Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s5: IV. Intercourse and Impure Contact
Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s5
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IV. Intercourse and Impure Contact
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THE proverb according to which ‘caste is only a question of food’ is an answer to those to whom it is a question of trade. It proves at least that habit has not been able to lessen, even for the Hindus, the surprise we experience at the scrupulous care with which they observe two very complicated and hampering laws: the first is to refuse any food which may have been prepared or merely touched by people of a caste which they consider inferior; the second is never to take meals with people of a lower caste, which, by virtue of a natural reciprocity, amounts to not taking meals with anybody but equals. Here is a rule which would be strangely disturbing to our democratic habits. Even in India it is not without its drawbacks. The scruples which it maintains have done much to render intercourse between Europeans and natives rarer and more difficult and to prevent Hindus reaping in their travels the benefits of Western civilization.
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The Hindus are at all times great lovers of feasts; common meals occur on all solemn occasions.¹ These restrictions are therefore the more significant. Their authority is so absolute that the Santals—a very low caste in Bengal—have been known to die of hunger in times of famine rather than touch food even prepared by Brahmans.² This reservation, applied to the caste which is regarded as the highest and surrounded by such grovelling respect, shows how ingenious and fertile scruples can be and what variations they often embroider on a primitive theme.
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¹ Cf. Jogendra Chandra Ghosh, *Calcutta Review*, October 1880, p. 280.
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² Barth, *Revue Critique*, 1880, v. II, p. 243.
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Speaking generally, we may take it that only those may eat together who are allowed to intermarry. So here also we must interpret caste in the narrow sense. The twelve sections of the Kāyasths of Bengal may no more eat in company than they may permit alliances with one another.³ However, all things considered, the prohibition here is less strict. Many sections of castes between which marriage is unlawful do not refrain from sharing meals together. Moreover, custom in this respect varies from one part of the country to another, still more than do the marriage laws, and even in the same caste according to the districts amongst which it is dispensed.⁴ The law, however, exists everywhere, though it is complicated by distinctions which seem odd but are exceedingly instructive. ‘Broadly speaking,’ says a report quoted by Ibbetson,¹ ‘no superior tribe will eat or drink from the hands or vessels of an inferior one. But the reputed purifying influences of fire, especially as exercised upon butter and sugar, and the superior cleanliness of metal over earthen vessels, are the foundation of a broad distinction. All food is divided into *pakkī rōṭī*, i.e. bread fried dry with butter; and *kachchhī rōṭī*, i.e. bread not so treated. A Gujarat Brahman will eat the *pakki* but not the *kachchi rōṭī* from a Gaur; a Gaur from a Taga; any Brahman or Taga from a Rajput; any Brahman, Taga, or Rajput from a Jat, Gujar, or Ror. With the exception of Brahmans and Tagas, each caste will drink water from a metal vessel, if previously scoured with earth, from the same people with whom they will eat *pakkī* bread, but they will not drink from earthen vessels except with those whose *kachchhī* bread they can eat. Jats, Gujars, Rors, Rahbaris, and Ahirs eat and drink in common without any scruples. These again will eat a goldsmith’s *pakkī* bread, but not in his house. A Mussulman will eat and drink from a Hindu, but no Hindu will touch either *pakkī* or *kachchhī* from any Mussulman, and will often throw it away if only a Mussulman’s shadow falls upon it. Sugar and most sweetmeats can be eaten from almost anybody’s hand, even from that of a leather-worker or sweeper; but in this case they must be whole and not broken.’ These details will, I think, suffice as an example. The reader will not only excuse me but call down blessings on my head for not aspiring to be exhaustive.
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³ Guru Proshad Sen, *Calcutta Review*, July 1890, pp. 53-4.
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⁴ One or two examples in Elliot, p. 6.
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¹ P. 184.
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One single illustration to show to what oddities this delicate point of honour may lead. Of two much-despised castes in the Panjab, the Chuhras and the Dhanuks, it is said that they mutually refuse to eat one another’s leavings, although they take those of all the other castes, with the exception of the very low-class Sansis! We should never finish if we had to distinguish, even within the rather limited measure of facts known to us, between the rules which govern cooked rice and other foods; between Bengal, where all castes, or nearly all, take food prepared by the Brahmans, and the more strict custom which in several castes in the rest of northern India excludes Brahman cooking and only admits that of a member of the caste itself. We need do no more than give an idea of this wearisome variety.
