Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s3: II. Occupation as the Basis of Caste: Nesfield and Ibbetson
Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s3
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II. Occupation as the Basis of Caste: Nesfield and Ibbetson
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NESFIELD is obsessed by general ethnographic views; his faith in positivist classifications is uncompromising to a degree quite astonishing in an age which has largely renounced all dogmatism. He is at least perfectly clear in his conclusions; we may hesitate to follow him, but we know where he is going.
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Common occupation is, in his eyes, the foundation of the caste; it is the centre round which it has grown up. He admits no other origin; he deliberately excludes all influence of race and religion. In his eyes it is pure illusion to distinguish in India distinct currents of population, Āryan and aboriginal. The wave of invasion was early absorbed in the mass; unity was very soon established, and was already acquired more than a thousand years before the Christian era. Only the constitution of castes succeeded in introducing a disturbing factor, thanks to occupational speciality.
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The castes would otherwise have developed according to an absolute order, the order which the march of human progress follows in life, in agriculture, in the industries; the social rank assigned to each would be precisely that occupied in this sequence by the particular trade which it practises.¹
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¹ Nesfield, *Caste System*, § 9.
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Thus, among the artisan castes he perceives two great divisions: the first corresponds to the trades before metal-working—this is the lower; the second and higher one represents the metallurgical industries, or is contemporaneous with their development. He has expended remarkable ingenuity in establishing on analogous bases within the group to which it belongs the precedence of each caste, as determined in his view by Hindu usage. The groups are thus ranked according as they are more particularly concerned with hunting, fishing, pastoral pursuits, landed property, manual trades, commerce, servile occupations, or sacerdotal functions. To use his own words:²
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² Ibid., p. 88.
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‘Each caste or group of castes represents one or other of those progressive stages of culture which have marked the industrial development of mankind, not only in India, but in every other country in the world. The rank of any caste as high or low, depends upon whether the industry represented by the caste belongs to an advanced or backward stage of culture; and thus the natural history of human industries
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affords the chief clue to the gradations as well as to the formation of Indian castes.’
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Starting from this point, Nesfield shows us the different occupations emerging from the tribe to constitute themselves into sectional units, and these units rising in the social scale according to the trades by which they live.¹ The caste rises from the tribe, the fragments of which it recomposes according to a new principle, and it has retained persistent memories of its origins. It is from the ancient type of the tribe that it has borrowed the narrow marriage-rules and the strict prohibition of all friendly approach to similar groups.
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¹ Nesfield, *Caste System*, §§ 177-8, 180-2.
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According to this theory, the caste-system springs from the regular evolution of social life, starting at its lowest level and following in its slow progression. How he can reconcile this with the relatively late date to which, on the other hand, he refers the constitution of the castes, I do not pretend to understand. What likelihood is there that a thousand years before our era the Hindus were still barbarians, devoid of the most rudimentary elements of civilization?
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Still less can I fathom how Nesfield, holding this point of view, comes to reserve to the Brahmans so decisive a part in this genesis. Indeed, he affirms that ‘the Brahman was the first-born of castes, the model upon which all the other castes were subsequently formed, extending gradually from king or warrior to the tribes practising hunting and fishing, whose rank is no higher than that of the savage’. It is from the Brahmans, thanks to the contagion of example and the necessity for self-defence, that the exclusivism of all the castes emanated.¹ The Brahman is the founder of the system. He it is ² who has invented for his own benefit the rule which alone rendered their constitution complete, the rule prohibiting marriage with a woman of another caste; a curious contradiction of later passages where he derives the regulation of marriage from the traditional usages of the tribe.
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¹ Ibid., §§ 171-2.
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² Ibid., §§ 169, 190.
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It is not that he is duped by the dogmatism of the religious books. In his opinion ‘the old fourfold division was never actually in force in India except as a current tradition, the only reality which attaches to it to this day’. Borrowed from the Indo-Iranian past, it has hardly any other value than that of connecting the diversity of the castes with functional differences. The Vaiśyas and the Śūdras in particular have never been anything except a kind of rubric intended to embrace a multitude of heterogeneous elements.³ But, evidently without overcoming the charm exercised on his mind by positivist constructions, Nesfield has clearly felt that for want of a corrective his theory proved too much, that it ought to be applicable to all countries. In spite of his natural independence, he has also doubtless come under the influence of tradition. However that may be, the concession which he makes to it, far from being inherent in his system, disturbs its whole ordinance. The originality of his thesis is to be found elsewhere. Though others before him have assigned an active part in the genesis of the castes to professional groups, no one has so deliberately found in these their whole evolution. He has also more than any one else connected their characteristic details with tribal memories. In taking his stand on the novel ground of ethnography, he has extended the scope of the discussion and offered a wider basis for interpretation.
