INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON CASTE
List of Paragraphs
1. _The Central Provinces._
2. _Constitution of the population._
3. _The word 'Caste.'_
4. _The meaning of the term 'Caste.'_
5. _The subcaste._
6. _Confusion of nomenclature._
7. _Tests of what a caste is._
8. _The four traditional castes._
9. _Occupational theory of caste._
10. _Racial theory._
11. _Entry of the Aryans into India. The Aryas and Dasyus._
12. _The Sudra._
13. _The Vaishya._
14. _Mistaken modern idea of the Vaishyas._
15. _Mixed unions of the four classes._
16. _Hypergamy._
17. _The mixed castes. The village menials._
18. _Social gradation of castes._
19. _Castes ranking above the cultivators._
20. _Castes from whom a Brahman can take water. Higher
agriculturists._
21. _Status of the cultivator._
22. _The clan and the village._
23. _The ownership of land._
24. _The cultivating status that of the Vaishya._
25. _Higher professional and artisan castes._
26. _Castes from whom a Brahman cannot take water; the
village menials._
27. _The village watchmen._
28. _The village priests. The gardening castes._
29. _Other village traders and menials._
30. _Household servants._
31. _Status of the village menials._
32. _Origin of their status._
33. _Other castes who rank with the village menials._
34. _The non-Aryan tribes._
35. _The Kolarians and Dravidians._
36. _Kolarian tribes._
37. _Dravidian tribes._
38. _Origin of the Kolarian tribes._
39. _Of the Dravidian tribes._
40. _Origin of the impure castes._
41. _Derivation of the impure castes from the indigenous
tribes._
42. _Occupation the basis of the caste-system._
43. _Other agents in the formation of castes._
44. _Caste occupations divinely ordained._
45. _Subcastes, local type._
46. _Occupational subcastes._
47. _Subcastes formed from social or religious differences,
or from mixed descent._
48. _Exogamous groups._
49. _Totemistic clans._
50. _Terms of relationship._
51. _Clan kinship and totemism._
52. _Animate Creation._
53. _The distribution of life over the body._
54. _Qualities associated with animals._
55. _Primitive language._
56. _Concrete nature of primitive ideas._
57. _Words and names concrete._
58. _The soul or spirit._
59. _The transmission of qualities._
60. _The faculty of counting. Confusion of the individual
and the species._
61. _Similarity and identity._
62. _The recurrence of events._
63. _Controlling the future._
64. _The common life._
65. _The common life of the clan._
66. _Living and eating together._
67. _The origin of exogamy._
68. _Promiscuity and female descent._
69. _Exogamy with female descent._
70. _Marriage._
71. _Marriage by capture._
72. _Transfer of the bride to her husband's clan._
73. _The exogamous clan with male descent and the village._
74. _The large exogamous clans of the Brahmans and Rajputs. The
Sapindas, the_ gens _and the_ g'enoc.
75. _Comparison of Hindu society with that of Greece and
Rome. The_ gens.
76. _The clients._
77. _The plebeians._
78. _The binding social tie in the city-states._
79. _The Suovetaurilia._
80. _The sacrifice of the domestic animal._
81. _Sacrifices of the_ gens _and phratry._
82. _The Hindu caste-feasts._
83. _Taking food at initiation._
84. _Penalty feasts._
85. _Sanctity of grain-food._
86. _The corn-spirit._
87. _The king._
88. _Other instances of the common meal as a sacrificial rite._
89. _Funeral feasts._
90. _The Hindu deities and the sacrificial meal._
91. _Development of the occupational caste from the tribe._
92. _Veneration of the caste implements._
93. _The caste_ panchayat _and its code of offences._
94. _The status of impurity._
95. _Caste and Hinduism._
96. _The Hindu reformers._
97. _Decline of the caste system._
1. The Central Provinces.
The territory controlled by the Chief Commissioner of the Central
Provinces and Berar has an area of 131,000 square miles and a
population of 16,000,000 persons. Situated in the centre of the Indian
Peninsula, between latitudes 17°47' and 24°27' north, and longitudes
76° and 84° east, it occupies about 7.3 per cent of the total area
of British India. It adjoins the Central India States and the United
Provinces to the north, Bombay to the west, Hyderabad State and the
Madras Presidency to the south, and the Province of Bihar and Orissa
to the east. The Province was constituted as a separate administrative
unit in 1861 from territories taken from the Peshwa in 1818 and the
Maratha State of Nagpur, which had lapsed from failure of heirs in
1853. Berar, which for a considerable previous period had been held on
a lease or assignment from the Nizam of Hyderabad, was incorporated
for administrative purposes with the Central Provinces in 1903. In
1905 the bulk of the District of Sambalpur, with five Feudatory States
inhabited by an Uriya-speaking population, were transferred to Bengal
and afterwards to the new Province of Bihar and Orissa, while five
Feudatory States of Chota Nagpur were received from Bengal. The
former territory had been for some years included in the scope of
the Ethnographic Survey, and is shown coloured in the annexed map of
linguistic and racial divisions.
The main portion of the Province may be divided, from north-west
to south-east, into three tracts of upland, alternating with two of
plain country. In the north-west the Districts of Sangor and Damoh lie
on the Vindhyan or Malwa plateau, the southern face of which rises
almost sheer from the valley of the Nerbudda. The general elevation
of this plateau varies from 1500 to 2000 feet. The highest part is
that immediately overhanging the Nerbudda, and the general slope is to
the north, the rivers of this area being tributaries of the Jumna and
Ganges. The surface of the country is undulating and broken by frequent
low hills covered with a growth of poor and stunted forest. The second
division consists of the long and narrow valley of the Nerbudda,
walled in by the Vindhyan and Satpura hills to the north and south,
and extending for a length of about 200 miles from Jubbulpore to
Handia, with an average width of twenty miles. The valley is situated
to the south of the river, and is formed of deep alluvial deposits of
extreme richness, excellently suited to the growth of wheat. South
of the valley the Satpura range or third division stretches across
the Province, from Amarkantak in the east (the sacred source of the
Nerbudda) to Asirgarh in the Nimar District in the west, where its
two parallel ridges bound the narrow valley of the Tapti river. The
greater part consists of an elevated plateau, in some parts merely a
rugged mass of hills hurled together by volcanic action, in others
a succession of bare stony ridges and narrow fertile valleys, in
which the soil has been deposited by drainage. The general elevation
of the plateau is 2000 feet, but several of the peaks rise to 3500,
and a few to more than 4000 feet. The Satpuras form the most important
watershed of the Province, and in addition to the Nerbudda and Tapti,
the Wardha and Wainganga rivers rise in these hills. To the east a
belt of hill country continues from the Satpuras to the wild and rugged
highlands of the Chota Nagpur plateau, on which are situated the five
States recently annexed to the Province. Extending along the southern
and eastern faces of the Satpura range lies the fourth geographical
division, to the west the plain of Berar and Nagpur, watered by the
Purna, Wardha and Wainganga rivers, and further east the Chhattisgarh
plain, which forms the upper basin of the Mahanadi. The Berar and
Nagpur plain contains towards the west the shallow black soil in which
autumn crops, like cotton and the large millet juari, which do not
require excessive moisture, can be successfully cultivated. This area
is the great cotton-growing tract of the Province, and at present the
most wealthy. The valleys of the Wainganga and Mahanadi further east
receive a heavier rainfall and are mainly cropped with rice. Many small
irrigation tanks for rice have been built by the people themselves,
and large tank and canal works are now being undertaken by Government
to protect the tract from the uncertainty of the rainfall. South of
the plain lies another expanse of hill and plateau comprised in the
zarmindari estates of Chanda and the Chhattisgarh Division and the
Bastar and Kanker Feudatory States. This vast area, covering about
24,000 square miles, the greater part of which consists of dense
forests traversed by precipitous mountains and ravines, which formerly
rendered it impervious to Hindu invasion or immigration, producing
only on isolated stretches of culturable land the poorer raincrops,
and sparsely peopled by primitive Gonds and other forest tribes,
was probably, until a comparatively short time ago, the wildest
and least-known part of the whole Indian peninsula. It is now being
rapidly opened up by railways and good roads.
2. Constitution of the population.
Up to a few centuries ago the Central Provinces remained outside the
sphere of Hindu and Muhammadan conquest. To the people of northern
India it was known as Gondwana, an unexplored country of inaccessible
mountains and impenetrable forests, inhabited by the savage tribes
of Gonds from whom it took its name. Hindu kingdoms were, it is true,
established over a large part of its territory in the first centuries
of our era, but these were not accompanied by the settlement and
opening out of the country, and were subsequently subverted by the
Dravidian Gonds, who perhaps invaded the country in large numbers from
the south between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Hindu immigration
and colonisation from the surrounding provinces occurred at a later
period, largely under the encouragement and auspices of Gond kings. The
consequence is that the existing population is very diverse, and is
made up of elements belonging to many parts of India. The people of
the northern Districts came from Bundelkhand and the Gangetic plain,
and here are found the principal castes of the United Provinces and the
Punjab. The western end of the Nerbudda valley and Betul were colonised
from Malwa and Central India. Berar and the Nagpur plain fell to the
Marathas, and one of the most important Maratha States, the Bhonsla
kingdom, had its capital at Nagpur. Cultivators from western India
came and settled on the land, and the existing population are of
the same castes as the Maratha country or Bombay. But prior to the
Maratha conquest Berar and the Nimar District of the Central Provinces
had been included in the Mughal empire, and traces of Mughal rule
remain in a substantial Muhammadan element in the population. To
the south the Chanda District runs down to the Godavari river, and
the southern tracts of Chanda and Bastar State are largely occupied
by Telugu immigrants from Madras. To the east of the Nagpur plain
the large landlocked area of Chhattisgarh in the upper basin of the
Mahanadi was colonised at an early period by Hindus from the east of
the United Provinces and Oudh, probably coming through Jubbulpore. A
dynasty of the Haihaivansi Rajput clan established itself at Ratanpur,
and owing to the inaccessible nature of the country, protected as
it is on all sides by a natural rampart of hill and forest, was able
to pursue a tranquil existence untroubled by the wars and political
vicissitudes of northern India. The population of Chhattisgarh thus
constitutes to some extent a distinct social organism, which retained
until quite recently many remnants of primitive custom. The middle
basin of the Mahanadi to the east of Chhattisgarh, comprising the
Sambalpur District and adjoining States, was peopled by Uriyas from
Orissa, and though this area has now been restored to its parent
province, notices of its principal castes have been included in
these volumes. Finally, the population contains a large element of
the primitive or non-Aryan tribes, rich in variety, who have retired
before the pressure of Hindu cultivators to its extensive hills and
forests. The people of the Central Provinces may therefore not unjustly
be considered as a microcosm of a great part of India, and conclusions
drawn from a consideration of their caste rules and status may claim
with considerable probability of success to be applicable to those of
the Hindus generally. For the same reason the standard ethnological
works of other Provinces necessarily rank as the best authorities on
the castes of the Central Provinces, and this fact may explain and
excuse the copious resort which has been made to them in these volumes.
