of Orissa, half-naked peasants, struggling along under their baskets of yams, with a filthy little Bráhmanical thread over their shoulder.'1 man caste analyzed. In many parts of India, Bráhmans may be found earning The Bráhtheir livelihood as porters, shepherds, cultivators, potters, and fishermen, side by side with others who would rather starve and see their wives and little ones die of hunger, than demean themselves to manual labour, or let food prepared by a man of inferior caste pass their lips. Classification by locality introduces another set of distinctions among the Brahmans. In Lower Bengal jails, a convict Bráhman from Behar or the North-Western Provinces used to be highly valued, as the only person who could prepare food for all classes of Bráhman prisoners. In 1864, I saw a Brahman felon try to starve himself to death, and submit to a flogging rather than eat his food, on account of scruples as to whether the birthplace of the North-Western Bráhman, who had cooked it, was equal in sanctity to his own native district. The Brahmans are popularly divided into ten great septs, according to their locality; five on the north, and five on the south of the Vindhya range.2 But the minor distinctions are innumerable. Thus, the first of the five northern septs, the Saraswatas in the 1 See Orissa, vol. i. pp. 238 et seq. (ed. 1872), where I have devoted 25 pages to the diversities of the Bráhmans in occupation and race. Also Hindu Tribes and Castes, by the Rev. M. A. Sherring, Introd. xxi. vol. ii. (4to, Calcutta, 1879). 2 Thus tabulated according to a Sanskrit mnemonic Sloka : I. The five Gauras north of the Vindhya range (1) The Saraswatas, so called from the country watered by (2) The Kányakubjas, so called from the Kányakubja or (3) The Gauras proper, so called from Gaur, or the country (4) The Utkalas, of the Province of Utkala or Odra (Orissa). II. The five Dravidas south of the Vindhya range (1) The Maháráshtras, of the country of the Maráthí language. (3) The Dravidas proper, of the country of the Dravidian or (4) The Karnátas, of the Karnátika, or the country of the Canarese language. (5) The Gurjaras, of Gurjaráshtra or country of the Gujarátí language. -Indian Caste, by the late John Wilson, D.D. (of Bombay), ii. p. 17. The lower more com plex. Punjab, consist of 469 classes.1 Mr. Sherring enumerates 1886 separate Bráhmanical tribes.2 Dr. Wilson, of Bombay, carried his learned work on Caste to the length of two volumes, aggregating 678 pages, before his death; but he had not completed his analysis of even a single caste-the Brahmans. It will be readily understood, therefore, how numerous are castes still the Subdivisions, and how complex is the constitution, of the lower castes. The Rájputs now number 590 separately named tribes in different parts of India.3 But a process of synthesis as well as of analysis has been going on among the Indian peoples. In many outlying Provinces, we see nonAryan chiefs and warlike tribes turn into Aryan Rajputs before our eyes. I have elsewhere cited well-known legends of large bodies of aliens being from time to time incorporated even into the Brahman caste.5 But besides these 'manufactured Brahmans,' and the ethnical syncretisms of which they are surviving types, there has been a steady process of amalgamation among the Hindus by mixed marriage. The Súdras, says Mr. Sherring, display a great intermingling of races. Every caste exhibits this confusion. They form a living and practical testimony to the fact that in former times the upper and lower classes of native society, by which I mean the Hindu and non-Hindu population of India, formed alliances with one another on a prodigious scale, and that the offspring of these alliances were in many instances gathered together into separate castes and denominated Súdras." The building up of castes. The slow development of Hindu 6 The Hindu custom now forbids marriage between (1) persons of the same gotra or kindred, and (2) persons of different castes. But this precise double rule has been arrived at only marriage after many intermediate experiments in endogamous and exogamous tribal life. The transitions are typified by the polyandry of Draupadí in the Mahábhárata, and by the multitudinous law. 1 Compiled by Pandit Rádhá Krishna, quoted by Dr. J. Wilson, Indian Caste, part ii. pp. 126-133. 2 Hindu Tribes and Castes, pp. xxii.