The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s7.15

v2.c41.s7.15

The doctrine of the Egypto-Dravidian origin of caste is supported by the following arguments. (1) It is admitted that the Brahmans of the south claim Aryan descent and that they are differentiated from the bulk of the Dravidian population in facial appearance, complexion, and intellectual habit; but the justice of the claim to Aryan connexion is discounted on the score that it may be explained on the Egyptian hypothesis. This contention proves nothing, and leaves the traditional view unaffected. (2) It is alleged that the bearers of the heliolithic culture claimed divinity and established in Indonesia and elsewhere ruling classes claiming divine descent, while the traditional Brahman theory is that every Brahman is a god. The alleged facts are wholly problematical; the divinity of rulers when it exists can be traced to various ethnic causes, and the claims of the Brahmans are easily explicable without going beyond the Aryans.¹ (3) The carriers of the heliolithic culture are asserted to have been worshippers of the sun and the serpent; the Nambudiris, who are specially conservative, worship the cobras in Nayar households, and Brahman was a solar deity. The Brahmans of the Rigveda, however, do not worship cobras, and do not know a god Brahman. (4) The sacred cord of the Brahman is of cotton² which indicates an original association of the caste with cotton spinning, which certainly was no art of the Vedic Aryans. This, it is held, is a clear indication of the descent of Brahmans from foreigners who earned the gratitude and homage of the people of India by teaching them to spin and weave. The argument is clearly without value, and Slater himself admits that India itself was the home of the art of spinning and weaving cotton—primarily tree cotton; so that it is wholly needless to look to Egyptians of problematic reality. Moreover, it will be seen that the account of the origin of caste accepted by Slater is in effect merely a transfer to an Egyptian element of the tendency to stress racial distinctions, which together with occupation he believes to explain caste. A final complication introduced by Slater is his view that when they achieved supremacy the Brahmans became largely Aryanized in blood, because they aimed at securing the fairest wives.