3. The word 'Caste.'
The word 'Caste,' Dr. Wilson states, [1] is not of Indian origin,
but is derived from the Portuguese _casta_, signifying race, mould
or quality. The Indian word for caste is _jat_ or _jati_, which has
the original meaning of birth or production of a child, and hence
denotes good birth or lineage, respectability and rank. _Jatha_
means well-born. Thus _jat_ now signifies a caste, as every Hindu
is born into a caste, and his caste determines his social position
through life.
4. The meaning of the term 'Caste.'
The two main ideas denoted by a caste are a community or persons
following a common occupation, and a community whose members marry
only among themselves. A third distinctive feature is that the
members of a caste do not as a rule eat with outsiders with the
exception of other Hindu castes of a much higher social position
than their own. None of these will, however, serve as a definition
of a caste. In a number of castes the majority of members have
abandoned their traditional occupation and taken to others. Less
than a fifth of the Brahmans of the Central Provinces are performing
any priestly or religious functions, and the remaining four-fifths
are landholders or engaged in Government service as magistrates,
clerks of public offices, constables and orderlies, or in railway
service in different grades, or in the professions as barristers and
pleaders, doctors, engineers and so on. The Rajputs and Marathas
were originally soldiers, but only an infinitely small proportion
belong to the Indian Army, and the remainder are ruling chiefs,
landholders, cultivators, labourers or in the various grades of
Government service and the police. Of the Telis or oil-pressers
only 9 per cent are engaged in their traditional occupation, and
the remainder are landholders, cultivators and shopkeepers. Of
the Ahirs or graziers only 20 per cent tend and breed cattle. Only
12 per cent of the Chamars are supported by the tanning industry,
and so on. The Bahnas or cotton-cleaners have entirely lost their
occupation, as cotton is now cleaned in factories; they are cartmen
or cultivators, but retain their caste name and organisation. Since
the introduction of machine-made cloth has reduced the profits of
hand-loom weaving, large numbers of the weaving castes have been
reduced to manual labour as a means of subsistence. The abandonment
of the traditional occupation has become a most marked feature of
Hindu society as a result of the equal opportunity and freedom in the
choice of occupations afforded by the British Government, coupled with
the rapid progress of industry and the spread of education. So far it
has had no very markedly disintegrating effect on the caste system,
and the status of a caste is still mainly fixed by its traditional
occupation; but signs are not wanting of a coming change. Again,
several castes have the same traditional occupation; about forty of
the castes of the Central Provinces are classified as agriculturists,
eleven as weavers, seven as fishermen, and so on. Distinctions of
occupation therefore are not a sufficient basis for a classification
of castes. Nor can a caste be simply defined as a body of persons who
marry only among themselves, or, as it is termed, an endogamous group;
for almost every important caste is divided into a number of subcastes
which do not marry and frequently do not eat with each other. But it
is a distinctive and peculiar feature of caste as a social institution
that it splits up the people into a multitude of these divisions and
bars their intermarriage; and the real unit of the system and the basis
of the fabric of Indian society is this endogamous group or subcaste.
5. The subcaste.
The subcastes, however, connote no real difference of status or
occupation. They are little known except within the caste itself, and
they consist of groups within the caste which marry among themselves,
and attend the communal feasts held on the occasions of marriages,
funerals and meetings of the caste _panchayat_ or committee for the
judgment of offences against the caste rules and their expiation by
a penalty feast; to these feasts all male adults of the community,
within a certain area, are invited. In the Central Provinces the 250
groups which have been classified as castes contain perhaps 2000
subcastes. Except in some cases other Hindus do not know a man's
subcaste, though they always know his caste; among the ignorant lower
castes men may often be found who do not know whether their caste
contains any subcastes or whether they themselves belong to one. That
is, they will eat and marry with all the members of their caste within
a circle of villages, but know nothing about the caste outside those
villages, or even whether it exists elsewhere. One subdivision of
a caste may look down upon another on the ground of some difference
of occupation, of origin, or of abstaining from or partaking of some
article of food, but these distinctions are usually confined to their
internal relations and seldom recognised by outsiders. For social
purposes the caste consisting of a number of these endogamous groups
generally occupies the same position, determined roughly according
to the respectability of its traditional occupation or extraction.
6. Confusion of nomenclature.
No adequate definition of caste can thus be obtained from community
of occupation or intermarriage; nor would it be accurate to say
that every one must know his own caste and that all the different
names returned at the census may be taken as distinct. In the Central
Provinces about 900 caste-names were returned at the census of 1901,
and these were reduced in classification to about 250 proper castes.
In some cases synonyms are commonly used. The caste of _pan_ or
betel-vine growers and sellers is known indifferently as Barai,
Pansari or Tamboli. The great caste of Ahirs or herdsmen has several
synonyms--as Gaoli in the Northern Districts, Rawat or Gahra in
Chhattisgarh, Gaur among the Uriyas, and Golkar among Telugus. Lohars
are also called Khati and Kammari; Masons are called Larhia, Raj
and Beldar. The more distinctly occupational castes usually have
different names in different parts of the country, as Dhobi, Warthi,
Baretha, Chakla and Parit for washermen; Basor, Burud, Kandra and
Dhulia for bamboo-workers, and so on. Such names may show that the
subdivisions to which they are applied have immigrated from different
parts of India, but the distinction is generally not now maintained,
and many persons will return one or other of them indifferently. No
object is gained, therefore, by distinguishing them in classification,
as they correspond to no differences of status or occupation, and at
most denote groups which do not intermarry, and which may therefore
more properly be considered as subcastes.
Titles or names of offices are also not infrequently given as caste
names. Members of the lowest or impure castes employed in the office
of Kotwar or village watchmen prefer to call themselves by this name,
as they thus obtain a certain rise in status, or at least they think
so. In some localities the Kotwars or village watchmen have begun
to marry among themselves and try to form a separate caste. Chamars
(tanners) or Mahars (weavers) employed as grooms will call themselves
Sais and consider themselves superior to the rest of their caste. The
Thethwar Rawats or Ahirs will not clean household cooking-vessels,
and therefore look down on the rest of the caste and prefer to call
themselves by this designation, as 'Theth' means 'exact' or 'pure,'
and Thethwar is one who has not degenerated from the ancestral
calling. Salewars are a subcaste of Koshtis (weavers), who work
only in silk and hence consider themselves as superior to the other
Koshtis and a separate caste. The Rathor subcaste of Telis in Mandla
have abandoned the hereditary occupation of oil-pressing and become
landed proprietors. They now wish to drop their own caste and to be
known only as Rathor, the name of one of the leading Rajput clans, in
the hope that in time it will be forgotten that they ever were Telis,
and they will be admitted into the community of Rajputs. It occurred
to them that the census would be a good opportunity of advancing a
step towards the desired end, and accordingly they telegraphed to the
Commissioner of Jubbulpore before the enumeration, and petitioned the
Chief Commissioner after it had been taken, to the effect that they
might be recorded and classified only as Rathor and not as Teli; this
method of obtaining recognition of their claims being, as remarked
by Sir Bampfylde Fuller, a great deal cheaper than being weighed
against gold. On the other hand, a common occupation may sometimes
amalgamate castes originally distinct into one. The sweeper's calling
is well-defined and under the generific term of Mehtar are included
members of two or three distinct castes, as Dom, Bhangi and Chuhra;
the word Mehtar means a prince or headman, and it is believed that
its application to the sweeper by the other servants is ironical. It
has now, however, been generally adopted as a caste name. Similarly,
Darzi, a tailor, was held by Sir D. Ibbetson to be simply the name
of a profession and not that of a caste; but it is certainly a true
caste in the Central Provinces, though probably of comparatively late
origin. A change of occupation may transfer a whole body of persons
from one caste to another. A large section of the Banjara caste of
carriers, who have taken to cultivation, have become included in the
Kunbi caste in Berar and are known as Wanjari Kunbi. Another subcaste
of the Kunbis called Manwa is derived from the Mana tribe. Telis or
oilmen, who have taken to vending liquor, now form a subcaste of the
Kalar caste called Teli-Kalar; those who have become shopkeepers
are called Teli-Bania and may in time become an inferior section
of the Bania caste. Other similar subcastes are the Ahir-Sunars or
herdsmen-goldsmiths, the Kayasth-Darzis or tailors, the Kori-Chamars
or weaver-tanners, the Gondi Lohars and Barhais, being Gonds who have
become carpenters and blacksmiths and been admitted to these castes;
the Mahar Mhalis or barbers, and so on.
7. Tests of what a caste is.
It would appear, then, that no precise definition of a caste can
well be formulated to meet all difficulties. In classification, each
doubtful case must be taken by itself, and it must be determined, on
the information available, whether any body of persons, consisting
of one or more endogamous groups, and distinguished by one or more
separate names, can be recognised as holding, either on account of its
traditional occupation or descent, such a distinctive position in the
social system, that it should be classified as a caste. But not even
the condition of endogamy can be accepted as of universal application;
for Vidurs, who are considered to be descended from Brahman fathers and
women of other castes, will, though marrying among themselves, still
receive the offspring of such mixed alliances into the community; in
the case of Gosains and Bairagis, who, from being religious orders,
have become castes, admission is obtained by initiation as well
as by birth, and the same is the case with several other orders;
some of the lower castes will freely admit outsiders; and in parts
of Chhattisgarh social ties are of the laxest description, and the
intermarriage of Gonds, Chamars and other low castes are by no means
infrequent. But notwithstanding these instances, the principle of
the restriction of marriage to members of the caste is so nearly
universal as to be capable of being adopted as a definition.
8. The four traditional castes.
The well-known traditional theory of caste is that the Aryans were
divided from the beginning of time into four castes: Brahmans or
priests, Kshatriyas or warriors, Vaishyas or merchants and cultivators,
and Sudras or menials and labourers, all of whom had a divine origin,
being born from the body of Brahma--the Brahmans from his mouth,
the Kshatriyas from his arms, the Vaishyas from his thighs, and the
Sudras from his feet. Intermarriage between the four castes was not
at first entirely prohibited, and a man of any of the three higher
ones, provided that for his first wife he took a woman of his own
caste, could subsequently marry others of the divisions beneath his
own. In this manner the other castes originated. Thus the Kaivarttas
or Kewats were the offspring of a Kshatriya father and Vaishya mother,
and so on. Mixed marriages in the opposite direction, of a woman of
a higher caste with a man of a lower one, were reprobated as strongly
as possible, and the offspring of these were relegated to the lowest
position in society; thus the Chandals, or descendants of a Sudra
father and Brahman mother, were of all men the most base. It has been
recognised that this genealogy, though in substance the formation of
a number of new castes through mixed descent may have been correct,
is, as regards the details, an attempt made by a priestly law-giver
to account, on the lines of orthodox tradition, for a state of society
which had ceased to correspond to them.
