.

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Such political harangues, in tune as they are with the democratic atmosphere of the *viṣ*, form a signal feature of Vedic literature.

The Pluralistic Make-up of the Vedic Culture-Complex

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For certain purposes we may go so far as to say that there are virtually not more than two *Veda Saṁhitās*, the *Rig* and the *Atharva*. To the *Rig* belong as a matter of course the *Sāma* and the *Yajus*. This Rigvedic complex may be taken to be the embodiment, as suggested above, of the "culture-lore" in contrast with the *Atharva Saṁhitā* which embodies, say, the "folk-lore." Some of the popular, mass, democratic, and secular, worldly or materialistic elements of Vedic life and thought are by all means to be found in the Rigvedic complex. But it is in the *Atharva Saṁhitā* that we are to look for them in specialized or concentrated forms, although of course the presence of "culture-lore" in this *Saṁhitā* is not entirely to be denied. To one dealing with Hindu positivism of the Vedic period the *Atharva* is therefore bound to loom large.

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The complexity and pluralistic make-up of the Vedic literature are suggested from other angles too. It does not require too much of creative imagination to believe that the 1017 hymns collected in the *Rig Veda Saṁhitā* do not constitute all that the people of the period produced in that line. Nobody can be charged with being too suspicious if it is believed that the entire corpus of beliefs of the Vedic tribes is perhaps not to be found in that compilation. The *viṣ* (people) may be taken to have cherished other faiths and created other hymns through other *Ṛiṣis*. Some of those other beliefs are but incidentally referred to in the collection that we possess today.

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The later manuals of domestic rites speak of certain customs and beliefs that are at least as old as the *Rig Veda* and may be even older. The concept of *rita* (cosmic order, right etc.), corresponding to the Chinese *Tao*,¹¹ indicates an ideology which is opposed to the animistic theory that dominates the extant *Rig Veda Samhitā*. Another non-animistic concept is to be found in the doctrine of *tapas* (self-mortification). This is a practice which produces its results even without prayers to the gods. The concept of the Vedic sacrifices betrays likewise a strand of thought which is somewhat independent of the gods. Indeed, the gods themselves are subject to the power of sacrifices and hymns. This sort of mysticism is independent of the gods and will have to be treated as representative of some other forces without which the Vedic complex is not complete. The incidental and almost ignorable references to such beliefs¹² in the *Rig Veda* point but to the other worlds of life and thought, whose *Beziehungen* or relations to the society described in the Vedas, as Simmel or von Wiese would say, cannot be overlooked in a comprehensive treatment of Vedic institutions.

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¹¹ B. K. Sarkar : *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916), pp. 13-15, 26.

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¹² T. W. Rhys Davids : "The Chakkavatti" in the R. G. Bhandarkar *Commemoration Volume* (Poona 1917) pp. 125-131; Przyluski : "The Three Factors of Vedic Culture" (*Indian Culture*, January 1935).

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The diverse regional values of the Vedic texts must not be overlooked. The territory is divided into four regions, North, South, East and West, in the *Atharva Veda Samhitā* (III, 27, XII, 3), the *Yajurveda Samhitā* (*Taittirīya* IV, 4, 12, 2) and the *Vājasaneyī Samhitā* (XV, 10-14). According to the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (VIII, 14) of the *Rig Veda Samhitā* the "midland" (*madhyadeśa*) knows only of *rājyas* (lesser political organisms) whereas the East is used to *sāmrājyas* (larger statal entities, e.g., "empires"). The rulers in Eastern India are accordingly known as *Samrāṭs*. In these Eastern *Samrāṭs* of the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* one may easily see the counterparts of Janaka of Mithilā (North Bihar) who is known as *Samrāṭ* in the *Brihadāraṇyaka Upaniṣat* (IV, 1) of the *Yajurveda*. Jarāsandha of Rājagriha (South Bihar) whom the *Mahābhārata* (III, 14, 9-10) describes as the "great sovereign and master" can be regarded as another exemplar for the *Aitareya* authors.¹³

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¹³ H. Chakladar: "Contribution of Bihar to Vedic Culture" in the *Proceedings and Transactions of the Sixth All-India Oriental Conference* (Patna, December 1930) Patna 1933 pp. 507-508.

