Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s2: I. The Brahmanic System of Castes: The Dharmaśāstras and the Epic
Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s2
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I. The Brahmanic System of Castes: The Dharmaśāstras and the Epic
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WE must then, first of all, ascertain in what light the castes are presented to us by tradition ; having observed them in practice, let us see what the literary documents have to say. I do not intend to give here more than a very summary idea of this past, for successfully to define the scope and character of the evidence is a matter of some delicacy.
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The social life of the Hindus is in theory regulated by books whose authorship is attributed to more or less legendary sages, Manu, Yājñavalkya, Vasisṭha, and many others. The place which they accord to civil organization and to criminal repression has contributed, together with a too slavish translation of their Sanskrit title, to make them known as ‘Law-books’, or, to be more exact, ‘Books of the Law’—*dharmaśāstras*. We must not expect to find that they are codes, for of codes they have neither the origin, the form, nor the authority. We are in a country where the religious inspiration which presided over the early organization of societies has been less than elsewhere supplanted by the birth of a secular government. Hindu society is regulated by religious custom, and the law-books are essentially collections of religious precepts. In the absence of a true legislation and under the ever-increasing authority of the Brahmans, they have in the course of time received a sort of official and public sanction. They have, however, only acquired this late in the day, and then not without reservations; it represents a secondary evolution of their history, and in no wise offers conclusive evidence of their primitive character.
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Concurrently, the stream of epic tradition flows on. Very archaic in origin, less archaic in language, it covers a whole period still somewhat imperfectly determined but in any case vast. By its nature it clearly springs from a totally different section of the population. Nevertheless, its huge canvas comprises not only stories in a heroic and legendary vein, but also gives free scope to doctrinal teaching. It was, moreover, formed at a time when the supremacy of the Brahmans and the authority of their precepts in every human concern were irrevocably established. Epic, by its style, can be directly traced to Brahmanic influence. This is perceptible in its many resemblances, often literal, to the ‘Law-books’, in its copious quotations from them, and especially from the most celebrated of them, the code of Manu. Thus, although by its subject, which is national, if not by its language, which is learned, it is addressed to the people as a whole, and although it draws its principal subject-matter from warlike legends, the Epic belongs to sacerdotal tradition. Its field is so wide and the stories so varied that some inconsistency could not fail to creep in; but on the whole the rules laid down and the chief authority are definitely the same in both cases.
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Allowing for slight divergences, we can include in a single survey, without fear of any essential incongruity, the picture which unfolds itself in these two series of documents.
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The theory which emerges shows us a society divided into strictly isolated castes governed by rules very similar to those which are in force to-day. The occupations assigned to each caste are distinct and limited. Marriage is carefully regulated. Only a wife of the same caste can assist her husband in family and sacrificial rites; she alone secures to the son a status equal to that of his father. Born of a woman of a lower caste, the son sinks to his mother’s caste, and his position in the partition of the father’s property is greatly weakened. At the very least the first wife must therefore be of the same caste as the man. He is, moreover, forbidden to marry either within the *gotra* of his father or among his mother’s near relations. As regards food, the distinction between foods allowed and disallowed is set forth with profuse detail; and the use of fermented liquors is condemned as one of the most inexpiable of crimes. The mere glance of a man of low caste is sufficient to pollute a meal, and it is only by exceptional authorizations that food is sometimes allowed to be received from his hands. His very gifts—frankly, I fear this rule has been strained more than once—must be rigorously refused by the Brahman. Several of the most peculiar customs are here established: the marriage of girls before puberty is enjoined, and widows are forbidden to contract a second marriage.
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The extreme sentence is exclusion from the caste, but it is not as a rule without appeal: a whole code of graduated penances permit those who undergo them to re-enter their own social sphere. But the very name of the grave offences (*pātaka*—‘that which causes to fall’, and *upapātaka*) clearly asserts that their natural effect is to cause the guilty man to fall from his place in the caste assigned to him by birth.