9. Occupational theory of caste.
In the ethnographic description of the people of the Punjab, which
forms the Caste chapter of Sir Denzil Ibbetson's _Census Report_ of
1881, it was pointed out that occupation was the chief basis of the
division of castes, and there is no doubt that this is true. Every
separate occupation has produced a distinct caste, and the status of
the caste depends now mainly or almost entirely on its occupation. The
fact that there may be several castes practising such important
callings as agriculture or weaving does not invalidate this in any way,
and instances of the manner in which such castes have been developed
will be given subsequently. If a caste changes its occupation it may,
in the course of time, alter its status in a corresponding degree. The
important Kayasth and Gurao castes furnish instances of this. Castes,
in fact, tend to rise or fall in social position with the acquisition
of land or other forms of wealth or dignity much in the same manner
as individuals do nowadays in European countries. Hitherto in India
it has not been the individual who has undergone the process; he
inherits the social position of the caste in which he is born, and, as
a rule, retains it through life without the power of altering it. It
is the caste, as a whole, or at least one of its important sections
or subcastes, which gradually rises or falls in social position,
and the process may extend over generations or even centuries.
In the _Brief Sketch of the Caste System of the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh_, Mr. J.C. Nesfield puts forward the view that
the whole basis of the caste system is the division of occupations,
and that the social gradation of castes corresponds precisely to
the different periods of civilisation during which their traditional
occupations originated. Thus the lowest castes are those allied to
the primitive occupation of hunting, Pasi, Bhar, Bahelia, because
the pursuit of wild animals was the earliest stage in the development
of human industry. Next above these come the fishing castes, fishing
being considered somewhat superior to hunting, because water is a more
sacred element among Hindus than land, and there is less apparent
cruelty in the capturing of fish than the slaughtering of animals;
these are the Kahars, Kewats, Dhimars and others. Above these come the
pastoral castes--Ghosi, Gadaria, Gujar and Ahir; and above them the
agricultural castes, following the order in which these occupations
were adopted during the progress of civilisation. At the top of the
system stands the Rajput or Chhatri, the warrior, whose duty is to
protect all the lower castes, and the Brahman, who is their priest and
spiritual guide. Similarly, the artisan castes are divided into two
main groups; the lower one consists of those whose occupations preceded
the age of metallurgy, as the Chamars and Mochis or tanners, Koris
or weavers, the Telis or oil-pressers, Kalars or liquor-distillers,
Kumhars or potters, and Lunias or salt-makers. The higher group
includes those castes whose occupations were coeval with the age
of metallurgy, that is, those who work in stone, wood and metals,
and who make clothing and ornaments, as the Barhai or worker in wood,
the Lohar or worker in iron, the Kasera and Thathera, brass-workers,
and the Sunar or worker in the precious metals, ranking precisely in
this order of precedence, the Sunar being the highest. The theory is
still further developed among the trading castes, who are arranged
in a similar manner, beginning from the Banjara or forest trader,
the Kunjra or greengrocer, and the Bharbhunja or grain-parcher,
up to the classes of Banias and Khatris or shopkeepers and bankers.
It can hardly be supposed that the Hindus either consciously or
unconsciously arranged their gradation of society in a scientific
order of precedence in the manner described. The main divisions
of social precedence are correctly stated by Mr. Nesfield, but it
will be suggested in this essay that they arose naturally from the
divisions of the principal social organism of India, the village
community. Nevertheless Mr. Nesfield's book will always rank as a
most interesting and original contribution to the literature of the
subject, and his work did much to stimulate inquiry into the origin
of the caste system.
10. Racial Theory.
In his Introduction to the _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_ Sir Herbert
Risley laid stress on the racial basis of caste, showing that
difference of race and difference of colour were the foundation of
the Indian caste system or division of the people into endogamous
units. There seems reason to suppose that the contact of the
Aryans with the indigenous people of India was, to a large extent,
responsible for the growth of the caste system, and the main racial
divisions may perhaps even now be recognised, though their racial
basis has, to a great extent, vanished. But when we come to individual
castes and subcastes, the scrutiny of their origin, which has been
made in the individual articles, appears to indicate that caste
distinctions cannot, as a rule, be based on supposed difference of
race. Nevertheless Sir H. Risley's _Castes and Tribes of Bengal_ and
_Peoples of India_ will, no doubt, always be considered as standard
authorities, while as Census Commissioner for India and Director of
Ethnography he probably did more to foster this branch of research
in India generally than any other man has ever done.
11. Entry of the Aryans into India. The Aryas and Dasyus.
M. Emile Senart, in his work _Les Castes dans l'Inde_, gives an
admirable sketch of the features marking the entry of the Aryans
into India and their acquisition of the country, from which the
following account is largely taken. The institution of caste as it
is understood at present did not exist among the Aryans of the Vedic
period, on their first entry into India. The word _varna_, literally
'colour,' which is afterwards used in speaking of the four castes,
distinguishes in the Vedas two classes only: there are the Arya Varna
and the Dasa Varna--the Aryan race and the race of enemies. In other
passages the Dasyus are spoken of as black, and Indra is praised
for protecting the Aryan colour. In later literature the black race,
Krishna Varna, are opposed to the Brahmans, and the same word is used
of the distinction between Aryas and Sudras. The word _varna_ was
thus used, in the first place, not of four castes, but of two hostile
races, one white and the other black. It is said that Indra divided
the fields among his white-coloured people after destroying the Dasyus,
by whom may be understood the indigenous barbarian races. [2] The word
Dasyu, which frequently recurs in the Vedas, probably refers to the
people of foreign countries or provinces like the Goim or Gentiles
of the Hebrews. The Dasyus were not altogether barbarians, for they
had cities and other institutions showing a partial civilisation,
though the Aryas, lately from more bracing climes than those which
they inhabited, proved too strong for them. [3] To the Aryans the word
Dasyu had the meaning of one who not only did not perform religious
rites, but attempted to harass their performers. Another verse says,
"Distinguish, O Indra, between the Aryas and those who are Dasyus:
punishing those who perform no religious rites; compel them to
submit to the sacrifices; be thou the powerful, the encourager of
the sacrificer." [4]
Rakshasa was another designation given to the tribes with whom
the Aryans were in hostility. Its meaning is strong, gigantic or
powerful, and among the modern Hindus it is a word for a devil
or demon. In the Satapatha Brahmana of the white Yajur-Veda the
Rakshasas are represented as 'prohibiters,' that is 'prohibiters of
the sacrifice.' [5] Similarly, at a later period, Manu describes
Aryavarrta, or the abode of the Aryas, as the country between the
eastern and western oceans, and between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas,
that is Hindustan, the Deccan being not then recognised as an abode
of the Aryans. And he thus speaks of the country: "From a Brahman born
in Aryavarrta let all men on earth learn their several usages." "That
land on which the black antelope naturally grazes, is held fit for
the performance of sacrifices; but the land of Mlechchhas (foreigners)
is beyond it." "Let the three first classes (Brahmans, Kshatriyas and
Vaishyas) invariably dwell in the above-mentioned countries; but a
Sudra distressed for subsistence may sojourn wherever he chooses." [6]
Another passage states: "If some pious king belonging to the Kshatriya
or some other caste should defeat the Mlechchhas [7] and establish
a settlement of the four castes in their territories, and accept the
Mlechchhas thus defeated as Chandalas (the most impure caste in ancient
Hindu society) as is the case in Aryavarrta, then that country also
becomes fit for sacrifice. For no land is impure of itself. A land
becomes so only by contact." This passage is quoted by a Hindu writer
with the same reference to the Code of Manu as the preceding one,
but it is not found there and appears to be a gloss by a later writer,
explaining how the country south of the Vindhyas, which is excluded by
Manu, should be rendered fit for Aryan settlement. [8] Similarly in
a reference in the Brahmanas to the migration of the Aryans eastward
from the Punjab it is stated that Agni the fire-god flashed forth from
the mouth of a priest invoking him at a sacrifice and burnt across all
the five rivers, and as far as he burnt Brahmans could live. Agni, as
the god of fire by which the offerings were consumed, was addressed as
follows: "We kindle thee at the sacrifice, O wise Agni, the sacrificer,
the luminous, the mighty." [9] The sacrifices referred to were, in the
early period, of domestic animals, the horse, ox or goat, the flesh of
which was partaken of by the worshippers, and the sacred Soma-liquor,
which was drunk by them; the prohibition or discouragement of animal
sacrifices for the higher castes gradually came about at a later time,
and was probably to a large extent due to the influence of Buddhism.
The early sacrifice was in the nature of a communal sacred meal at
which the worshippers partook of the animal or liquor offered to the
god. The Dasyus or indigenous Indian races could not worship the Aryan
gods nor join in the sacrifices offered to them, which constituted
the act of worship. They were a hostile race, but the hostility was
felt and expressed on religious rather than racial grounds, as the
latter term is understood at present.