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The *Brahmachārin* of the *Atharva Veda* (XI, 5, 6) is described as a person wandering to the Eastern Ocean. The *Pūrva Samudra* (Eastern Ocean) is known to the *Rig Veda* (X, 136) too. The *nāvah samudriyāh* (*Rig*, I, 25, 7) or sea-going vessels need not be taken as referring to the Western Ocean alone but to the Eastern as well.

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Altogether, the Eastern origins of some of the earliest strands of Vedic literature seem very plausible. It cannot be reasonable to look upon North-western India and the midland as the original home of the entire Vedic institutions and ideas. Eastern India, especially Magadha and Videha, i.e. Bihar (North and South) will have to be accorded a due place in the making of the Vedic culture-complex.

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While acknowledging the debts of Aryan or Vedic culture to India it should at the same time be reasonable to suspect that the Aryanization of Magadha (Northern Bihar) and Videha (South Bihar) was skin-deep.¹⁴ The Aryans of the *Madhyadeśa* (Kuru-Pāñchāla) region could not but look upon the inhabitants of the *Prāchyadeśa*, the region to the East of the *Sadānīrā*¹⁵ (Gaṇḍaki) River as wanting in sanctity and unsuitable for the performance of sacrifices.

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¹⁴ N. Dutt: *Early History of the Spread of Buddhism* (Calcutta 1925) pp. 36-38, 81-84; H. C. Chakladar: "Eastern India and Aryavarta" in the *IHQ.*, for March 1928.

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¹⁵ Macdonell and Keith: *Vedic Index* Vol. II, (London 1912) pp. 421-422.

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The category, "Aryan", is being used in the linguistic, philological or cultural sense. The "racial," ethnological or blood pluralism of the Vedic ecology is an independent consideration and must not be taken to be identical with the heterogeneity implied in the *charaiveti* or expansion of a dominant culture in the sphere of alien cultures, as discussed in the present context. It is necessary to take note of the unscientific manner in which the category "Aryan" is very commonly taken in the ethnological or racial sense.

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In much later works like the *Manu Saṁhitā* (X, 5) Māgadha and Vaideha are to be found among the "mixed castes," and described as owing their origin to *apasāda* or low birth, e.g., the union of a higher caste woman with a relatively lower caste man. Now Māgadha literally denotes an inhabitant of Magadha and Vaideha an inhabitant of Videha. One can easily suspect, therefore, that in the tradition represented by Manu these regions of Eastern India are treated with contempt as being extra-Vedic or extra-Brāhmaṇic, perhaps semi-Vedic and semi-Brāhmaṇic. In Manu's ethnology, again, the Lichchhavis of Vesāli and the Mallas of Kusinārā are Kṣatriya-Vrātyas. Now Kṣatriya-Vrātyas are Kṣatriyas who became Vrātyas, i.e., lost the genuine Kṣatriyahood on account of neglecting to perform the initiation (*upanayana*) ceremony. In this instance, also, the suspicion is strong that these "republican" races of Eastern India, well-known in the Jātaka stories relating to Sākya the Buddha's contemporaries, are treated in the hundred-percent Vedic tradition as somewhat inferior in social status.¹⁶

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¹⁶ R. Fick: *Die Sociale Gliederung im nordöstilichen Indien zu Buddhas Zeit* (Kiel 1897), Ch. I.