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The conformity of the data with those which can be collected by an observer at the present day is striking. There is, however, one important difference: if there is one fact which obtrudes itself in the real life of India, it is the enormous number of castes, their overlapping, and the confusion in which they are involved. In theory there are only four castes, *varṇas*: the Brahmans, priests, and learned man; the Kshatriyas, warriors and nobles; the Vaiśyas, agriculturists and merchants; and the Śūdras, the servant-class, on whom devolve all the menial offices. The Brahmans' only duties are to study and teach the Vedas, to offer sacrifices, and to offer, and above all to receive, gifts. It is the duty of the Kshatriyas to give orders, to protect the people, to offer sacrifices through the medium of the Brahmans and to study the Vedas; the Vaiśyas must raise livestock, cultivate the soil, engage in trade, and give alms, not neglecting either the sacred rites or the study of the written word; the Śūdras have only one essential task—to serve the higher castes. Outside this system there are only barbarous or despised peoples who have no access to the religious and social life of the Brahmanic world, that is to say, foreigners or Mlechchhas.
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What does this fine ordinance amount to in reality? The whole authority and the whole meaning of tradition are involved in this question.
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One preliminary remark: In spite of their dogmatic tone and systematic appearance, we do not need to scan the prescriptions very closely to perceive that a meticulous pursuit of very slight details covers a great many uncertainties and deficiencies. The lofty exclusiveness of the language hides weakness of authority and laxity of practice. This is to be seen in other places besides India. The authorizations are often uncertain and the degree of precision always low. More serious still are the contradictions which, explicit or implicit, are constantly met with from one passage to another.
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The system only admits of four castes : there is no fifth, we are assured. And thus, from the mixture of these castes, considered according to the various imaginable hypotheses, new castes are brought forth, the ‘ mixed castes ’. The degree of respect assigned to each is less in proportion as it postulates the association of a woman of higher caste with a man of lower caste. This is not all. Children, although the offspring of a couple in the same caste, may forfeit their status if the obligatory ceremonies are neglected. They form the class of the Vrātyas, but according as they derive from Brahmans, Kshatriyas or Vaiśyas, the Vrātyas divide, with a symmetry which clearly shows an artificial ordinance, into exactly the same number of distinct castes. We are given the name of all these sections and the trades which are proper to each. But these are certainly only specimens ; these mixtures and complications imply the existence of many others, and the Viṣṇusmṛiti¹ is certainly right in describing as ‘ innumerable ’ the sections which originate in this manner.
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¹ Viṣṇusmṛiti, XVI, 7.
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How far we still are from the simple truth !
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The four castes might at least appear to be isolated by their special functions, but reservations at once begin to pour in. Each of the higher castes is first of all authorized to embrace the mode of life peculiar to the caste which follows it in order of gradation. This declension is limited to cases where it is imposed by lack of means. But make no mistake : we are dealing not with an exceptional case of necessity but with perfectly ordinary facts thinly disguised, simply for the sake of the principle, by a decent pretext, by a reservation which it is hoped may survive the shipwreck of the theory. Let us run through the list of Brahmans who in theory are regarded as unworthy to be invited to funeral feasts : robbers, butchers, hirelings, actors, singers, keepers of low gaming-houses, along with other more harmless professions, figure in the list as very common species. It is evident, therefore, that at that time the ways of gaining a livelihood were as varied among the Brahmans as they are to-day.¹ Manu acted prudently in declaring that a Brahman must always be regarded as a high divinity ‘ whatever trade he may follow ’.²
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¹ Hopkins, *Mutual Relations of Castes*, pp. 39, 52-3.
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² *Mānava Dh. Ś.* IX, 319.
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All Brahmans excluded from the model caste must, however, have been distributed as they are to-day, somewhat extensively among special castes. Manu seems to know nothing of them. He never breathes a word about these castes. He therefore does not pretend so to dispose the facts as to form a true picture, but confines himself to presenting the type of Brahmanic caste in its ideal integrity.
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Regular marriage should only be contracted between members of the same caste. The rules, however, concerning certain marriage ceremonies and matters of inheritance, and the permission to marry, at any rate as second wives, women of lower castes—in fact, the whole theory of mixed castes—proves that the rule was not applied with such uniform severity as the general formula would lead us to suppose. The prohibition against marrying a Śūdra, which in the case of Brahmans and Kshatriyas is repeated with insistence, obviously admits of a great many accommodations. Still more so is this true of the precepts which govern food. Lastly, except for certain reservations, the use of meat itself is tolerated. Abstinence from spirits, which is strongly enjoined elsewhere, appears in certain passages as nothing but a mere counsel of perfection.