12. The Sudra.
M. Senart points out that the division of the four castes appearing
in post-Vedic literature, does not proceed on equal lines. There were
two groups, one composed of the three higher castes, and the other
of the Sudras or lowest. The higher castes constituted a fraternity
into which admission was obtained only by a religious ceremony of
initiation and investment with the sacred thread. The Sudras were
excluded and could take no part in sacrifices. The punishment for the
commission of the gravest offences by a Brahman was that he became
a Sudra, that is to say an outcast. The killing of a Sudra was an
offence no more severe than that of killing certain animals. A Sudra
was prohibited by the severest penalties from approaching within a
certain distance of a member of any of the higher castes. In the Sutras
[10] it is declared [11] that the Sudra has not the right (Adhikara)
of sacrifice enjoyed by the Brahman, Kshatriya and Vaishya. He was
not to be invested with the sacred thread, nor permitted, like them,
to hear, commit to memory, or recite Vedic texts. For listening to
these texts he ought to have his ears shut up with melted lead or
lac by way of punishment; for pronouncing them, his tongue cut out;
and for committing them to memory, his body cut in two. [12] The Veda
was never to be read in the presence of a Sudra; and no sacrifice
was to be performed for him. [13] The Sudras, it is stated in the
Harivansha, are sprung from vacuity, and are destitute of ceremonies,
and so are not entitled to the rites of initiation. Just as upon the
friction of wood, the cloud of smoke which issues from the fire and
spreads around is of no service in the sacrificial rite, so too the
Sudras spread over the earth are unserviceable, owing to their birth,
to their want of initiatory rites, and the ceremonies ordained by the
Vedas. [14] Again it is ordained that silence is to be observed by
parties of the three sacrificial classes when a Sudra enters to remove
their natural defilements, and thus the servile position of the Sudra
is recognised. [15] Here it appears that the Sudra is identified with
the sweeper or scavenger, the most debased and impure of modern Hindu
castes. [16] In the Dharmashastras or law-books it is laid down that
a person taking a Sudra's food for a month becomes a Sudra and after
death becomes a dog. Issue begotten after eating a Sudra's food is of
the Sudra caste. A person who dies with Sudra's food in his stomach
becomes a village pig, or is reborn in a Sudra's family. [17] An
Arya who had sexual intimacy with a Sudra woman was to be banished;
but a Sudra having intimacy with an Arya was to be killed. If a Sudra
reproached a dutiful Arya, or put himself on equality with him on a
road, on a couch or on a seat, he was to be beaten with a stick. [18]
A Brahman might without hesitation take the property of a Sudra; he,
the Sudra, had indeed nothing of his own; his master might, doubtless,
take his property. [19] According to the Mahabharata the Sudras are
appointed servants to the Brahmans, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. [20]
A Brahman woman having connection with a Sudra was to be devoured by
dogs, but one having connection with a Kshatriya or Vaishya was merely
to have her head shaved and be carried round on an ass. [21] When a
Brahman received a gift from another Brahman he had to acknowledge it
in a loud voice; from a Rajanya or Kshatriya, in a gentle voice; from a
Vaishya, in a whisper; and from a Sudra, in his own mind. To a Brahman
he commenced his thanks with the sacred syllable Om; to a king he gave
thanks without the sacred Om; to a Vaishya he whispered his thanks;
to a Sudra he said nothing, but thought in his own mind, _svasti_,
or 'This is good.' [22] It would thus seem clear that the Sudras
were distinct from the Aryas and were a separate and inferior race,
consisting of the indigenous people of India. In the Atharva-Veda
the Sudra is recognised as distinct from the Arya, and also the
Dasa from the Arya, as in the Rig-Veda. [23] Dr. Wilson remarks,
"The aboriginal inhabitants, again, who conformed to the Brahmanic
law, received certain privileges, and were constituted as a fourth
caste under the name of Sudras, whereas all the rest who kept aloof
were called Dasyus, whatever their language might be." [24] The
Sudras, though treated by Manu and Hindu legislation in general as a
component, if enslaved, part of the Indian community, not entitled to
the second or sacramental birth, are not even once mentioned in the
older parts of the Vedas. They are first locally brought to notice in
the Mahabharata, along with the Abhiras, dwelling on the banks of the
Indus. There are distinct classical notices of the Sudras in this very
locality and its neighbourhood. "In historical times," says Lassen,
"their name reappears in that of the town Sudros on the lower Indus,
and, what is especially worthy of notice, in that of the people Sudroi,
among the Northern Arachosians." [25]
"Thus their existence as a distinct nation is established in the
neighbourhood of the Indus, that is to say in the region in which, in
the oldest time, the Aryan Indians dwelt. The Aryans probably conquered
these indigenous inhabitants first; and when the others in the interior
of the country were subsequently subdued and enslaved, the name Sudra
was extended to the whole servile caste. There seems to have been some
hesitation in the Aryan community about the actual religious position
to be given to the Sudras. In the time of the liturgical Brahmanas
of the Vedas, they were sometimes admitted to take part in the Aryan
sacrifices. Not long afterwards, when the conquests of the Aryans were
greatly extended, and they formed a settled state of society among
the affluents of the Jumna and Ganges, the Sudras were degraded to
the humiliating and painful position which they occupy in Manu. There
is no mention of any of the Sankara or mixed castes in the Vedas." [26]
From the above evidence it seems clear that the Sudras were really
the indigenous inhabitants of India, who were subdued by the Aryans as
they gradually penetrated into India. When the conquering race began
to settle in the land, the indigenous tribes, or such of them as did
not retire before the invaders into the still unconquered interior,
became a class of menials and labourers, as the Amalekites were to the
children of Israel. The Sudras were the same people as the Dasyus of
the hymns, after they had begun to live in villages with the Aryans,
and had to be admitted, though in the most humiliating fashion,
into the Aryan polity. But the hostility between the Aryas and the
Dasyus or Sudras, though in reality racial, was felt and expressed
on religious grounds, and probably the Aryans had no real idea of
what is now understood by difference of race or deterioration of
type from mixture of races. The Sudras were despised and hated as
worshippers of a hostile god. They could not join in the sacrifices
by which the Aryans renewed and cemented their kinship with their god
and with each other; hence they were outlaws towards whom no social
obligations existed. It would have been quite right and proper that
they should be utterly destroyed, precisely as the Israelites thought
that Jehovah had commanded them to destroy the Canaanites. But they
were too numerous, and hence they were regarded as impure and made to
live apart, so that they should not pollute the places of sacrifice,
which among the Aryans included their dwelling-houses. It does not
seem to have been the case that the Aryans had any regard for the
preservation of the purity of their blood or colour. From an early
period men of the three higher castes might take a Sudra woman in
marriage, and the ultimate result has been an almost complete fusion
between the two races in the bulk of the population over the greater
part of the country. Nevertheless the status of the Sudra still
remains attached to the large community of the impure castes formed
from the indigenous tribes, who have settled in Hindu villages and
entered the caste system. These are relegated to the most degrading
and menial occupations, and their touch is regarded as conveying
defilement like that of the Sudras. [27] The status of the Sudras
was not always considered so low, and they were sometimes held to
rank above the mixed castes. And in modern times in Bengal Sudra
is quite a respectable term applied to certain artisan castes which
there have a fairly good position. But neither were the indigenous
tribes always reduced to the impure status. Their fortunes varied,
and those who resisted subjection were probably sometimes accepted as
allies. For instance, some of the most prominent of the Rajput clans
are held to have been derived from the aboriginal [28] tribes. On the
Aryan expedition to southern India, which is preserved in the legend of
Rama, as related in the Ramayana, it is stated that Rama was assisted
by Hanuman with his army of apes. The reference is generally held to
be to the fact that the Aryans had as auxiliaries some of the forest
tribes, and these were consequently allies, and highly thought of,
as shown by the legend and by their identification with the mighty
god Hanuman. And at the present time the forest tribes who live
separately from the Hindus in the jungle tracts are, as a rule, not
regarded as impure. But this does not impair the identification of the
Sudras with those tribes who were reduced to subjection and serfdom
in the Hindu villages, as shown by the evidence here given. The view
has also been held that the Sudras might have been a servile class
already subject to the Aryans, who entered India with them. And in
the old Parsi or Persian community four classes existed, the Athornan
or priest, the Rathestan or warrior, the Vasteriox or husbandman,
and the Hutox or craftsman. [29] The second and third of these names
closely resemble those of the corresponding Hindu classical castes,
the Rajanya or Kshatriya and the Vaishya, while Athornan, the name
for a priest, is the same as Atharvan, the Hindu name for a Brahman
versed in the Atharva-Veda. Possibly then Hutox may be connected with
Sudra, as _h_ frequently changes into _s_. But on the other hand the
facts that the Sudras are not mentioned in the Vedas, and that they
succeeded to the position of the Dasyus, the black hostile Indians,
as well as the important place they fill in the later literature,
seem to indicate clearly that they mainly consisted of the indigenous
subject tribes. Whether the Aryans applied a name already existing
in a servile class among themselves to the indigenous population whom
they subdued, may be an uncertain point.
13. The Vaishya.
In the Vedas, moreover, M. Senart shows that the three higher castes
are not definitely distinguished; but there are three classes--the
priests, the chiefs and the people, among whom the Aryans were
comprised. The people are spoken of in the plural as the clans who
followed the chiefs to battle. The word used is Visha. One verse
speaks of the Vishas (clans) bowing before the chief (Rajan), who was
preceded by a priest (Brahman). Another verse says: "Favour the prayer
(Brahma), favour the service; kill the Rakshasas, drive away the evil;
favour the power (_khatra_) and favour the manly strength; favour the
cow (_dherm_, the representative of property) and favour the people
(or house, _visha_)." [30]
Similarly Wilson states that in the time of the Vedas, _visha_ (related
to _vesha_, a house or district) signified the people in general;
and Vaishya, its adjective, was afterwards applied to a householder,
or that appertaining to an individual of the common people. The Latin
_vicus_ and the Greek o>=ikoc are the correspondents of _vesha_. [31]
The conclusion to be drawn is that the Aryans in the Vedas, like other
early communities, were divided by rank or occupation into three
classes--priests, nobles and the body of the people. The Vishas or
clans afterwards became the Vaishyas or third classical caste. Before
they entered India the Aryans were a migratory pastoral people,
their domestic animals being the horse, cow, and perhaps the sheep
and goat. The horse and cow were especially venerated, and hence were
probably their chief means of support. The Vaishyas must therefore
have been herdsmen and shepherds, and when they entered India and took
to agriculture, the Vaishyas must have become cultivators. The word
Vaishya signifies a man who occupies the soil, an agriculturist, or
merchant. [32] The word Vasteriox used by the ancestors of the Parsis,
which appears to correspond to Vaishya, also signifies a husbandman,
as already seen. Dr. Max Müller states: "The three occupations of the
Aryas in India were fighting, cultivating the soil and worshipping
the gods. Those who fought the battles of the people would naturally
acquire influence and rank, and their leaders appear in the Veda as
Rajas or kings. Those who did not share in the fighting would occupy a
more humble position; they were called Vish, Vaishyas or householders,
and would no doubt have to contribute towards the maintenance of the
armies. [33] According to Manu, God ordained the tending of cattle,
giving alms, sacrifice, study, trade, usury, and also agriculture
for a Vaishya." [34] The Sutras state that agriculture, the keeping
of cattle, and engaging in merchandise, as well as learning the
Vedas, sacrificing for himself and giving alms, are the duties of a
Vaishya. [35] In the Mahabharata it is laid down that the Vaishyas
should devote themselves to agriculture, the keeping of cattle and
liberality. [36] In the same work the god Vayu says to Bhishma:
"And it was Brahma's ordinance that the Vaishya should sustain the
three castes (Brahman, Kshatriya and Vaishya) with money and corn;
and that the Sudra should serve them." [37]
In a list of classes or occupations given in the White Yajur-Veda,
and apparently referring to a comparatively advanced state of Hindu
society, tillage is laid down as the calling of the Vaishya, and
he is distinguished from the Vani or merchant, whose occupation is
trade or weighing. [38] Manu states that a Brahman should swear by
truth; a Kshatriya by his steed and his weapons; a Vaishya by his
cows, his seed and his gold; and a Sudra by all wicked deeds. [39]
Yellow is the colour of the Vaishya, and it must apparently be taken
from the yellow corn, and the yellow colour of _ghi_ or butter, the
principal product of the sacred cow; yellow is also the colour of
the sacred metal gold, but there can scarcely have been sufficient
gold in the hands of the body of the people in those early times to
enable it to be especially associated with them. The Vaishyas were
thus, as is shown by the above evidence, the main body of the people
referred to in the Vedic hymns. When these settled down into villages
the Vaishyas became the householders and cultivators, among whom the
village lands were divided; the Sudras or indigenous tribes, who also
lived in the villages or in hamlets adjoining them, were labourers
and given all the most disagreeable tasks in the village community,
as is the case with the impure castes at present.