The Puruṣa-sūkta No Index to Caste Origins or Social Order

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Among the indologists there is often a tendency to read into the Vedic literature some very modern *mores* and institutions. The *Puruṣa-sūkta* (*Rig Veda*, X, 90), composed by the poet or philosopher, Nārāyaṇa, has been the subject of much modernistic interpretation.¹⁷ The castes and caste morals of recent times are alleged to be already in evidence in the Vedic formula as incorporated in those verses. But strictly speaking, neither the origins of classes or castes nor the facts of social superiority or inferiority can be discovered in the atmosphere of this *Sūkta*.

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¹⁷ B. Barua's *History of Pre-Buddhistic Indian Philosophy* (Calcutta 1921, p. 33) says, for instance, that it is clearly implied in the expressions of Nārāyaṇa that "his views are absolutely in favour of the existing caste system or class distinctions." But the author has not tried to explain where and how the "caste system" has been "defended" or justified by Nārāyaṇa.

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At one place the *Sūkta* says that the Puruṣa's mouth became the Brāhmaṇa and at another we read that Indra and Agni sprang from the mouth. In the one case the mouth is mentioned first, but in the other instance the mouth is mentioned third, the first place being given to the mind and the second to the eye.

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According to this latter arrangement, then, the Moon that springs from the mind is perhaps superior to the Sun that springs from the item that is mentioned next, namely, the eye. And, therefore, Indra and Agni are to be taken as inferior respectively to the Moon and Sun.

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Further, the *Sūkta* mentions the mouth twice but in two different positions. Similarly the feet are mentioned twice and this, again, in two different ways. In the first instance, the feet occupy the fourth place, and the Śūdra is supposed to have sprung from them. In the second instance, the feet occupy the fourth place, and the Śūdra arose the earth. In the first instance, the feet are the last to be mentioned, but in the second instance the feet have precedence before the ear which is the eighth in order.

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In the *Sūkta*, again, at one point the breath of the Puruṣa gives rise to the god of wind. But at another point the air arose from the navel. In other words, the gods of wind and air are two different categories with two independent origins, and these are as different as the breath and the navel.

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On the face of it, the enumeration should be treated as indiscriminate. If the authors of the *Puruṣa-sūkta* are to be credited with a certain amount of coherent thinking, logical order or sense of system we shall have to understand them as having propounded a dogma of precedence or pre-eminence in which the navel (and correspondingly the air) is superior to the head (and correspondingly, the sky), the head (sky) as superior to the feet (earth), and feet (earth) as superior to the ear (four quarters). And, again, as already indicated above, the mind (Moon) should be superior to the eye (Sun), the eye (Sun) superior to the mouth (Indra and Agni), and the mouth (Indra and Agni) superior to the breath (god of wind).

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Unless the navel be conceded to be superior to the head, and the feet superior to the ear,—simply because the authors have cared to mention these items in that order,—the Brāhmaṇa cannot be superior to the Rājanya and the Vaiśya to the Śūdra. One is not at liberty to have two or three different logics in one and the same *sūkta*. We find that the items have been mentioned in a very haphazard manner. The string of names that we come across here does not constitute a system in any sense. Neither the students of astronomy nor of physics would be inclined to fight over the "value" or the significance to be attached to the place assigned to the natural agencies, the air, the sky, the earth and the four quarters in the *Sūkta*-schedule. No value ought, therefore, to be reasonably attached to the order in which the Brāhmaṇa, the Rājanya etc. have been mentioned in this "award" of the poet Nārāyaṇa as recorded in the *Rig Veda*. The question of the precedence or superiority of some in relation to the others cannot be said to arise in the enumeration, illogical and incoherent as it is.¹⁸

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¹⁸ Contrast B. Prasad: *The Theory of Government in Ancient India* (Allahabad 1927) pp. 12-13.

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The chief value of the *Puruṣa Sūkta* consists in the fact that the social category, Śūdra, is already known. But it does not say anything about his relations *vis-à-vis* the other social categories. Nor do we know anything about the relations of the other categories *vis-à-vis* one another.

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Other "Vedic" texts, e.g., the *Saṁhitās* and *Brāhmaṇas* may perhaps be cited for approaches to the conditions as understood by the caste system. But the *Puruṣa Sūkta* cannot be interpreted to yield anything like that.