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³ Ibid., § 11.
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Several of the ideas which he has let fall in passing might disappear without leaving an appreciable gap. The fusion of the various elements of population was, according to him, accomplished very early, and the complete unity of the whole secured from a remote epoch. However strong it may be, this conviction would give rise to many objections and reservations, but it is not an integral part of his views on the occupational origin of the caste. The same may be said of the etymological deductions and legendary material in which he thinks he can discern from its beginning the history of many castes at the precise moment when they broke off in successive swarms from the original tribes. This part of the work is more remarkable for variety of information and brilliance of treatment than for strictness of method.
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Nesfield has perhaps studied caste too much from its external and present aspect. He has started from everyday experience, a proceeding which has its advantages, but also its dangers. His theory has taken such hold of his mind that he has naturally been led to present it to us as a deductive exposition rather than to demonstrate it step by step. Will he convert many students to a point of view in which a special historical phenomenon is held to be derived from deductions of a purely general character?
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In attributing primary importance, on the one hand, to the occupation and, on the other, to the organization of the tribe, he has at least faithfully summed up the impression we gather from the works of most observers of contemporary Indian life. All are struck by that confusion of more or less extensive ethnical groups, of which I have tried to give some idea, and whose complicated and mobile nature must not be lost to sight. All perceive them in infinite gradations approximating somewhat narrowly to the type of the caste, and to an increasing degree as common occupation was more completely substituted for the bond of origin. Naturally, these two aspects colour their theoretic conclusions.
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Ibbetson's thesis, less complete, and, if I may venture to say so, less forced than that of Nesfield, is based on the same data.¹ Endowed with a mind less systematic and more readily impressed by shades so changeable as to discourage generalizations, he is beset with reservations.
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¹ Ibbetson, op. laud., § 341, etc.
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He nevertheless summarizes in the following words the stages which he discerns in the history of the caste : (1) the organization of the tribe, common to all primitive societies ; (2) the guilds founded on heredity of occupation ; (3) the exaltation, peculiar to India, of the sacerdotal function ; (4) the exaltation of Levitical blood by the importance attributed to heredity ; (5) the consolidation of the principle by the elaboration of a series of entirely artificial laws, derived from Hindu beliefs, regulating marriage and fixing the limits within which it may be contracted, declaring certain occupations and foods to be impure, and determining the conditions and extent of the relations permitted between the castes.
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We see what importance is again attributed here to occupation and the constitution of the tribe ; but this time the role of the Brahmans is reversed. Eager to consolidate a power which was at first founded on their religious learning, but for which this basis was becoming too fragile, they found, according to Ibbetson, in the division of the people into tribes, and the theory of the heredity of occupation which had arisen therefrom, an invaluable suggestion of which they took full advantage. From it they derived that network of restrictions and inhibitions which beset a high-caste Hindu from birth.¹ The Brahmans are thus represented as contributing to the spontaneous organization of the country.
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¹ Ibid., § 212.
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This system may appear more logical than that of Nesfield, but it proceeds perhaps in an even higher degree from a wholly gratuitous conjecture unsupported by a shadow of proof. And what are we to say of this conception of the most essential and characteristic rules of the caste? It regards them, with all their strictness and the absolute sway which they exercise over conscience, as nothing more than an artificial invention of late growth, calculated to further party interests!
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The real weakness of the system is shown by the inordinate importance attributed by Ibbetson—who agrees with Nesfield on this point—to community of occupation. If this really constituted the primitive bond of the caste, the latter would have shown less tendency to split up and disintegrate; the medium which originally united it would have maintained its cohesion.
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Experience shows, on the contrary, how caste-prejudices hold apart people who should be united by the same occupation carried on in the same place.¹ We have seen what a variety of occupations may separate members of the same caste, and this not only in the lower classes, but even in the highest. Nowhere is the abandonment of the dominant profession sufficient in itself to cause exclusion. Occupations are graded according to the degree of respect which they inspire, but the degrees are fixed by conceptions of religious purity. All trades not involving pollution, or at least enhancement of impurity, are open to every caste. Nesfield himself states² that Brahmans may be found carrying on all trades ‘except those which would entail ceremonial pollution and consequent loss of caste’. If the most despised castes multiply themselves into new sections who look down upon the primitive stock, it is not because these adopt a different profession, but merely because they renounce a certain detail of their hereditary occupations which, according to current prejudice, entails pollution. Certain groups of sweepers are in this position.³
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¹ Ibbetson, § 568.
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² Nesfield, 133; cf. also § 183.
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³ Ibbetson, § 154.
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It is true that many castes render a kind of worship to the implements proper to their trade.¹ The fisherman sacrifices a goat to his new boat; the shepherd smears the tail and horns of his beasts with ochre; the ploughman pours an offering of sugar mixed with melted butter and a few grains of rice over his plough at the spot where it breaks up the first sod of earth; the artisan worships his tools; the warrior worships his weapons of war; the scribe does homage to his pen and inkstand. Interesting as these customs are, they only go to prove that people of a single caste, being engaged in a variety of occupations, may render this sort of respect to symbols of the most diverse kinds.
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¹ Nesfield, § 161.
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Many castes take their name from their dominant occupation; but this only refers to a generic denomination, the application of which does not at all necessarily correspond to the limits of the caste. Baniā (merchant) is, like Brahman or Kshatriya, a designation in which it would be very incorrect to see the name of a caste; to do so would be to unite in a single province a number of groups which, having neither the right to intermarry nor to eat together, themselves form distinct castes.² Agricultural castes are numbered by dozens in a single district, and the Kāyasths, or scribes, of Bengal, in spite of a common professional name, are really divided into as many castes, distinguished by geographical or patronymic names, as there exist among them endogamous groups with particular usages and special jurisdiction. It is the same everywhere.
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² Ibbetson, §§ 532-3.
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It may be that in certain cases a local professional title embraces a group wholly united in one single caste. This will be the exception. The bond of occupation is extremely frail, and its unity is broken by the slightest accident. It certainly does not constitute the pivot of the caste.
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As the outcome of speciality of occupation, it would be no more than a guild like those of the Middle Ages or of the Roman world. Who could confuse the two institutions? The one is confined solely to artisans, enclosed within regular limits and confined in its action to the economic functions for which it was created by necessity or interest; the other permeates the whole social state, regulating the duties of all and governing private life down to its most intimate functions. There is nothing more simple and natural than that castes and guilds should meet at certain points, for both are corporations. No one denies that community of occupation has contributed to bring together or limit certain castes of workmen or artisans. We may sometimes see individuals drawn into the orbit of a new caste, and new sections evolving under the influence of occupation.¹ How many other factors have exercised a parallel and analogous influence!
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¹ Nesfield, §§ 158-9.
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In certain Slavonic countries, in Russia and elsewhere,² there exist—or at least there still existed down to a recent date—village-communities devoted exclusively to a single occupation: villages of shoemakers and of blacksmiths or curriers, communities of joiners and of potters, even of fowlers and beggars. Now these villages are not assemblies of artisans who have merged themselves into a community, but communities which pursue a single industry. It is not occupation which results in grouping, but grouping which results in community of occupation, and has suggested it. Why should it not be the same in India?
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² Hearn, *Aryan Household*, pp. 241-2.
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To grant to community of trade a place among the motive-forces active in shaping the destiny of the caste is a very different matter from claiming it to be the all-sufficient origin of the system. The first proposition is obviously as reasonable as the second is inadmissible.
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A Hindu judge, endowed with a lively sense of the situation with which he is in familiar contact (Guru Proshad Sen ³), desiring to summarize the permanent traits of the caste, has left occupation completely out of account. The essence of the caste must surely be found in those rules which, strictly observed, assure its perpetuity, and, when even slightly violated, entail degradation for the individual and dissolution for the community. Between these rules and occupations there is no connexion, or only an indirect one operating through the medium of scruples of purity. The soul of the caste is elsewhere.
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³ *Calcutta Review*, July 1890, pp. 49 et seq.