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Despite the divine authority behind which it shelters, tradition is not inviolable. Its formulae appear to be absolute, but in a dozen places it warns us that the true rule resides in custom, that it is the usage proper to each region and caste which is law. It is in accordance with this usage that a king who is careful of his duty must regulate his acts and decrees.¹ To a great extent this is still true to-day. It is a trait which characterizes the whole past of India, and on which the most experienced authorities have rightly insisted.² There are texts which show that lofty descent is most easily recognized by purity of conduct—to such a degree has the intermixture of castes obscured all lineal descent.³ Others ascribe to an earlier and more perfect terrestrial age the time when the ordinance of castes was strictly maintained,⁴ thus recognizing that the rules of theory are in fact strangely elastic.
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¹ Mānava Dh., VIII, 41.
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² V. N. Mandlik, op. laud., p. 438
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³ Mahābhār., Vanap. 12481, Śāntip, 2440; cited by Muir, Sanskrit Texts, I, 134, 484.
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⁴ Mahābhār., Vanap. 11240, ap. Muir, Sanskrit Texts, I, 143.
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As was to be expected, the same impression emerges from the Epic. The discrepancies here are of precisely the same nature as in the law-books. Some of them are interesting; but what strikes us most forcibly is the number of cases in the epic stories where facts are in contradiction to doctrine. We have been prepared for the strict distinction of all professions, and yet all castes take part in an armed conflict.⁵ Droṇa, although a Brahman, is one of the chief heroes of the struggle, and, although the son of a shepherd, Karṇa is one of the most celebrated military leaders. The prestige of Yajatra and Vidura does not suffer although they are descended from a Śūdra.¹ Alliances between Kshatriyas and Brahmans, even between these high personages and the lowest castes, are frequent.² We scarcely find any traces of general religious education for young nobles, although this is enjoined by law;³ still less do we see abstinence from meat or liquor observed by warriors.⁴ And yet the rule is known. More than once the theoretic condemnation is given a prominent place in the same story that bears witness to its violation.⁵ After this, it is not surprising to meet with kings of any and every caste,⁶ when Manu himself admits the possibility of a Śūdra enjoying kingly power.⁷
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⁵ Cf. Hopkins in the Journ. Amer. Orient. Soc., XIII, p. 220.
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¹ Ibid., p. 95.
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² Ibid., p. 344.
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³ Ibid., p. 109.
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⁴ Ibi l., pp. 119, 120.
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⁵ Ibid., p. 120, 352-3.
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⁶ Ibid., p. 137.
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⁷ Māṇava Dh. Ś., IV, p. 61.
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The Epic is by its nature so closely connected with the nobility that it tends to attribute to kings the supremacy which is claimed by the law-books for the Brahmans.⁸ It is none the less explicit at times concerning the incomparable grandeur of the sacerdotal class.⁹ Take the story of Mataṅga. He thinks himself the son of a Brahman; as a matter of fact, he is a child of sin, his father having been a Śūdra; he is in reality only a miserable *outcast*. Informed of his shame by a miracle, he attempts to regain his lost dignity by undergoing great hardships. For centuries he labours in vain; for the space of a hundred years he piously balances himself on one foot, but without avail. Indra on his throne is moved and hastens to him; he lavishes on him the most desirable gifts and promises him exceptional favours. But the one which the penitent solicits is impossible! Thousands and millions of successive births are necessary to obtain the ascent from a lower to a higher caste. Rāma does not hesitate to cut off the head of a young Śūdra whose sole crime is to indulge in religious rites which are in theory forbidden to his caste.¹ Insolence such as this threatens to upset the whole equilibrium of public order, so essential is the maintenance of the prerogatives which belong exclusively to the various castes.
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⁸ Hopkins, loc. cit., p. 73.
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⁹ See the passages cited by Muir, Sanskrit Texts, I, p. 120 et seq.
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¹ See passages cited by Muir, *Sanskrit Texts*, I, pp. 118-20.
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Our main object being to re-establish historical sequence, we are at first disposed to accept these early testimonies regarding the social state of India as the complete and sincere expression of the actual conditions. Are we entitled to do so in the circumstances? Both in epic tradition and in sacerdotal teaching the system is identical;
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but in both it is equally riddled with uncertainties and contradictions, which are tantamount to confessions of failure. Everything reveals the system as artificial and speculative. The facts have no legal basis. At every turn they give the lie to the system—by contradicting it or failing to coincide with it. The system does not even lay claim to be authoritative, since it clearly recognizes the stronger claims of custom. It is, in a word, nothing more than the focusing of an existing situation whose incoherences and complications it sets out to reconcile in an attempt to bring the whole into conformity with an ideal type.