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The social condition of the castes described in the Buddhist *Jātakas* and *Vinaya* or in the *Dharmaśāstras* is not to be projected into the milieu of the *Puruṣa-sūkta*.

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The *Puruṣa-sūkta* makes it clear, incidentally, that the Śūdra is not a non-Aryan in the cultural and social sense. Or even if he be a non-Aryan the Aryan has already accepted him as a member of his own societal organization.

The Vaiśya in the Taittirīya "Social Award"

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Certain phrases are often quoted from the Vedic encyclopædia to seemingly fortify the dogma of the alleged social inequalities or of superiority and inferiority among the four orders.¹⁹ The *Taittirīya Samhitā* (VII, 1, i) furnishes an illustration of the “social award” as embodied in the caste system. But there we are told simply that one (the Brāhmaṇa) is the “chief” and another (the Kṣatriya) is “strong” and so forth. It is not possible to wring out of that passage the idea that one is superior to or enjoys precedence over the other. The only social philosophy that can be discovered here is that each one is somebody in his own field.

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¹⁹ Keith: *The Veda of the Black Yajus School entitled Taittirīya Samhitā Part 2* (Cambridge, Mass. 1914) p. 558.

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We need not forget that the Vaiśya who is described there as “fit to be eaten” is likewise somebody in his own field. Nay, the Śūdra, who is “dependent on others,” is “not created after any gods” and is “not fit for the sacrifice”, is also important enough to be regarded as somebody. His position in the social economy is at least equal to that of the horse, as we are told. Thus the question of inferiority in the cases of the Vaiśya and the Śūdra cannot come in automatically. We are to understand from the *Taittirīya Samhitā* “award” simply that each serves a distinct function in the social complex.

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But perhaps the *Taittirīya Samhitā* already relegates the Śūdra to a relatively subordinate position. The Śūdra has been declared in this “award” to be “not fit for the sacrifice.” In the cases of the other three, especially of the Kṣatriya and the Vaiśya no such discriminating award has been made. The social inferiority of the Śūdra as unprivileged may therefore be taken to be an item in the Vedic thought of the period in question.

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But so far as the Vaiśya is concerned, we find that he does not have to *kowtow* to the others. He is of course superior to the Śūdra and is on a par with the Kṣatriya and the Brāhmaṇa. Indeed, in so far as he is fit for the sacrifices he becomes "divine", as a matter of course, like the members of the other two orders (*Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* III, 2, 1, 39-40). The dogma of social precedence is robbed of all substantial significance by this doctrine of the Vaiśya's equality with the Brāhmaṇa and the Kṣatriya.²⁰

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²⁰ B. K. Sarkar: "On Some Methods and Conclusions in Hindu Politics" in the *IHQ*., December 1926, pp. 859-861.

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Nay, the *Taittirīya* is quite aware of the Vaiśya's special rôle in the social economy. We are told that the Vaiśyas were "more numerous than the others, for they were created after the most numerous of the gods." It is implied that the Brāhmaṇas and the Kṣatriyas who are not superior to the Vaiśyas have however in point of numbers to yield the palm to the latter. And as the Vaiśya represents the factor "to be eaten" like the cow, another item created along with him, the importance of the economic element appears to have been seized by the authors of the *Taittirīya* school or period.