14. Mistaken modern idea of the Vaishyas.
The demonstration of the real position of the Vaishyas is important,
because the Hindus themselves no longer recognise this. The name
Vaishya is now frequently restricted to the Bania caste of bankers,
shopkeepers and moneylenders, and hence the Banias are often supposed
to be the descendants and only modern representatives of the original
Vaishyas. Evidence has been given in the article on Bania to show that
the existing Bania caste is mainly derived from the Rajputs. The name
Bani, a merchant or trader, is found at an early period, but whether
it denoted a regular Bania caste may be considered as uncertain. In
any case it seems clear that this comparatively small caste, chiefly
coming from Rajputana, cannot represent the Vaishyas, who were the
main body or people of the invading Aryans. At that time the Vaishyas
cannot possibly have been traders, because they alone provided
the means of subsistence of the community, and if they produced
nothing, there could be no material for trade. The Vaishyas must,
therefore, as already seen, have been shepherds and cultivators,
since in early times wealth consisted almost solely of corn and
cattle. At a later period, with the increased religious veneration
for all kinds of life, agriculture apparently fell into some kind of
disrepute as involving the sacrifice of insect life, and there was
a tendency to emphasise trade as the Vaishya's occupation in view
of its greater respectability. It is considered very derogatory for
a Brahman or Rajput to touch the plough with his own hands, and the
act has hitherto involved a loss of status: these castes, however,
did not object to hold land, but, on the contrary, ardently desired
to do so like all other Hindus. Ploughing was probably despised as a
form of manual labour, and hence an undignified action for a member
of the aristocracy, just as a squire or gentleman farmer in England
might consider it beneath his dignity to drive the plough himself. No
doubt also, as the fusion of races proceeded, and bodies of the
indigenous tribes who were cultivators adopted Hinduism, the status
of a cultivator sank to some extent, and his Vaishyan ancestry was
forgotten. But though the Vaishya himself has practically disappeared,
his status as a cultivator and member of the village community appears
to remain in that of the modern cultivating castes, as will be shown
subsequently.
15. Mixed unions of the four classes.
The settlement of the Aryans in India was in villages and not in
towns, and the Hindus have ever since remained a rural people. In
1911 less than a tenth of the population of India was urban, and
nearly three-quarters of the total were directly supported by
agriculture. Apparently, therefore, the basis or embryo of the
gradation of Hindu society or the caste system should be sought
in the village. Two main divisions of the village community may be
recognised in the Vaishyas or cultivators and the Sudras or impure
serfs and labourers. The exact position held by the Kshatriyas and the
constitution of their class are not quite clear, but there is no doubt
that the Brahmans and Kshatriyas formed the early aristocracy, ranking
above the cultivators, and a few other castes have since attained to
this position. From early times, as is shown by an ordinance of Manu,
men of the higher castes or classes were permitted, after taking
a woman of their own class for the first wife, to have second and
subsequent wives from any of the classes beneath them. This custom
appears to have been largely prevalent. No definite rule prescribed
that the children of such unions should necessarily be illegitimate,
and in many cases no doubt seems to exist that, if not they themselves,
their descendants at any rate ultimately became full members of the
caste of the first ancestor. According to Manu, if the child of a
Brahman by a Sudra woman intermarried with Brahmans and his descendants
after him, their progeny in the seventh generation would become full
Brahmans; and the same was the case with the child of a Kshatriya or a
Vaishya with a Sudra woman. A commentator remarks that the descendants
of a Brahman by a Kshatriya woman could attain Brahmanhood in the
third generation, and those by a Vaishya woman in the fifth. [40]
Such children also could inherit. According to the Mahabharata, if
a Brahman had four wives of different castes, the son by a Brahman
wife took four shares, that by a Kshatriya wife three, by a Vaishya
wife two, and by a Sudra wife one share. [41] Manu gives a slightly
different distribution, but also permits to the son by a Sudra wife
a share of the inheritance. [42] Thus the fact is clear that the son
of a Brahman even by a Sudra woman had a certain status of legitimacy
in his father's caste, as he could marry in it, and must therefore
have been permitted to partake of the sacrificial food at marriage;
[43] and he could also inherit a small share of the property.
16. Hypergamy.
The detailed rules prescribed for the status of legitimacy and
inheritance show that recognised unions of this kind between men of a
higher class and women of a lower one were at one time fairly frequent,
though they were afterwards prohibited. And they must necessarily
have led to much mixture of blood in the different castes. A trace
of them seems to survive in the practice of hypergamy, still widely
prevalent in northern India, by which men of the higher subcastes of
a caste will take daughters in marriage from lower ones but will not
give their daughters in return. This custom prevails largely among the
higher castes of the Punjab, as the Rajputs and Khatris, and among the
Brahmans of Bengal. [44] Only a few cases are found in the Central
Provinces, among Brahmans, Sunars and other castes. Occasionally
intermarriage between two castes takes place on a hypergamous basis;
thus Rajputs are said to take daughters from the highest clans of
the cultivating caste of Dangis. More commonly families of the lower
subcastes or clans in the same caste consider the marriage of their
daughters into a higher group a great honour and will give large sums
of money for a bridegroom. Until quite recently a Rajput was bound to
marry his daughters into a clan of equal or higher rank than his own,
in order to maintain the position of his family. It is not easy to
see why so much importance should be attached to the marriage of a
daughter, since she passed into another clan and family, to whom her
offspring would belong. On the other hand, a son might take a wife
from a lower group without loss of status, though his children would
be the future representatives of the family. Another point, possibly
connected with hypergamy, is that a peculiar relation exists between a
man and the family into which his daughter has married. Sometimes he
will accept no food or even water in his son-in-law's village. The
word _sala_, signifying wife's brother, when addressed to a man,
is also a common and extremely offensive term of abuse. The meaning
is now perhaps supposed to be that one has violated the sister of
the person spoken to, but this can hardly have been the original
significance as _sasur_ or father-in-law is also considered in a
minor degree an opprobrious term of address.
17. The mixed castes. The village menials.
But though among the four classical castes it was possible for the
descendants of mixed unions between fathers of higher and mothers of
lower caste to be admitted into their father's caste, this would not
have been the general rule. Such connections were very frequent and
the Hindu classics account through them for the multiplication of
castes. Long lists are given of new castes formed by the children
of mixed marriages. The details of these genealogies seem to be
destitute of any probability, and perhaps, therefore, instances of
them are unnecessary. Matches between a man of higher and a woman of
lower caste were called _anuloma_, or 'with the hair' or 'grain,'
and were regarded as suitable and becoming. Those between a man of
lower and a woman of higher caste were, on the other hand, known as
_pratiloma_ or 'against the hair,' and were considered as disgraceful
and almost incestuous. The offspring of such unions are held to
have constituted the lowest and most impure castes of scavengers,
dog-eaters and so on. This doctrine is to be accounted for by the
necessity of safeguarding the morality of women in a state of society
where kinship is reckoned solely by male descent. The blood of the
tribe and clan, and hence the right to membership and participation
in the communal sacrifices, is then communicated to the child through
the father; hence if the women are unchaste, children may be born
into the family who have no such rights, and the whole basis of
society is destroyed. For the same reason, since the tribal blood
and life is communicated through males, the birth and standing of
the mother are of little importance, and children are, as has been
seen, easily admitted to their father's rank. But already in Manu's
time the later and present view that both the father and mother must
be of full status in the clan, tribe or caste in order to produce a
legitimate child, has begun to prevail, and the children of all mixed
marriages are relegated to a lower group. The offspring of these mixed
unions did probably give rise to a class of different status in the
village community. The lower-caste mother would usually have been
taken into the father's house and her children would be brought up in
it. Thus they would eat the food of the household, even if they did
not participate in the sacrificial feasts; and a class of this kind
would be very useful for the performance of menial duties in and about
the household, such as personal service, bringing water, and so on,
for which the Sudras, owing to their impurity, would be unsuitable. In
the above manner a new grade of village menial might have arisen and
have gradually been extended to the other village industries, so that
a third group would be formed in the village community ranking between
the cultivators and labourers. This gradation of the village community
may perhaps still be discerned in the main social distinctions of the
different Hindu castes at present. And an attempt will now be made
to demonstrate this hypothesis in connection with a brief survey of
the castes of the Province.
18. Social gradation of castes.
An examination of the social status of the castes of the Central
Provinces, which, as already seen, are representative of a great part
of India, shows that they fall into five principal groups. The highest
consists of those castes who now claim to be directly descended from
the Brahmans, Kshatriyas or Vaishyas, the three higher of the four
classical castes. The second comprises what are generally known
as pure or good castes. The principal mark of their caste status
is that a Brahman will take water to drink from them, and perform
ceremonies in their houses. They may be classified in three divisions:
the higher agricultural castes, higher artisan castes, and serving
castes from whom a Brahman will take water. The third group contains
those castes from whose hands a Brahman will not take water; but
their touch does not convey impurity and they are permitted to enter
Hindu temples. They consist mainly of certain cultivating castes
of low status, some of them recently derived from the indigenous
tribes, other functional castes formed from the forest tribes, and
a number of professional and menial castes, whose occupations are
mainly pursued in villages, so that they formerly obtained their
subsistence from grain-payments or annual allowances of grain from
the cultivators at seedtime and harvest. The group includes also some
castes of village priests and mendicant religious orders, who beg
from the cultivators. In the fourth group are placed the non-Aryan
or indigenous tribes. Most of these cannot properly be said to form
part of the Hindu social system at all, but for practical purposes
they are admitted and are considered to rank below all castes except
those who cannot be touched. The lowest group consists of the impure
castes whose touch is considered to defile the higher castes. Within
each group there are minor differences of status some of which will
be noticed, but the broad divisions may be considered as representing
approximately the facts. The rule about Brahmans taking water from
the good agricultural and artisan castes obtains, for instance, only
in northern India. Maratha Brahmans will not take water from any but
other Brahmans, and in Chhattisgarh Brahmans and other high castes
will take water only from the hands of a Rawat (grazier), and from
no other caste. But nevertheless the Kunbis, the great cultivating
caste of the Maratha country, though Brahmans do not take water from
them, are on the same level as the Kurmis, the cultivating caste of
Hindustan, and in tracts where they meet Kunbis and Kurmis are often
considered to be the same caste. The evidence of the statements made
as to the origin of different castes in the following account will
be found in the articles on them in the body of the work.
