Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s3: II. The Brāhmaṇas and the Vedic Hymns

Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s3

Language
English

II. The Brāhmaṇas and the Vedic Hymns

c7.s3.1

THE law-books and the Epic synchronize with an epoch when the Hindu world was definitely constituted. They rest on a twofold foundation of productions still more ancient : a stratum of sacerdotal literature, and below that the treasure of the Vedic hymns—that collection which, in the narrower terminology of the West, is called specifically the Veda. It is necessary for us to go back to this earlier stratum.

c7.s3.2

From ancient times the teachings proper to the sacerdotal schools were condensed into a species of aphorisms called Sūtras, of which we possess numerous collections. It is from this source that the law-books were drawn. Each is ultimately connected, in a manner more or less direct, with one or other of the schools. This technical literature itself crowns a long preparation represented by the Brāhmaṇas, the most remote testimony of religious reflection applied to the acts of sacrifice : singular books, where in the course of describing successive ceremonies the most rash etymological tricks and the most profound mysticism, childish deductions, and daring speculations jostle one another. Nowhere do they treat of set purpose the subject which we are considering. We find only accidental indications, which are all the more valuable as they are few and far between.

c7.s3.3

According to an eminent authority, Herr Weber, ‘ the organization of castes is fully developed at this period of the Brāhmaṇas ; from that date we find ourselves confronted by the same situation which appears to us idealized and codified in the laws of Manu.¹ In default of definite statements, the allusions and fragmentary information permit of no doubt on the subject.

c7.s3.4

¹ A. Weber, *Indische Studien*, X, 2.

c7.s3.5

The four castes appear there as already established in their respective individualities and privileges. The rights and duties of the Brahmans in particular are in complete accord with more modern descriptions ; ² the necessary purity of the race is duly inculcated.³ Members of the three high castes are bound to take a first wife of equal rank, without prejudice, of course, to other secondary unions.⁴ The caste is destroyed by persistent neglect of initiation ; ⁵ it would be destroyed by many other offences if graduated expiations did not open a way of escape from this supreme penalty.⁶ All intercourse with the excluded members, *patitas* (the fallen), is forbidden ; ⁷ no union with them is allowed ; no food may be taken from their hands. The preoccupation with impure contacts is ever present; it is forbidden to eat with people of low origin,¹ or to use the vessels of Śūdras,² and a Brahman may not be a doctor³ on account of the pollutions rendered inevitable by the profession. The use of liquors is disapproved;⁴ the use of meat is, in certain cases at least, prohibited; while the flesh of various animals is forbidden.⁵ The mixed castes themselves find a place here, in fact, if not in theory. A considerable number are enumerated by name.⁶

c7.s3.6

² Ibid., pp. 41 et seq.

c7.s3.7

³ Ibid., p. 69.

c7.s3.8

⁴ Ibid., p. 21.

c7.s3.9

⁵ Ibid., p. 21.

c7.s3.10

⁶ Ibid., pp. 101 et seq.

c7.s3.11

⁷ Ibid., p. 21.

c7.s3.12

¹ Ibid., p. 74.

c7.s3.13

² Ibid., p. 16, note.

c7.s3.14

³ Ibid., p. 64.

c7.s3.15

⁴ Ibid., p. 62.

c7.s3.16

⁵ Ibid., pp. 62, 63-4.

c7.s3.17

⁶ In the celebrated invocation of the Śatarudrīya; cf. *Indische Studien*, II, pp. 32 seq.

c7.s3.18

If the rules are tempered in numerous ways, that by no means implies that they are in course of formation. In our times also, if we wished to resolve custom into general formulae, we should be thrown back on a multitude of similar reservations. We must learn to fathom the meaning of these uncertainties and contradictions, which are open, according to circumstances, to various explanations.

c7.s3.19

Taking certain passages literally, it would seem that the dignity of a Brahman was at that time the reward of knowledge and virtue rather than the privilege of birth.⁷ But experience, verified by all subsequent literature, teaches us the true significance of the language; it is nothing but a device to glorify the supposed virtue and knowledge of the priests, and in no way involves forgetfulness of the rights conferred by birth alone. In one sense it might find literal justification; neglect of religious obligations of which ignorance or vice may become the source is sufficient to bring about expulsion from the caste.

c7.s3.20

⁷ Weber, loc. laud., pp. 70-1.