Non-Aryans, "Lower Classes" and Śūdras in Vedic Polity

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The *Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa* (III, 4, 2, 13) describes the artists, craftsmen and other professional groups, many of whom belonged to the "lower classes" and perhaps not only culturally but also racially non-Āryan communities. The professional classification of the *viṣ* is to be seen in the *Puruṣamedha*. In II, 4 hypnotising and mesmerising is described as the profession of the Nāgas, the Rākṣasas are known to be skilled in the art of harlequins, and unfair war methods described as the characteristics of Piśāchas. Among the "five newly created Vedas" mentioned in the *Gopatha Brāhmaṇa* (I, 10) of the *Atharva Veda* are to be found the following names: *Sarpa* (*Nāga*)*-veda*, *Asura-veda*, *Piśācha-veda*, *Itihāsa* and *Purāṇa*.²¹ Vedic literature in some of its branches is thus the literature dealing not only with the Aryans but with the non-Aryans as well and indicates at the same time different states of cultural *rapprochement* between the two. In this context the categories, Aryan and non-Aryan, are to be understood in both linguistic and racial senses, in case it is at all permissible to speak of non-Aryan "races" as ethnological groups.

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²¹ S. V. Venkatesvara: *Indian Culture Through the Ages* Vol. I. (London 1928) 62-63.

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The folk-elements and along with them the secular and socio-economic elements of the Vedic age are represented not only by the so-called *Dāsas* (non-Aryans) and *Śūdras* but also by the *Niṣādas*, who are known to be the fifth of the *pañchajanāh* (i.e. five classes of men) of the *Rig Veda*. The *Brihaddevatā* (VII, 69) knows this fifth class. The *Yajurveda*²² also in its *Rudrādhyāya* chapter enumerates them along with *Vrātās* (nomads ?), *Takṣaṇs* (carpenters), *Rathakāras* (chariot makers), *Kulālas* (potters), *Karmāras* (blacksmiths), *Punjiṣṭhas* (fowlers), *Svanins* (dog keepers) and *Mrigayas* (hunters). It is to be noticed that certain economic groups are mentioned along with a tribal group, the *Niṣāda*. The Vedic Aryans did not leave this tribal group in splendid isolation. The performer of the *Viśvajit* (world-conquest) sacrifice was required in the *Panchavimśa Brāhmaṇa* (XVI, 6, 7), for instance, to live for three days among the *Niṣādas*. Chiefs also could be made out of *Niṣādas* by Brāhmaṇa priests by offering certain sacrifices (Kātyāyana : *Srauta Sūtra*, I, 12, and Jaimini : *Mīmāmsā Sūtra*, VI, 1, 51-52). Vedic society was not so one-sided in economic or social morphology or philosophico-religious outlook as is made out by many indologists.

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²² This material has been used in R. P. Chanda: *The Indo-Aryan Races* (Rajshahi 1919) pp. 4-6 in another context.

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This interpretation, based as it is on Yāska's *Nirukta*, Aupamanyava and Sāyana (*Rig.* I, 7, 9) is evidently wrong, says Zimmer in *Altindisches Leben* (Berlin 1879, pp. 119-120). The five *janāsah*, *jātāh*, *kritayah*, *kriṣtayah*, *mānuṣāh* etc. of the *Rig Veda* refer, according to Zimmer, to the five leading Aryan races, Yadu, Anu, Druhyu, Turvaśa and Puru. But the reference to the complex of four castes *plus* Niṣāda is not without significance, for it indicates the orientations of scholars during the period of Yāska's *Nirukta* (c 500 B.C.).

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The position of the *Vrātyas* and their assimilation to the socio-cultural institutions of the Aryans are notable instances of liberal tendencies in Vedic ideology.

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Vedic polity, Vedic thought, or Vedic culture is not the work of a generation or two but covers at least a millennium. The terms of language and categories of thought as well as the contents of categories, i.e., the meanings of terms were getting transformed from generation to generation along with the military exploits of the *viṣ* (folk) groups as well as the territorial and socio-economic expansion of the diverse races or tribes. An aspect of all these expansions was to be seen in the fusion between the colonizers (Aryans) and aboriginals (Dasyus) in the earliest period of the *Rig Veda*. Even during the epochs when *pancha janāh* referred to "five tribes or races" and not to the complex of four castes *plus* Niṣāda the friendly relations²³ are known to have been established with the Non-Aryans (both cultural and racial), among other things, through inter-marriage perhaps for military reasons.