19. Castes ranking above the cultivators.
The castes of the first group are noted below:
Bania.
Bhat.
Brahman.
Gurao.
Karan.
Kayasth and Prabhu.
Khatri.
Rajput.
The Brahmans are, as they have always been, the highest caste. The
Rajputs are the representatives of the ancient Kshatriyas or second
caste, though the existing Rajput clans are probably derived from
the Hun, Gujar and other invaders of the period before and shortly
after the commencement of the Christian era, and in some cases from
the indigenous or non-Aryan tribes. It does not seem possible to
assert in the case of a single one of the present Rajput clans that
any substantial evidence is forthcoming in favour of their descent
from the Aryan Kshatriyas, and as regards most of the clans there are
strong arguments against such a hypothesis. Nevertheless the Rajputs
have succeeded to the status of the Kshatriyas, and an alternative
name for them, Chhatri, is a corruption of the latter word. They are
commonly identified with the second of the four classical castes,
but a Hindu law-book gives Rajaputra as the offspring of a Kshatriya
father and a mother of the Karan or writer caste. [45] This genealogy
is absurd, but may imply the opinion that the Rajputs were not the
same as the Aryan Kshatriyas. The Khatris are an important mercantile
caste of the Punjab, who in the opinion of most authorities are
derived from the Rajputs. The name is probably a corruption of
Kshatri or Kshatriya. The Banias are the great mercantile, banking
and shopkeeping caste among the Hindus and a large proportion of
the trade in grain and _ghi_ (preserved butter) is in their hands,
while they are also the chief moneylenders. Most of the important
Bania subcastes belonged originally to Rajputana and Central India,
which are also the homes of the Rajputs, and reasons have been given
in the article on Bania for holding that they are derived from the
Rajputs. They, however, are now commonly called Vaishyas by the Hindus,
as, I think, under the mistaken impression that they are descended
from the original Vaishyas. The Bhats are the bards, heralds and
genealogists of India and include groups of very varying status. The
Bhats who act as genealogists of the cultivating and other castes and
accept cooked food from their clients may perhaps be held to rank with
or even below them. But the high-class Bhats are undoubtedly derived
from Brahmans and Rajputs, and rank just below those castes. The bard
or herald had a sacred character, and his person was inviolable like
that of the herald elsewhere, and this has given a special status to
the whole caste. [46] The Kayasths are the writer caste of Hindustan,
and the Karans and Prabhus are the corresponding castes of Orissa and
Bombay. The position of the Kayasths has greatly risen during the last
century on account of their own ability and industry and the advantages
they have obtained through their high level of education. The original
Kayasths may have been village accountants and hence have occupied a
lower position, perhaps below the cultivators. They are an instance of
a caste whose social position has greatly improved on account of the
wealth and importance of its members. At present the Kayasths may be
said to rank next to Brahmans and Rajputs. The origin of the Prabhus
and Karans is uncertain, but their recent social history appears to
resemble that of the Kayasths. The Guraos are another caste whose
position has greatly improved. They were priests of the village
temples of Siva, and accepted the offerings of food which Brahmans
could not take. But they also supplied leaf-plates for festivals,
and were village musicians and trumpeters in the Maratha armies,
and hence probably ranked below the cultivators and were supported
by contributions of grain from them. Their social position has been
raised by their sacred character as priests of the god Siva and they
are now sometimes called Shaiva Brahmans. But a distinct recollection
of their former status exists.
Thus all the castes of the first group are derived from the
representatives of the Brahmans and Kshatriyas, the two highest
of the four classical castes, except the Guraos, who have risen in
status owing to special circumstances. The origin of the Kayasths is
discussed in the article on that caste. Members of the above castes
usually wear the sacred thread which is the mark of the Dwija or
twice-born, the old Brahmans, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. The thread is
not worn generally by the castes of the second group, but the more
wealthy and prominent sections of them frequently assume it.
20. Castes from whom a Brahman can take water. Higher agriculturists.
The second group of good castes from whom a Brahman can take water
falls into three sections as already explained: the higher agricultural
castes, the higher artisans, and the serving or menial castes from
whom a Brahman takes water from motives of convenience. These last
do not properly belong to the second group but to the next lower one
of village menials. The higher agricultural castes or those of the
first section are noted below:
Agharia.
Ahir.
Bhilala.
Bishnoi.
Chasa.
Daharia.
Dangi.
Dumal.
Gujar.
Jadum.
Jat.
Khandait.
Kirar.
Kolta.
Kunbi.
Kurmi.
Lodhi.
Mali.
Maratha.
Mina or Deswali.
Panwar Rajput.
Raghuvansi.
Velama.
In this division the Kurmis and Kunbis are the typical agricultural
castes of Hindustan or the plains of northern India, and the Bombay
or Maratha Deccan. Both are very numerous and appear to be purely
occupational bodies. The name Kurmi perhaps signifies a cultivator
or worker. Kunbi may mean a householder. In both castes, groups of
diverse origin seem to have been amalgamated owing to their common
calling. Thus the Kunbis include a subcaste derived from the Banjara
(carriers), another from the Dhangars or shepherds, and a third
from the Manas, a primitive tribe. In Bombay it is considered that
the majority of the Kunbi caste are sprung from the non-Aryan or
indigenous tribes, and this may be the reason why Maratha Brahmans do
not take water from them. But they have now become one caste with a
status equal to that of the other good cultivating castes. In many
tracts of Berar and elsewhere practically all the cultivators of
the village belong to the Kunbi caste, and there is every reason to
suppose that this was once the general rule and that the Kunbis or
'householders' are simply the cultivators of the Maratha country who
lived in village communities. Similarly Sir H. Risley considered that
some Kurmis of Bihar were of the Aryan type, while others of Chota
Nagpur are derived from the indigenous tribes. The Chasas are the
cultivating caste of Orissa and are a similar occupational group. The
word Chasa has the generic meaning of a cultivator, and the caste are
said by Sir H. Risley to be for the most part of non-Aryan origin,
the loose organisation of the caste system among the Uriyas making it
possible on the one hand for outsiders to be admitted into the caste,
and on the other for wealthy Chasas, who gave up ploughing with their
own hands and assumed the respectable title of Mahanti, to raise
themselves to membership among the lower classes of Kayasths. The
Koltas are another Uriya caste, probably an offshoot of the Chasas,
whose name may be derived from the _kulthi_ [47] pulse, a favourite
crop in that locality.
Similarly the Vellalas are the great cultivating caste of the Tamil
country, to whom by general consent the first place in social esteem
among the Tamil Sudra castes is awarded. In the _Madras Census Report_
of 1901 Mr. Francis gives an interesting description of the structure
of the caste and its numerous territorial, occupational and other
subdivisions. He shows also how groups from lower castes continually
succeed in obtaining admission into the Vellala community in the
following passage: "Instances of members of other castes who have
assumed the name and position of Vellalas are the Vettuva Vellalas,
who are only Puluvans; the Illam Vellalas, who are Panikkans;
the Karaiturai (lord of the shore) Vellalas, who are Karaiyans;
the Karukamattai (palmyra leaf-stem) Vellalas, who are Balijas; the
Guha (Rama's boatmen) Vellalas, who are Sembadavans; and the Irkuli
Vellalas, who are Vannans. The children of dancing-girls also often
call themselves Mudali, and claim in time to be Vellalas, and even
Paraiyans assume the title of Pillai and trust to its eventually
enabling them to pass themselves off as members of the caste."
This is an excellent instance of the good status attaching to the
chief cultivating caste of the locality and of the manner in which
other groups, when they obtain possession of the land, strive to get
themselves enrolled in it.
The Jats are the representative cultivating caste of the Punjab. They
are probably the descendants of one of the Scythian invading hordes
who entered India shortly before and after the commencement of the
Christian era. The Scythians, as they were called by Herodotus,
appear to have belonged to the Mongolian racial family, as also did
the white Huns who came subsequently. The Gujar and Ahir castes, as
well as the Jats, and also the bulk of the existing Rajput clans, are
believed to be descended from these invaders; and since their residence
in India has been comparatively short in comparison with their Aryan
predecessors, they have undergone much less fusion with the general
population, and retain a lighter complexion and better features,
as is quite perceptible to the ordinary observer in the case of the
Jats and Rajputs. The Jats have a somewhat higher status than other
agricultural castes, because in the Punjab they were once dominant,
and one or two ruling chiefs belonged to the caste. [48] The bulk of
the Sikhs were also Jats. But in the Central Provinces, where they are
not large landholders, and have no traditions of former dominance,
there is little distinction between them and the Kurmis. The Gujars
for long remained a pastoral freebooting tribe, and their community
was naturally recruited from all classes of vagabonds and outlaws, and
hence the caste is now of a mixed character, and their physical type
is not noticeably distinct from that of other Hindus. Sir G. Campbell
derived the Gujars from the Khazars, a tribe of the same race as the
white Huns and Bulgars who from an early period had been settled in
the neighbourhood of the Caspian. They are believed to have entered
India during the fifth or sixth century. Several clans of Rajputs,
as well as considerable sections of the Ahir and Kunbi castes were,
in his opinion, derived from the Gujars. In the Central Provinces the
Gujars have now settled down into respectable cultivators. The Ahirs
or cowherds and graziers probably take their name from the Abhiras,
another of the Scythian tribes. But they have now become a purely
occupational caste, largely recruited from the indigenous Gonds and
Kawars, to whom the business of tending cattle in the jungles is
habitually entrusted. In the Central Provinces Ahirs live in small
forest villages with Gonds, and are sometimes scarcely considered as
Hindus. On this account they have a character for bucolic stupidity,
as the proverb has it: 'When he is asleep he is an Ahir and when he is
awake he is a fool.' But the Ahir caste generally has a good status
on account of its connection with the sacred cow and also with the
god Krishna, the divine cowherd.