c7.s3.21

If the expiations for Brahmans are here rendered singularly mild in many cases, are we therefore to conclude that but little value was attached to the prerogatives whose integrity these were intended to restore? I am all the less inclined to believe it, since even to-day the purifications and fines are, as we have seen, exceedingly light. Think, too, of that passionate glorification of Brahman greatness which is constantly exhibited,¹ of the absurdly exaggerated fees, amounting to hundreds of thousands of cows, which are demanded for their intervention in the sacrifices,² and of the coolness with which it is declared that in face of a lowlier adversary it is the judge's duty always to decide in favour of a Brahman, whatever wrongs he may have committed! How could the author or editors of these books—all Brahmans—have been niggardly in granting to the Brahmans facilities either for evading or softening painful obligations or expiating their offences? This very indulgence proves with what prestige they were already invested.

c7.s3.22

¹ Weber, loc. laud., pp. 35 et seq.

c7.s3.23

² Ibid., pp. 52 et seq.

c7.s3.24

Without doubt this literature already rests on the foundations revealed by the law-books and the Epic. It is a pointless task to search in it for contemporary evidence of the foundation of the system, but in its exaggerations and in the completely exclusive inspiration by which it is permeated, it shows still more clearly at work the inclinations, interests, and defects whence has sprung, not the organization itself, but the system which gave it its dogmatic form. It exposes very clearly its artificial and speculative character. With its roots at least it comes into contact with the most primitive literary strata; among the Vedic hymns are several which are beyond all doubt contemporary with the period during which it was growing up under the direction of the priests.

c7.s3.25

One of these hymns is held to be the earliest document explicitly proving the existence of castes in India. It is that which describes how the universe issued in its entirety from the substance of the primitive male, Purusha. The text declares that ‘the Brahman was his mouth, the Rājanya (Kshatriya) his arms, the Vaiśya his thighs’, and that ‘the Śūdra was born from his feet’. By common consent this passage is among the most recent of the venerable collection in which it ranks, but it has profited to some extent by the prestige which attaches to the whole. On the other hand, in order to weigh up and comment on this piece of evidence, scholars have adopted the preconceived idea that the existence of castes must manifest itself in the form of the four castes of the mature system; to my mind, however, nothing could be less warranted.

c7.s3.26

One example will make my meaning clear. Haug,¹ and after him, with more precision, Kern,² have sought to show, contrary to the most generally received opinion,³ that not only were castes perfectly well known at the Vedic epoch, but that they go back farther—to the days when the ancestors of the Iranians and those of the Hindus lived side by side. They base their argument either on the texts of the Avesta or on the more recent evidence which shows the early population of Iran divided into four *pishtras*, analogous to the four *varṇas* of India. The existence of castes is nowhere attested in the history of Persia. The caste-idea is, however, in the opinion of Kern and Haug, so indissolubly connected with the quadruple division of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaiśyas, and Śūdras, that in order to discover its equivalent in a kindred region they unhesitatingly conclude that the caste-system must have had a parallel existence in the two countries! I consider—and I shall return to this point—that Kern is perfectly justified in comparing the two series. I readily admit that there is more than an outward resemblance between them—there is an intimate affinity; but despite the fusion which has operated in India between this quadruple division and the caste-system nothing proves that the connexion is original or necessary, or that the one implies the other.

c7.s3.27

¹ *Brahma und die Brahmanen*, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Munich.

c7.s3.28

² *Indische Theor. over de Standenverdeeling*, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Amsterdam, 1871, pp. 24 et seq.

c7.s3.29

³ A *résumé* of the controversy on the Vedic existence of castes will be found in Zimmer, *Altind. Leben*, pp. 185 et seq.

c7.s3.30

I must make my meaning clear. The official doctrine acknowledges four castes only, but reality bursts these narrow confines and reveals them in infinite numbers. And here there is a conflict of vital importance between facts and theory—the only one indeed which is not readily settled. Is it possible to argue a difference of time? But, as we have just seen, theory observes and admits by more than one indication and also by the very contradictions in which it is involved that from an early date castes have been very much more numerous than theory appeared at first sight to assume. I have already mentioned how unlikely it is that a Kshatriya and a Vaiśya caste ever really existed. These huge categories are, moreover, incompatible with the very rules—that jealous exclusivism, that corporate and autonomous organization—which characterize caste as it is to-day.