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²³ *The Cambridge History of India* Vol. I. (1922), p. 86 (The Age of the Rig Veda by A. B. Keith). For the different strands in Vedic literature see pp. 112-113, 148-149.

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We can watch the operation of Durkheim's principle of the "division of labour" in the processes leading to the expansion of the Vedic *viṣ* (folk). The contest between the aborigines and the Aryan immigrants had to become very intimate on account of economic necessity. The Aryans were not known anywhere in ancient times to display any great taste for manual professions.²⁴ These were relegated by the Greeks and Romans to the slaves. In India also the Aryans, established in villages as they were and practising the pastoral industry as they did, were not much moved to adopt the manual professions. These had to remain in general in the hands of the aborigines or of those classes of the population whose hybrid or questionable origin placed them in the same category. It is the arts and crafts that may be said to have contributed to a great extent to the assimilation of the new comers and the old inhabitants of the soil and therefore to have led to the impact of the materialistic, folk and democratic tendencies on the general culture.

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²⁴ Sénart: *Les Castes dans l'Inde* (Paris 1927) p. 226.

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The propaganda of the Vedic Risis was laid on an extensive scale. The "societal planning" of those sacrificers and colonizers comprised conscious attempts to enrich themselves with the original inhabitants. Efforts to meet them half-way are to be seen in many of the institutions and ideas of Vedic literature from epoch to epoch and region to region. Sociologico-anthropologically the entire mass of Vedic literature may be treated as a huge and age-long series of attempts to Aryanize the Śūdra (and the non-Aryan) and Brāhmanize the Vrātya (or non-Brāhmaṇa Aryan). It is wrong to treat the Vedic texts as documents exclusively of Aryan life and thought, whether in culture or in race. The impact of Non-Aryans, "lower-classes," Śūdras and Vrātyas on Aryans, the attempts of the latter to meet the former half-way, the *rapprochements* of the Aryans and non-Aryans, the culture-contacts, race-fusions, professional "interpendence" and so forth,—all these have gone to the making of Vedic literary stuff. To ignore or overlook these non-Aryan and non-higher elements in the structure of Vedic literature is to misinterpret the urges of life operating on the personality of the men and women in question.

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Vedic polity is on the one hand the polity of *Rassenkampf*, of interracial and intra-racial conflicts. On the other hand, it is the physiognomy and morphology of race-co-operation and class-solidarity that we see in the demographic structure of Vedic society. Vedic India was a melting-pot of races and cultures, and its sociography like that of other areas has to be interpreted as by all means a hybrid.²⁵ Champions of “pure races” and “pure cultures” will be disappointed if they approach this culture with their hypothesis of race-segregation or cultural aloofness such as is generally considered to be unhistorical and sociologically undesirable by Hankins in the *Racial Basis of Civilization* (New York 1924), Gini in *Population* (Chicago 1930), and Martial in “La Race Française et la nouvelle Conception du Mot Race” (*Bevölkerungsfragen*, Munich 1936).

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²⁵ For race-mixture in India see H. Risley : *Census Report of India 1901* (Calcutta) Vol. I., Part III; B. N. Datta : “Ethnological Notes on Some of the Castes of West Bengal” (*Man in India*, Ranchi, July-December 1934 and October-December 1935), “Races of India” (*Journal of the Department of Letters*, Calcutta University, Vol. XXVI, 1935); B. S. Guha : “The Racial Affinities of the Peoples of India” (*Census of India 1931*, Delhi, Vol. I., Part III, 1935), and lecture in English available in German as “Die rassenmässige Zusammensetzung der Indo-Arier und die Rassenmischung in Indian” (*Mitteilungen der Detutschen Akademie*, Munich, 1935, No. 3).