The Marathas are the military caste of the Maratha country, formed
into a caste from the cultivators, shepherds and herdsmen, who took
service under Sivaji and subsequent Maratha leaders. The higher clans
may have been constituted from the aristocracy of the Deccan states,
which was probably of Rajput descent. They have now become a single
caste, ranking somewhat higher than the Kunbis, from whom the bulk
of them originated, on account of their former military and dominant
position. Their status was much the same as that of the Jats in the
Punjab. But the ordinary Marathas are mainly engaged in the subordinate
Government and private service, and there is very little distinction
between them and the Kunbis. The Khandaits or swordsmen (from _khanda_,
a sword) are an Uriya caste, which originated in military service,
and the members of which belonged for the most part to the non-Aryan
Bhuiya tribe. They were a sort of rabble, half military and half
police, Sir H. Risley states, who formed the levies of the Uriya
zamindars. They have obtained grants of land, and their status has
improved. "In the social system of Orissa the Sreshta (good) Khandaits
rank next to the Rajputs, who are comparatively few in number, and
have not that intimate connection with the land which has helped to
raise the Khandaits to their present position." [49] The small Rautia
landholding caste of Chota Nagpur, mainly derived from the Kol tribe,
was formed from military service, and obtained a higher status with
the possession of the land exactly like the Khandaits.
Several Rajput clans, as the Panwars of the Wainganga Valley,
the Raghuvansis, the Jadums derived from the Yadava clan, and the
Daharias of Chhattisgarh, have formed distinct castes, marrying among
themselves. A proper Rajput should not marry in his own clan. These
groups have probably in the past taken wives from the surrounding
population, and they can no longer be held to belong to the Rajput
caste proper, but rank as ordinary agricultural castes. Other
agricultural castes have probably been formed through mixed descent
from Rajputs and the indigenous races. The Agharias of Sambalpur say
they are sprung from a clan of Rajputs near Agra, who refused to bend
their heads before the king of Delhi. He summoned all the Agharias to
appear before him, and fixed a sword across the door at the height
of a man's neck. As the Agharias would not bend their heads they
were as a natural consequence all decapitated as they passed through
the door. Only one escaped, who had bribed a Chamar to go instead
of him. He and his village fled from Agra and came to Chhattisgarh,
where they founded the Agharia caste. And, in memory of this, when an
Agharia makes a libation to his ancestors, he first pours a little
water on the ground in honour of the dead Chamar. Such stories may
be purely imaginary, or may contain some substratum of truth, as that
the ancestors of the caste were Rajputs, who took wives from Chamars
and other low castes. The Kirars are another caste with more or less
mixed descent from Rajputs. They are also called Dhakar, and this
means one of illegitimate birth. The Bhilalas are a caste formed of the
offspring of mixed alliances between Rajputs and Bhils. In many cases
in Nimar Rajput immigrants appear to have married the daughters of Bhil
chieftains and landholders, and succeeded to their estates. Thus the
Bhilalas include a number of landed proprietors, and the caste ranks as
a good agricultural caste, from whom Brahmans will take water. Among
the other indigenous tribes, several of which have in the Central
Provinces retained the possession of large areas of land and great
estates in the wilder forest tracts, a subcaste has been formed of
the landholding members of the tribe. Such are the Raj-Gonds among
the Gonds, the Binjhals among Baigas, and the Tawar subtribe of the
Kawar tribe of Bilaspur, to which all the zamindars [50] belong. These
last now claim to be Tomara Rajputs, on the basis of the similarity
of the name. These groups rank with the good agricultural castes,
and Brahmans sometimes consent to take water from them. The Dangis
of Saugor appear to be the descendants of a set of freebooters in the
Vindhyan hills, much like the Gujars in northern India. The legend of
their origin is given in Sir B. Robertson's _Census Report_ of 1891:
"The chief of Garhpahra or old Saugor detained the palanquins of
twenty-two married women and kept them as his wives. The issue of the
illicit intercourse were named Dangis, and there are thus twenty-two
subdivisions of these people. There are also three other subdivisions
who claim descent from pure Rajputs, and who will take daughters
in marriage from the remaining twenty-two, but will not give their
daughters to them." Thus the Dangis appear to have been a mixed group,
recruiting their band from all classes of the population, with some
Rajputs as leaders. The name probably means hillman, from _dang_, a
hill. _Khet men bami, gaon men Dangi_ or 'A Dangi in the village is
like the hole of a snake in one's field,' is a proverb showing the
estimation in which they were formerly held. They obtained estates
in Saugor and a Dangi dynasty formerly governed part of the District,
and they are now highly respectable cultivators. The Minas or Deswalis
belonged to the predatory Mina tribe of Rajputana, but a section of
them have obtained possession of the land in Hoshangabad and rank as a
good agricultural caste. The Lodhas of the United Provinces are placed
lowest among the agricultural castes by Mr. Nesfield, who describes
them as little better than a forest tribe. The name is perhaps derived
from the bark of the _lodh_ tree, which was collected by the Lodhas
of northern India and sold for use as a dyeing agent. In the Central
Provinces the name has been changed to Lodhi, and they are said to
have been brought into the District by a Raja of the Gond-Rajput
dynasty of Mandla in the seventeenth century, and given large grants
of waste land in the interior in order that they might clear it of
forest. They have thus become landholders, and rank with the higher
agricultural castes. They are addressed as Thakur, a title applied
to Rajputs, and Lodhi landowners usually wear the sacred thread.
21. Status of the cultivator.
The above details have been given to show how the different
agricultural castes originated. Though their origin is so diverse they
have, to a great extent, the same status, and it seems clear that this
status is dependent on their possession of the land. In the tracts
where they reside they are commonly village proprietors and superior
tenants. Those who rank a little higher than the others, as the Jats,
Marathas, Dangis and Lodhis, include in their body some ruling chiefs
or large landed proprietors, and as a rule were formerly dominant
in the territory in which they are found. In primitive agricultural
communities the land is the principal, if not almost the sole,
source of wealth. Trade in the modern sense scarcely exists, and what
interchange of commodities there is affects, as a rule, only a trifling
fraction of the population. India's foreign trade is mainly the
growth of the last century, and the great bulk of the exports are of
agricultural produce, yet in proportion to the population the trading
community is still extremely small. It thus seems quite impossible that
the Aryans could have been a community of priests, rulers and traders,
because such a community would not have had means of subsistence. And
if the whole production and control of the wealth and food of the
community had been in the hands of the Sudras, they could not have
been kept permanently in their subject, degraded position. The flocks
and herds and the land, which constituted the wealth of early India,
must thus have been in the possession of the Vaishyas; and grounds of
general probability, as well as the direct evidence already produced,
make it clear that they were the herdsmen and cultivators, and the
Sudras the labourers. The status of the modern cultivators seems to
correspond to that of the Vaishyas, that is, of the main body of the
Aryan people, who were pure and permitted to join in sacrifices. The
status, however, no longer attaches to origin, but to the possession of
the land; it is that of a constituent member of the village community,
corresponding to a citizen of the city states of Greece and Italy. The
original Vaishyas have long disappeared; the Brahmans themselves say
that there are no Kshatriyas and no Vaishyas left, and this seems to be
quite correct. But the modern good cultivating castes retain the status
of the Vaishyas as the Rajputs retain that of the Kshatriyas. The case
of the Jats and Gujars supports this view. These two castes are almost
certainly derived from Scythian nomad tribes, who entered India long
after the Vedic Aryans. And there is good reason to suppose that a
substantial proportion, if not the majority, of the existing Rajput
clans were the leaders or aristocracy of the Jats and Gujars. Thus it
is found that in the case of these later tribes the main body were
shepherds and cultivators, and their descendants have the status
of good cultivating castes at present, while the leaders became the
Rajputs, who have the status of the Kshatriyas; and it therefore seems
a reasonable inference that the same had previously been the case with
the Aryans themselves. It has been seen that the word Visha or Vaishya
signified one of the people or a householder. The name Kunbi appears
to have the same sense, its older form being _kutumbika_, which is
a householder or one who has a family, [51] a _pater familias_.
22. The clan and the village.
It has been seen also that Visha in the plural signified clans. The
clan was the small body which lived together, and in the patriarchal
stage was connected by a tie of kinship held to be derived from a
common ancestor. Thus it is likely that the clans settled down in
villages, the cultivators of one village being of the same exogamous
clan. The existing system of exogamy affords evidence in favour of this
view, as will be seen. All the families of the clan had cultivating
rights in the land, and were members of the village community; and
there were no other members, unless possibly a Kshatriya headman or
leader. The Sudras were their labourers and serfs, with no right to
hold land, and a third intermediate class of village menials gradually
grew up.
The law of Mirasi tenures in Madras is perhaps a survival of the
social system of the early village community. Under it only a few
of the higher castes were allowed to hold land, and the monopoly was
preserved by the rule that the right of taking up waste lands belonged
primarily to the cultivators of the adjacent holdings; no one else
could acquire land unless he first bought them out. The pariahs or
impure castes were not allowed to hold land at all. This rule was
pointed out by Mr. Slocock, and it is also noticed by Sir Henry Maine:
"There are in Central and Southern India certain villages to which a
class of persons is hereditarily attached, in such a manner that they
form no part of the natural and organic aggregate to which the bulk
of the villagers belong. These persons are looked upon as essentially
impure; they never enter the village, or only enter reserved portions
of it; and their touch is avoided as contaminating. Yet they bear
extremely plain marks of their origin. Though they are not included
in the village, they are an appendage solidly connected with it;
they have definite village duties, one of which is the settlement of
boundaries, on which their authority is allowed to be conclusive. They
evidently represent a population of alien blood whose lands have been
occupied by the colonists or invaders forming the community." [52]
Elsewhere, Sir Henry Maine points out that in many cases the outsiders
were probably admitted to the possession of land, but on an inferior
tenure to the primary holders or freemen who formed the cultivating
body of the village; and suggests that this may have been the ground
for the original distinction between occupancy and non-occupancy
tenants. The following extract from a description of the Maratha
villages by Grant Duff [53] may be subjoined to this passage:
"The inhabitants are principally cultivators, and are now either
Mirasidars or Ooprees. These names serve to distinguish the tenure
by which they hold their lands. The Oopree is a mere tenant-at-will,
but the Mirasidar is a hereditary occupant whom the Government cannot
displace so long as he pays the assessment on his field. With various
privileges and distinctions in his village of minor consequence,
the Mirasidar has the important power of selling or transferring his
right of occupancy at pleasure. It is a current opinion in the Maratha
country that all the lands were originally of this description."