c7.s3.31

The millions of persons in India who lay claim to the title of Brahman, and who are, in a sense, united by that name, are in reality divided into a multitude of perfectly distinct sections, each one of which possesses the attributes and features that characterize this caste. Ordinarily we speak of the Brahmanic caste; we should say the *Brahmanic castes*. We include in a single generic term a multiplicity of castes, each one of which has its own individuality. Manu’s admissions on the subject of the degraded Brahmans prove that he did exactly the same. Then, as now, the name Brahman included them all only as a general honorific title. The Mahābhārata mentions in one place¹ that the son of a Brahman is a Brahman whatever his mother’s origin may have been. This contradiction of Manu’s rules is not necessarily so absolute as it first appears; no matter what theory may say, it is quite possible for an individual to remain a Brahman although he suffers a change of caste.

c7.s3.32

¹ *Anuśāsanap*. 2515, quoted by Kern, loc. laud., p. 42.

c7.s3.33

In our own time the Rajputs, the military class of Western India, claim to correspond—as they do in fact in rank and profession—to the Kshatriyas of the system. Does this mean that they form only one caste, or that they are merely the progressive subdivision of a single caste? We have observed, on the contrary, that under our very eyes castes assume without any right a name which offers them social advantages. Why, therefore, should this be regarded as new?

c7.s3.34

Here we put our finger on the true situation: the names of Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaiśya and Śūdra represent not four primitive ‘castes’, but four ‘classes’. These classes may be exceedingly ancient; it is only in later times that they have been superimposed on the castes. Different by nature and origin, the true castes, or the organisms from which they sprang, were from the beginning more diverse and more numerous. This explanation alone accounts for the glaring incongruity apparent between fact and theory.

c7.s3.35

It is here that comparison with the Iranian texts assumes its full value. Between the four Iranian *pishtras* and the four Hindu *varṇas*, the symmetry is significant:¹ the Athravas or priests corresponding to the Brahmans, the Rathaeśthas or warriors to the Kshatriyas, the Vāstrya-Fshuyants or head of families to the Vaiśyas, and the Hūitis or manual workers to the Śūdras. The general resemblance is striking, and throws into the shade a few doubtful differences. The Vaiśyas are, in Brahmanic tradition, chiefly regarded as cultivators and merchants, but Buddhist literature in calling them generally gṛhapatis ¹ or ‘householders’ brings them strictly into line with the interpretation of the Iranian category. The Hūiti class is not described with a precision which allows us to institute a conclusive comparison with the Śūdras; but the very manner in which, as is often the case with Śūdras, it is left on one side, and consequently isolated from the three first classes, creates between the two, both represented as classes religiously and socially inferior, yet another and by no means a weak bond. In both cases the definite entry of the individual into the community of the higher classes is marked by an identical ceremony—the investiture of the sacred thread.² The correspondence is therefore perfect.

c7.s3.36

¹ Cf. also Ludwig, *Rig Veda*, III, pp. 243-4.

c7.s3.37

¹ To quote one example only, cf. Majjh. Nikāya, ed. Trenckner, I, 85, 30 et seq.

c7.s3.38

² Spiegel, III, p. 700. It is very probable that in Iran, as in India, it was reserved for the three first classes; the fourth appears to have enjoyed only partial rights and to have been relegated to an inferior position (Geiger, p. 479 seq.). What might seem more doubtful, although Spiegel unhesitatingly accepts it (III, pp. 548-9), is whether the Hūitis were really included among the followers of Zoroastrianism, on whom the investitures ought to be conferred.

c7.s3.39

It has been questioned, and very rightly so, whether the pishtras of Iran ever constituted castes.³ It is another matter to decide whether there existed in Iran germs whence the caste might have sprung, germs from which it has sprung in India. In any case, the four *pishtras* of the Avesta represent only *classes*, and in the beginning it was not otherwise with the quadruple Hindu division. If the partition agrees in both cases, it is because it goes back to a remote date; if castes have been evolved in India alone, it is because this partition is not inherently and indissolubly bound up with the caste-system.

c7.s3.40

³ Spiegel, Eran. Alterthumsk., II, pp. 551 et seq.; Geiger, Ostiran. Cultur, p. 485.

c7.s3.41

I know that there is a tendency to accommodate matters and to claim that the present disintegration is the result of the slow disorganization of a strict primitive unity. This is glaringly impossible. It is, however, a point to which I must return when enumerating the various theories which have been advanced in the endeavour to account for origins. For the present I shall confine myself to the scraps of information furnished by literary tradition; we must probe deeply those indications which its oldest monuments offer for our researches.

Linked texts (5)