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There remains to be indicated at least one very characteristic and general distinction, that which, in the greater part of India—in the whole of India, it is said, except in Madras¹—separates the castes into two categories : those from whom water may be taken and those whose touch pollutes it. The categories are very variable ; for, according to Guru Proshad Sen, all the Bengalis, including the Brahmans, are in this regard, with rare exceptions, proscribed by the rest of the Hindus. The division is therefore all the more remarkable. It obviously arises from some special importance attached to water.
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¹ Guru Proshad Sen, *Calcutta Review*, July 1890, pp. 54-5; cf. Nesfield, *Caste System*, pp. 26, etc.
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It is perhaps the same idea which gives rise to other strange distinctions that superstition draws between parched grain and grain cooked with water. Here is another significant example. In the Panjab the Hindus readily take pure milk from the Muslim tribe of the Ghosis ; ¹ they would reject it with horror had they any reason to fear that it had been mixed with water. It is true that causes, more or less obscure, perhaps simple, practical necessities, have in more than one case caused the rule to be relaxed. Every one in the Panjab takes water from the hands of the very low caste of Jhinvars,² but it is a tribe which chiefly supplies domestic servants. In many villages ³ the potter may distribute water to every one—at least on condition that a special vessel is reserved for each caste. At certain village communal meals ⁴ all the castes meet together, but each eats separately. These very arrangements prove the vitality of the principle. It is closely attached to considerations of external purity.
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¹ Ibbetson, § 497.
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² Ibid., § 617.
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³ Bombay Gazetteer, v. II, p. 383.
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⁴ Ibid., p. 382.
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It is by reason of similar scruples that the higher castes are obliged meticulously to avoid contact with the lower. The profession of certain castes is so despised that they are not allowed even to dwell within the village; they are relegated to a place outside the community, despite all the services which they render to it either as servants or as craftsmen. Still more are they rigorously excluded from the communal meals at which the village assembles. There are even villages of Brahmans¹ to which all the other castes are strictly refused admittance. It is unnecessary to add that this consideration is not of equal weight in all the castes; it has various manifestations, but it is never absent.
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¹ Dubois, I, pp. 134-5.
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A Panjabi proverb declares that a Bisnoi mounted on a camel followed by a score more will immediately throw away his food if a man of another caste happens to touch the last animal. One would expect less fuss among humbler people, yet Hunter² gives a rather humorous account of an adventure which happened to himself. It was in Orissa; he had hired men from several castes to carry his palanquin. Not only did the representatives of two castes refuse to associate for the purpose of working together, but each time that one caste relieved the other the palanquin had to be duly placed on the ground before the new relay would touch it. There are scarcely any Hindu families but will, if possible, consult the predictions and advice of the astrologer when grave issues arise. Nevertheless, in spite of his important functions, if he has to enter a house, great care is taken to remove the mats lest they should be polluted by his touch.
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² Orissa, II, p. 140.
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Impurity does not arise from personal contact alone; it is communicated through the medium of objects. New distinctions occur to aggravate the case. Here is just one instance. We are in the home of a Chitpawan Brahman at Poona:
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The strictness of the rule that certain articles in a house may be touched and certain articles may not be touched by a middle-class or Śūdra servant complicates the arrangements in a Brahman household. A Kunbi servant cannot go to the god-room, kitchen, and dining-room of the house. He may touch bedding and woollen clothes; he may not touch fresh homewashed cotton clothes. He may touch dry grain; he can touch no grain that is wet. These rules are puzzling and much care is required in teaching and learning them.
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Even Brahman servants are hampered by rules. When they have bathed and put on woollen, flax, or silk clothes they are pure and can touch anything. They become impure if they touch anything impure, such as bedding or such wearing apparel as a coat or a turban. If they touch a shoe or a piece of leather, they have to bathe. A schoolboy after his bath has to get a servant or a younger brother or sister to turn the pages of his leather-covered school book.’ ¹
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¹ Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency, v. XVIII, part I: Poona, p. 110, note.