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The explanation of mixed castes can never have deceived any one; ¹ flagrant impossibilities condemn it at sight.
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¹ Cf. Max Müller, *Chips*, II, p. 343.
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In the presence of a number of groups whose multiplicity completely destroyed the exclusive principle of the four castes it became necessary to justify their existence, and the idea was conceived of deriving them from the very principle which they invalidated. The system itself could logically serve but once to explain the first origin of these groups. Also the number of sections which it was possible to explain in this way was certainly inadequate; the geographical names that many of them bore gave the lie at once to the genesis attributed to them. This was of little moment;
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the Hindu mind, once drunk with classifications, is not likely to stick at scruples such as these.
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Actuality, moreover, lent colour to this attempt. There was the case, doubtless often noticed, where the local grouping of people excluded from the paternal caste by their irregular birth and relegated to a lower rung of the social ladder, gave rise to a new subdivision. On this basis, with the deceptive mental discipline of the Hindu mind, more than dubious hypotheses were converted into positive assertions. They offered a twofold advantage: that of creating an appearance of symmetry, which is irresistibly attractive to Indian theorists, and that of eliminating from the principle laid down as the root of the social organization the very confusion which seemed likely to compromise it.
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The propensity was so strong that it manifested itself in several ways. Is it not Manu himself¹ who represents as Kshatriyas reduced to the condition of Śūdras by diverse offences—omission of rites and contempt for Brahmans—the tribes of the Pauṇḍrakas, Choḍas, Drāviḍas, Kāmbojas, Yavanas, Śākas, Pāradas, Pahlavas, Cīnas, Kirātas, Daradas—that is to say, all the non-Hindu warrior populations of India or of foreign countries—Dravidians and Chinese, Persians and Greeks, Scythians and aborigines? They are, of course, bound by no tie of origin to the Brahmanic organization; but it was essential at all costs to fit them into the preconceived scheme!
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¹ X, 43-4.
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First of all, the theory of mixed castes makes a troublesome breach in the system. But what is to be said of the four principal castes? We cannot doubt that the relegation of all the Śūdras to the condition of a mere mass of slaves is purely arbitrary. It is contradicted by the very status assigned to them from the civil point of view by parallel texts. Is it possible to believe that the three higher castes have ever formed those exclusive, compact, and ordered unities which one has pictured to oneself? The Brahmanic caste is working out its destiny under our eyes. But how? Not, as we have already seen, as a true caste, but as an agglomeration of innumerable castes, unequal in rights and social rank, separated in this respect by immense distances. We have only to recall the long lists of degraded and fallen Brahmans enumerated by tradition. It was not otherwise when the law-books were drawn up. As to the Kshatriyas and the Vaiśyas, the few traces which have survived even of their name are as doubtful as they are rare. Where it does appear, the name may have been taken afresh from tradition during recent times—a proceeding of which we have proved examples—in order to serve the arbitrary pretensions of a given group. They can nowhere be encountered as separate, authentic castes. Up to the present we cannot see in them more than generic names, an enormous frame destined to hold and conceal the actual existence of an infinite number of divisions.
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I have elsewhere had occasion to show,¹ in an article on the Indian theatre, how the Hindus proceed in order to establish theoretic teaching. A liking for classifications and a contempt for facts, a disregard of our idea of logic, and a superstitious respect for formulae—all these characterize their mental outlook, which conspires with the tyranny of the scholastic mind and the uncontested domination of a sacerdotal class to foster the growth of systems and to lend to the most artificial of these an entirely unmerited prestige. What is true of literature is no less true of religion and law, and we must not be shocked in India by opinions which elsewhere might be regarded as rash. The Hindu never hesitates to make generalizations regardless even of those reservations which to us seem most indispensable.
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¹ *Revue des Deux Mondes*, May 1891.
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To take one example out of a hundred : There are four conditions of life for the Brahman faithful to his caste-duties. As a novice he must study the scriptures and the rules of sacrifices ; later he marries and founds a family of sons who will carry on the tradition of family ceremonies.