As regards the internal relations of clans and village groups, Sir
H. Maine states: "The men who composed the primitive communities
believed themselves to be kinsmen in the most literal sense of
the word; and, surprising as it may seem, there are a multitude of
indications that in one stage of thought they must have regarded
themselves as equals. When these primitive bodies first make their
appearance as landowners, as claiming an exclusive enjoyment in a
definite area of land, not only do their shares of the soil appear to
have been originally equal, but a number of contrivances survive for
preserving the equality, of which the most frequent is the periodical
redistribution of the tribal domain." [54] Similarly Professor
Hearn states: "The settlement of Europe was made by clans. Each
clan occupied a certain territory--much, I suppose, as an Australian
squatter takes up new country. The land thus occupied was distributed
by metes and bounds to each branch of the clan; the remainder, if any,
continuing the property of the clan." [55] And again: "In those cases
where the land had been acquired by conquest there were generally
some remains of the conquered population who retained more or less
interest in the lands that had once been their own. But as between
the conquerors themselves it was the clansmen, and the clansmen only,
who were entitled to derive any advantage from the land that the clan
had acquired. The outsiders, the men who lived with the clan but were
not of the clan, were no part of the folk, and had no share in the
folkland. No services rendered, no participation in the common danger,
no endurance of the burden and heat of the day, could create in an
outsider any colour of right. Nothing short of admission to the clan,
and of initiation in its worship, could enable him to demand as of
right the grass of a single cow or the wood for a single fire." [56]
23. The ownership of land.
Thus it appears that the cultivating community of each village
constituted an exogamous clan, the members of which believed themselves
to be kinsmen. When some caste or tribe occupied a fresh area of land
they were distributed by clans in villages, over the area, all the
cultivators of a village being of one caste or tribe, as is still
the case with the Kunbis in Berar. Sometimes several alien castes or
groups became amalgamated into a single caste, such as the Kurmis and
Kunbis; in others they either remained as a separate caste or became
one. When the non-Aryan tribes retained possession of the land, there
is every reason to suppose that they also were admitted into Hinduism,
and either constituted a fresh caste with the cultivating status, or
were absorbed into an existing one with a change of name. Individual
ownership of land was probably unknown. The _patel_ or village headman,
on whom proprietary right was conferred by the British Government,
certainly did not possess it previously. He was simply the spokesman
and representative of the village community in its dealings with the
central or ruling authority. But it seems scarcely likely either that
the village community considered itself to own the land. Cases in
which the community as a corporate body has exercised any function
of ownership other than that of occupying and cultivating the soil,
if recorded at all, must be extremely rare, and I do not know that
any instance is given by Sir Henry Maine. A tutelary village god
is to be found as a rule in every Hindu village. In the Central
Provinces the most common is Khermata, that is the goddess of the
village itself or the village lands. She is a form of Devi, the
general earth-goddess. When a village is founded the first thing to
be done is to install the village god. Thus the soil of the village
is venerated as a goddess, and it seems doubtful whether the village
community considered itself the owner. In the Maratha Districts,
Hanuman or Mahabir, the monkey god, is the tutelary deity of the
village. His position seems to rest on the belief of the villagers
that the monkeys were the lords and owners of the soil before their own
arrival. For the worship of these and the other village gods there is
usually a village priest, known as Bhumka, Bhumia, Baiga or Jhankar,
who is taken from the non-Aryan tribes. The reason for his appointment
seems to be that the Hindus still look on themselves to some extent
as strangers and interlopers in relation to the gods of the earth and
the village, and consider it necessary to approach these through the
medium of one of their predecessors. The words Bhumka and Bhumia both
mean lord of the soil, or belonging to the soil. As already seen,
the authority of some menial official belonging to the indigenous
tribes is accepted as final in cases of disputed boundaries, the idea
being apparently that as his ancestors first occupied the village,
he has inherited from them the knowledge of its true extent and
limits. All these points appear to tell strongly against the view
that the Hindu village community considered itself to own the village
land as we understand the phrase. They seem to have looked on the
land as a god, and often their own tutelary deity and protector. What
they held themselves to possess was a right of occupancy, in virtue
of prescriptive settlement, not subject to removal or disturbance,
and transmitted by inheritance to persons born into the membership of
the village community. Under the Muhammadans the idea that the state
ultimately owned the land may have been held, but prior to them the
existence of such a belief is doubtful. The Hindu king did not take
rent for land, but a share of the produce for the support of his
establishments. The Rajput princes did not call themselves after
the name of their country, but of its capital town, as if their own
property consisted only in the town, as Jodhpur, Jaipur and Udaipur,
instead of Marwar, Dhundhar and Mewar. Just as the village has a
priest of the non-Aryan tribes for propitiating the local gods, so
the Rajput chief at his accession was often inducted to the royal
cushion by a Bhil or Mina, and received the badge of investiture as
if he had to obtain his title from these tribes. Indeed the right
of the village community to the land was held sometimes superior to
that of the state. Sir J. Malcolm relates that he was very anxious to
get the village of Bassi in Indore State repopulated when it had lain
waste for thirty-six years. He had arranged with the Bhil headman of
a neighbouring village to bring it under cultivation on a favourable
lease. The plan had other advantages, and Holkar's minister was most
anxious to put it into execution, but said that this could not be done
until every possible effort had been made to discover whether any
descendant of the former _patel_ or of any _watandar_ or hereditary
cultivator of Bassi was still in existence; for if such were found,
he said, "even we Marathas, bad as we are, cannot do anything which
interferes with their rights." None such being found at the time, the
village was settled as proposed by Malcolm; but some time afterwards,
a boy was discovered who was descended from the old _patel's_ family,
and he was invited to resume the office of headman of the village of
his forefathers, which even the Bhil, who had been nominated to it,
was forward to resign to the rightful inheritor. [57] Similarly the
Maratha princes, Sindhia, Holkar and others, are recorded to have
set more store by the headship of the insignificant Deccan villages,
which were the hereditary offices of their families, than by the
great principalities which they had carved out for themselves with
the sword. The former defined and justified their position in the
world as the living link and representative of the continuous family
comprising all their ancestors and all their descendants; the latter
was at first regarded merely as a transient, secular possession,
and a source of wealth and profit. This powerful hereditary right
probably rested on a religious basis. The village community was
considered to be bound up with its village god in one joint life,
and hence no one but they could in theory have the right to cultivate
the lands of that village. The very origin and nature of this right
precluded any question of transfer or alienation. The only lands in
which any ownership, corresponding to our conception of the term,
was held to exist, were perhaps those granted free of revenue for
the maintenance of temples, which were held to be the property of the
god. In Rome and other Greek and Latin cities the idea of private or
family ownership of land also developed from a religious sentiment. It
was customary to bury the dead in the fields which they had held,
and here the belief was that their spirits remained and protected
the interests of the family. Periodical sacrifices were made to them
and they participated in all the family ceremonies. Hence the land
in which the tombs of ancestors were situated was held to belong to
the family, and could not be separated from it. [58] Gradually, as
the veneration for the spirits of ancestors decayed, the land came
to be regarded as the private property of the family, and when this
idea had been realised it was made alienable, though not with the same
freedom as personal property. But the word _pecunia_ for money, from
_pecus_ a flock, like the Hindi _dhan_, which means wealth and also
flocks of goats and sheep, and feudal from the Gaelic _fiu_, cattle,
point to conditions of society in which land was not considered a
form of private property or wealth. M. Fustel de Coulanges notices
other primitive races who did not recognise property in land:
"The Tartars understand the term property as applying to cattle,
but not as applying to land. According to some authors, among the
ancient Germans there was no ownership of land; every year each member
of the tribe received a holding to cultivate, and the holding was
changed in the following year. The German owned the crop; he did not
own the soil. The same was the case among a part of the Semitic race
and certain of the Slav peoples." [59] In large areas of the Nigeria
Protectorate at present, land has no exchangeable value at all; but
by the native system of taxation a portion of the produce is taken
in consideration of the right of use. [60] In ancient Arabia 'Baal'
meant the lord of some place or district, that is, a local deity,
and hence came to mean a god. Land naturally moist was considered as
irrigated by a god and the special place or habitation of the god. To
the numerous Canaanite Baalims, or local deities, the Israelites
ascribed all the natural gifts of the land, the corn, the wine, and
the oil, the wool and the flax, the vines and fig trees. Pasture land
was common property, but a man acquired rights in the soil by building
a house, or, by 'quickening' a waste place, that is, bringing it under
cultivation. [61] The Israelites thought that they derived their title
to the land of Canaan from Jehovah, having received it as a gift
from Him. The association of rights over the land with cultivation
and building, pointed out by Professor Robertson Smith, may perhaps
explain the right over the village lands which was held to appertain
to the village community. They had quickened the land and built houses
on it, establishing the local village deity on their village sites,
and it was probably thought that their life was bound up with that of
the village god, and only they had a right to cultivate his land. This
would explain the great respect shown by the Marathas for hereditary
title to land, as seen above; a feeling which must certainly have been
based on some religious belief, and not on any moral idea of equity
or justice; no such deep moral principle was possible in the Hindu
community at the period in question. The Hindu religious conception of
rights to land was thus poles apart from the secular English law of
proprietary and transferable right, and if the native feeling could
have been, understood by the early British administrators the latter
would perhaps have been introduced only in a much modified form.
24. The cultivating status that of the Vaishya.
The suggested conclusion from the above argument is that the main
body of the Aryan immigrants, that is the Vaishyas, settled down in
villages by exogamous clans or septs. The cultivators of each village
believed themselves to be kinsmen descended from a common ancestor, and
also to be akin to the god of the village lands from which they drew
their sustenance. Hence their order had an equal right to cultivate
the village land and their children to inherit it, though they did
not conceive of the idea of ownership of land in the sense in which
we understand this phrase.
The original status of the Vaishya, or a full member of the Aryan
community who could join in sacrifices and employ Brahmans to perform
them, was gradually transferred to the cultivating member of the
village communities. In process of time, as land was the chief source
of wealth, and was also regarded as sacred, the old status became
attached to castes or groups of persons who obtained or held land
irrespective of their origin, and these are what are now called the
good cultivating castes. They have now practically the same status,
though, as has been seen, they were originally of most diverse origin,
including bands of robbers and freebooters, cattle-lifters, non-Aryan
tribes, and sections of any castes which managed to get possession
of an appreciable quantity of land.
25. Higher professional and artisan castes.
The second division of the group of pure or good castes, or those from
whom a Brahman can take water, comprises the higher artisan castes:
Barhai.
Bharbhunja.
Halwai.
Kasar.
Komti.
Sansia.
Sunar.
Tamera.
Vidur.