The Vrātya in the Vedic Milieu

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It is questionable how far the category, caste, can be used in connection with the diverse periods of Vedic literature. Probably the category, race, is more appropriate when we have to speak of diverse social or professional groups. It should not be reasonable always to take Śūdra = Dasyu, Dāsa and Non-Aryan. To what extent the Śūdra = “lower classes” is also problematic. In any case the Aryan-non-Aryan *rapprochement* or race-fusion, group-mixture and culture-contact is the outstanding theme of the Vedic texts. In the *Puruṣa Sūkta*, as we have seen, the Śūdra is either not a non-Aryan, or if so, is already assimilated to the Aryan.

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Among the many racial or social transformations that the literary documents of the Vedic complex exhibit none is more important than the elevation of the Vrātyas to the Brāhmaṇical fold or the Brāhmaṇization of the Vrātyas. This item is to be treated as distinct from the incorporation of the Non-Aryans into the Aryan community as well as the assimilation of the lower classes by the societal organisation. The impact of the Vrātya on the Vedic institutions represents new liberal tendencies of the Vedic authors.

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The Vrātyaṣṭoma ceremonies²⁶ are calculated to introduce such Aryan communities as are however not yet subject to Brāhmaṇistic institutions to the Brāhmaṇic community. The Vrātyas belonged to such communities and could not therefore be described as outcastes.

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²⁶ Hauer: *Der Vrātya* (Stuttgart 1927) pp. 5-6.

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The Vrātyas of the Vedic complex are not to be understood in the sense of later law-books like, for instance, those of Baudhāyana (I, 9, 15), i.e., offsprings of *Varṇa-saṁkara* (caste-fusion).

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The *Vrātyatā* or *Vrātya* life consists in observing inappropriate manners (*āchārahīnatā*) and following a life of nomads.²⁷ The Vrātyas, however, are known to be related to the gods, who because of appropriate sacrifices succeeded in reaching heaven. But in the condition of their *Vrātyatā* they do not prosecute Brāhmaṇical studies, and do not practise agriculture or trade.

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²⁷ Hauer, pp. 58, 62, 75, 82-84, 297.

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The purification (*śuddhi*) of the Vrātyas and their elevation take place through the *Vrātyaṣṭoma* sacrifice. The Vrātyas purified become full-fledged Brāhmaṇas.

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According to Manu (X, 20-23),²⁸ who preserves the old Vedic tradition, each of the three Brāhmaṇical orders can have *Vrātyas*. So there are (1) Brāhmaṇa-Vrātyas, Kṣatriya-Vrātyas and Vaiśya-Vrātyas.

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²⁸ Hauer, pp. 223-224, 229.

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The following races or castes belong to the Brāhmaṇa-Vrātyas: Bhrijja-Kaṇṭaka, Avantya, Vātodhana, Puṣpa-śaikhara. Among the Kṣatriya-Vrātyas are mentioned Jhalla, Malla, Licchivi, Naṭa, Karaṇa, Khaśa, and Drāviḍa. The Vaiśya-Vrātyas comprise Sudhanvan, Charya, Karuṣa, Vijanman, Maitra and Sattvata.

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The *Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa* (II, 22) and the *Tāṇḍya Mahā Brāhmaṇa* (XVII, 1-4), both belonging to the *Sāmaveda Saṁhitā* admit the *Vrātya* to Brāhmaṇism after the *Vrātyaṣṭoma* sacrifice on condition that he gives up his Vrātya mores.²⁹

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²⁹ Hauer, pp. 55, 60.

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The divine heroes or saints of the Vrātyas were parallel to the *Ṛiṣis* in importance. They were recognized in the *Sāma Veda Brāhmaṇas* but were unknown in the *Brāhmaṇas* of the *Ṛig* and *Yajur Vedas*. The Vrātya Book of the *Atharva Veda* (XV)³⁰ was of course their special literature. The other three Vedas did not mention them at all.

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³⁰ Whitney and Lanman: *Atharva Veda Saṁhitā* (1905), Second Half, pp. 769-791; Hauer, p. 334.