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Some retire into solitude in order to give themselves up to a life of austerities. Others, still more detached from the world, become mendicant ascetics. In the hands of the theorists these four conditions become regular stages which are to all appearance obligatory in the career of a Brahman. Are we to take these requirements seriously? We should be very wide of the mark if, following the texts, we were to imagine all Brahmans addicted solely to study and penance, dividing their career into four periods and dedicating the two last to the life of a hermit and to the profession of a wandering fakir! The editors of the books have simply welded into a system certain isolated and more or less exceptional facts, and lent an imperative aspect to what was no more than a rarely achieved ideal of perfection. In the same way, have we not seen a literary theorist creating a dramatic category out of a single play,¹ and converting a particular case into a universal rule?
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¹ *Revue des Deux Mondes*, art. cit., pp. 93 seq.
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Thus these religious and moral legislators obeyed a natural inclination which is very powerful in the Hindu mind. They also obeyed, more or less willingly, a personal and selfish tendency, the operation of which is everywhere patent, and finally deprived their work of the authority of a straightforward document. Before all else their aim was to establish the absolute supremacy of the Brahmans. With them everything bears on their own glorification and is intended to further their interests. The books which come from their schools are designed to exalt their power and strengthen their pre-eminence. Sole purveyors of literature, it is they also who gave form to the epic traditions. It is therefore only natural that, in spite of accidental discrepancies, these latter reflect with as much insistence as the sacerdotal literature itself the pretensions of the Brahmans, and point out with equal emphasis the privileges to which they lay claim.
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The law-books not only reserve for the Brahmans all the influential functions and privileges, but also invariably graduate the scale of criminal punishment in their favour. We have seen how the representative council or general assembly of the caste, under the direction of its appointed chief, is empowered to maintain internal law and order, to pronounce the necessary exclusions, or to assess the terms on payment of which the delinquent may escape exclusion. In this connexion Manu and Yājñavalkya speak only of assemblies of Brahmans versed in the sacred texts.¹ The idea of extending Brahmanic power is apparent here; and indeed even to-day a Brahman, alone or co-opted to the council of the caste, often takes the preponderant part in these decisions. The whole of this literature is imbued with and animated by the spirit of Brahmanic ambition. It may be difficult to show in any detail the extent of its arbitrary action. It is certain that it colours more than one part of the picture, and that it misrepresents several of the motive-forces of the social organization as it has been sketched for us. The testimony of literary tradition must then clearly be accepted, but with many reservations.
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¹ Concerning these parishads, cf. Hopkins, Mutual Relation of Castes, pp. 43 seq; V. N. Mandlik, Vyavahāra Mayūkha, p. 160, note.
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This tradition seems to alternate strangely between correspondence with existing facts and divergence from them. Everything is easily understood, and contradictions are explained as local diversities, impossible symmetries as attempts at systematic explanation—provided we admit that the tradition corresponds to an absolutely analogous situation, some which still existed in recent times. This situation is only presented in a false perspective, with generalizations, corrections, and interpretations such as might be inspired either by the turn of mind peculiar to the Hindu or by a supreme preoccupation with Brahmanic interests.
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I say analogous, but I should not venture to say identical. If any one fact stands out clearly from a general review of the castes, it is mobility of formation under the continuous action of fairly stable principles. This process is certainly not new;
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the causes which produce it have been at work for many centuries. The early situation which corresponds to the editing of the law-books and the Epic may therefore have diverged more or less in matters of detail from the present state of affairs, but it was wholly similar in its broad outlines. It is merely necessary, in the organization of castes as elsewhere, to reserve the possibility and probability of modifications such as time never fails to introduce into human institutions,¹ even after that first and decisive evolution which has determined their individuality.
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¹ It has been readily admitted (e.g. H. Mayne, *Hindu Law and Usage*, pp. 67-8, 79-80) that the restrictions which prohibit marriage from caste to caste may have been less strict formerly, and that, in a general way, the rules of the caste have probably become increasingly exclusive. The completion in a final form of the *dharmaśāstras* and their growing authority would sufficiently explain the incessant tendency towards the spread of more rigorous and uniform practice. It is clear that our sources are far from allowing us to fix with precision, in the historic and documental period, the stages of a decisive evolution in this matter.
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In short, it is not theory which can give an account of facts; it is facts which help us to see theory in its true light, and confine it within its proper limits.
Linked texts (5)
- Mānava Dharmaśāstra — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit
- Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra — Viṣṇu, Sanskrit
- Vasiṣṭhadharmasūtra — Vasiṣṭha, Sanskrit
- Yājñavalkyasmṛti — Yājñavalkya, Sanskrit
- Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit