Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.425

c10.425

In the Pāli texts the caṇḍālas are clearly depicted as untouchables. A later Jātaka describes the caṇḍālas as the meanest men on earth.⁷ Contact with the air that touched a caṇḍāla’s body was regarded as pollution.⁸ The very sight of a caṇḍāla forboded evil.⁹ Thus the daughter of a seṭṭhi of Banaras, seeing a caṇḍāla, washes her eyes, that have been contaminated by a mere glance at that despised person.¹⁰ Food and drink, if seen by him, were not to be taken.¹¹ Partaking of his food, even without knowledge, led to social ostracism. It is said that sixteen thousand brāhmaṇas lost their caste because they unknowingly took food which had been polluted by contact with the leavings of a caṇḍāla’s meal.¹ There is also the case of a brāhmaṇa, who ate the table leavings of a caṇḍāla from hunger, and committed suicide in order to avoid the contempt of his former caste people.² In a Jātaka story when a caṇḍāla enters a town, the people beat him and render him senseless.³ A similar story recurs in a Jain texts of later times. It is said that when two sons of a mātaṅga leader of Banaras led a singing and dancing party during the festival of a god of love, the high caste people belaboured them with kicks and blows and turned them out of the town.⁴ By and large, the Jātaka references suggest that although the caṇḍālas were despised as untouchables by the members of the higher varṇas, they were especially hated by the brāhmaṇas.