-xlvi. vol. ii. (4to, Calcutta, 1879). 3 Sherring, Hindu Tribes and Castes, vol. ii. pp. lv.-lxv. Hindu Tribes and Castes, vol. ii. p. lxvii. Also Sherring, ♪ Orissa, vol. i. p. 247 (in Oudh), p. 248 (in Bhágalpur), p. 254 (in Malabar), etc. 6 See two interesting articles from opposite points of view, on the synthetic aspects of caste, by the Rev. Mr. Sherring, of Benares, and by Jogendra Chandra Ghose, in the Calcutta Review, Oct. 1880. 7 Calcutta Review, cxlii. p. 225. cess. caste customs relating to marriage, inheritance, and the family tie, which survive to this day. Such survivals constitute an important branch of law, in fact, the 'common law' of India, and furnish one of the chief difficulties in the way of AngloIndian codification. Thus, to take a single point, the rules Survivals regarding marriage exhibit every phase from the compulsory of the propolyandry of the Nairs, the permissive polyandry of the Játs, and the condonement of adultery with a husband's brother or kinsman among the Kárakat Vellálars of Madura; to the law of Levirate among the Ahírs and Nuniyás, the legal remarriage of widows among the low-caste Hindus, and the stringent provisions against such remarriages among the higher ones. Among the Koils, although polyandry is forgotten, the right of disposing of a girl in marriage still belongs, in certain cases, to the maternal uncle,—a relic of the polyandric system of succession through females. This tribe also preserves the form of marriage by 'capture.' The Brahmanas indicate that the blood of the Hindus Ancient of castes. was, even in the early post-Vedic period, greatly intermingled.2 mingling The ancient marriage code recognised as lawful, unions of men of higher caste with females from any of the lower ones, and their offspring had a quite different social status from the progeny of illicit concubinage. The laws of Manu disclose how widely such connections had influenced the structure of Indian society 2000 years ago; and the Census of 1872 proved that the mixed castes still make up the great body of the Hindu population. In dealing with Indian caste, we must therefore allow not only for the ethnical and geographical elements into which it is resolvable, but also for the synthetic processes by which it has been built up. caste. The same remark applies to the other principle of classifi- The 'occupation 1 See ante, pp. 124, 125. Among many treatises on this subject, Arthur basis of Steele's Law and Custom of Hindu Castes (1868) deals with Western India; Nelson's View of Hindu Law (1877), and Burnell's Dayavibhága, etc., may be quoted for the Madras Presidency; Beames' admirable edition of Sir Henry Elliot's Tribes of the North-Western Provinces, and Sherring's Hindu Tribes (besides a number of more strictly legal treatises), for Bengal. 2 The Taittiriya Bráhmana of the Krishna Yajur Veda (quoted by Dr. J. Wilson, Caste, i. pp. 127-132) enumerates 159 castes. 3 Anuloma. Pratiloma. For an arrangement of 134 Indian castes, according to their origin, or 'procession' from (1) regular full marriage by members of the same caste, (2) anuloma, (3) pratiloma, (4) Vrátya-Santati, (5) adultery, (6) incest, (7) degeneration; see Dr. J. Wilson, Indian Caste, ii. PP. 39-70. , Changes castes. cation on which caste rests, namely, according to the employments of the people. On the one hand, there has been a tendency to erect every separate employment in each separate Province into a distinct caste. On the other hand, there has been a practice (which European observers are apt to overlook) of the lower castes changing their occupation, and in some cases deliberately raising themselves in the social scale. Thus the Vaisya caste, literally the vis or body of the Aryan settlers, were in ancient times the tillers of the soil. They have gradually abandoned this laborious occupation to the Súdra and mixed castes, and are now the merchants and bankers of India. Fair in complexion,' writes the most accurate of recent students of caste, 1 'with rather delicate features, and a certain refinement depicted on their countenances, sharp of eye, intelligent of face, and polite The Vais- of bearing,' the Vaisyas 'must have radically changed since the days when their forefathers delved, sowed, and reaped.' Indeed, so great is the change, that a heated controversy is going on in Hindu society as to whether