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The religion and philosophy of the Vrātyas with their *Mahāvrata* (great sacrifice), mysticism and Ekavrātya (Rudra-Mahādeva or highest God) constituted the subject-matter of Book XV of the *'Atharva Veda*.³¹

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³¹ Hauer, pp. 281-282, 308-310.

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The *'Atharva Veda* may have been originally the *Veda* of the Vrātyas. At any rate Book XV of this *Veda* is the embodiment of Vrātya glorification. The association of the Vrātyas with the *Atharva Veda* raises its importance as a document of the demographic and ethnological structure of the Hindu polity of some of the earliest epochs.

Śākya the Buddha, a Risi with a Non-Vedic Upaniṣad

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The ascendancy of Śākyasimha the Buddha (B.C. 563-483) in the sixth century B.C. is an important landmark in the evolution of Vedic culture. It indicates that the assimilation of the Eastern region to the Vedic system was incomplete. East of the Sadānīrā (Gandaki) River the Vedic tradition was not strong enough to withstand a powerful exponent of somewhat non-Vedic or extra-Vedic, nay, anti-Vedic norms. Then, the race or the caste to which Sākya belonged as a native of the Bihar-Nepal frontier was likewise not much subject to the Vedic institutions and ideals.

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And, finally, Pali or Prākrit, probably the language of the people in Eastern India, had not been reduced to nothingness under the domination of Sanskrit. Rather it was powerful enough to be used as the vehicle of a new moral and social philosophy.

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Altogether, the attempts at *rapprochement* between the *Madhyadeśa* and "the East," between the alleged “Aryans” and “Non-Aryans” etc. that had been going on through the ages broke down by the sixth century B.C. And among the innumerable sophists, metaphysicians, *sanyāsins*, mystics, philosophers, social reformers, moralists and so forth the *Upaniṣad* which succeeded in conquering the mind of India was not one of those which grew up in the schools associated with the Vedic complex. It was rather the one which in the sayings of Śākya the Buddha was born out of the urge for a new racial, regional and moral solidarity such as the Vedists of the time failed to offer.

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Śākya the Buddha may be taken to be a professor of one of the *Upaniṣads*, so to say, and thus to be one of the last of the Vedic *Ṛiṣis*. By harping on the doctrine of *sila* (right conduct) he served virtually to restore the Rigvedic concept of *rita* (right way) and inaugurate a Renaissance in Vedic culture. What the *Vrātyaṣṭoma* of the *Atharva Veda* did in the matter of raising the Vrātyas to a higher status that the Śākyan doctrine of *sila* did in regard to thousands of other kinds of Vrātyas, so to say, inhabiting as they did the Eastern regions. The “Aryanizing,” “Brahmanizing” and assimilative work of the older Vedic Ṛiṣis was thus continued by Śākya in a novel guise. From Madhuchchhandā, Brihaspati, Vaśiṣṭha and Viśvāmitra to Śākyasimha we have but one tradition, namely, that of the “*charaiveti*” (march on) of the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (VII, 15), “conquering and to conquer.”³² In Śākya’s tactics we encounter but another item in the pluralistic make-up of the Vedic complex.

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³² See the chapter on “The Peers of Sakyasimha” in B. K. Sarkar : *Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes* (Shanghai 1916) pp. 50-53.

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The Brahmanizers of the Vedic complex succeeded in Brahmanizing the Vrātya among many other non-Brahmanic elements in Eastern India as elsewhere. But they failed to adapt themselves adequately to the racial and regional features such as ultimately found self-expression in the "eightfold path of the Aryan" as unfolded by Sākya the Buddha (*Dīgha-Nikāya, Sutta* 22).³³

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³³ Warren: *Buddhism in Translations* (Cambridge, Mass, U.S.A. 1906).

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The *Ṛiṣis* of the *Yajurveda* Black School *Taittirīya Saṃhitā* (I. viii, 3) had been ideologically quite akin to Sākya the Buddha when they in a mood of self-criticism propagated the penitential formula for the "remaking of man" as embodied in the following verse:³⁴

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