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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s5: The Puruṣa-sūkta No Index to Caste Origins or Social Order

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s5

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

c9.s5.1

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*.

c9.s5.2

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.

c9.s5.3

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.

c9.s5.4

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.

c9.s5.5

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.

c9.s5.6

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.

c9.s5.7

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).

c9.s5.8

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.

c9.s5.10

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.

c9.s5.11

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.

c9.s5.12

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*.

c9.s5.13

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.

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