the Bengali baniás, or merchant-bankers, are really of Vaisya descent. yas. Gold smiths of Madras. Such a rise in the social scale is usually the unconscious work of time, but there are also legends of distinct acts of selfassertion by individual castes. In Southern India, the goldsmiths strenuously resisted the rule of the Bráhmans, and for ages claimed to be the true spiritual guides, styling themselves ácháryas, 'religious teachers,' and wearing the sacred thread. Their pretensions are supposed to have given rise to the great division of castes in Madras, into the Right-hand,' or the cultivating and trading castes who supported the Brahmans; and the Left-hand,' chiefly handicrafts which sided with the artisan opposition to Bráhman supremacy.2 In Bengal, that opposition came from the literary class. The Dattas, a sept of the Kayasth or writer - caste, formally renounced the of Bengal. position assigned to them in the Bráhmanical classification of Hindu society. They claimed to rank next to the Brahmans, and thus above all the other castes. They failed; but a native author states that one of their body, within the The 1 The Rev. M. A. Sherring, deceased, alas, since the above was written, after a life of noble devotion and self-sacrifice to the Indian people. Calcutta Review, October 1880, p. 220. 2 This subject is involved in much obscurity. I reproduce, without criticism, the explanation given in Nelson's View of the Hindu Law, as administered by the High Court of Madras, p. 140 (Madras, 1877). Cf. the right-hand' and 'left-hand' worshippers of Sakti, post, pp. 303, 304. Jogendra Chandra Ghose, Calcutta Review, cxlii. p. 279 (October 1880). Shahas. memory of men still living, maintained his title, and wore the sacred thread of the pure 'twice-born.' The Statistical Survey of India has disclosed many self-assertions of this sort, although of a more gradual character and on a smaller scale. Thus, in Eastern Bengal, where land is plentiful, the Sháhas, a section of the Surís or degraded spirit-sellers, The have, in our own time, advanced themselves into a respectable cultivating caste, and are now prosperous traders. Some of the Telís or oil-pressers in Dacca District, and certain of the Telis, Támbulís, Támbulís or pán growers in Rangpur, have in like manner risen above their hereditary callings, and become bankers and grain merchants. etc. and There is therefore a plasticity as well as a rigidity in caste. Plasticity Its plasticity has enabled it to adapt itself to widely separated rigidity stages of social progress, and so to incorporate within itself in caste. the various ethnical elements which make up the Indian people. Its rigidity has given strength and permanence to the corporate body thus formed. Hinduism is internally loosely coherent, but it has great powers of resistance to external pressure. Each caste is to some extent a trade- Caste, as As a a system of trade guild, a mutual assurance society, and a religious sect. trade-union, it insists on the proper training of the youth of guilds. its craft, regulates the wages of its members, deals with delinquents, and promotes good fellowship by social gatherings. The famous fabrics of medieval India, and its chief local industries in our own day, were developed under the supervision of caste or trade guilds of this sort. Such guilds may still be found in many parts of India, but not always with the same complete development.1 In AHMEDABAD DISTRICT 2 each different trade or manufacture forms a separate guild. All heads of artisan households are ranged under their proper guild. The objects of the guild are to regulate com- Its petition among the members, and to uphold the interest of regulation of wages. the body in any dispute arising with other craftsmen. To moderate competition, the guild appoints certain days as trade holidays, when any member who works is punished by a fine. A special case occurred in 1873 among the Ahmedábád bricklayers. Men of this class sometimes added 3d. to their daily wages by working extra time in the early morning. But several families were thrown out of employment; and accordingly the guild met, and decided that as there was not 'The Statistical Accounts or Gazetteers of the Bombay Districts devote a special section to such trade-guilds in every District. * See the article, Imperial Gazetteer, vol. i. pp. 65, 66. |