BOOK II. Mixed classes. nution whatever can be perceived in their spiritual authority. Such is certainly the case in the Maratta country, and would appear to be so likewise in the west of Hindostan.* The temporal influence derived from their numbers, affluence, and rank, subsists in all parts; but, even where the Bramins have retained their religious authority, they have lost much of their popularity. This seems to be particularly the case among the Rájpútst, and is still more so among the Marattas, who have not forgiven their being supplanted in the government of their country by a class whom they regard as their inferiors in the military qualities which alone, in their estimation, entitle men to command. The two lowest classes that existed in Menu's time are now replaced by a great number of casts of mixed, and sometimes obscure, descent, who, nevertheless, maintain their divisions with greater strictness than the ancient classes were accustomed to do, neither eating together, nor intermarrying, nor partaking in common rites. In the neighbourhood of Púna, where they are probably not particularly numerous, there are about 150 different casts. These casts, in many cases, coincide with trades; the goldsmiths forming one cast, the car Tod's Rajasthan, vol. i. pp. 511, 512. + Ibid.; and see also Malcolm's Central India, vol. ii. p. 124. Steele, Summary of the Laws and Customs of Hindoo Casts, preface, p. xi. penters another, &c. This is conformable to Menu, who assigns to each of the mixed classes an hereditary occupation. The enforcement of the rules of cast is still strict, but capricious. If a person of low cast were to step on the space of ground cleared out by one of the higher classes for cooking, the owner would immediately throw away his untasted meal, even if he had not the means of procuring another. The loss of cast is faintly described by saying that it is civil death. A man not only cannot inherit, nor contract, nor give evidence, but he is excluded from all the intercourse of private life, as well as from the privileges of a citizen. He must not be admitted into his father's house; his nearest relations must not communicate with him; and he is deprived of all the consolations of religion in this life, and all hope of happiness in that which is to follow. Unless, however, cast be lost for an enormous offence, or for long continued breach of rules, it can always be regained by expiation; and the means of recovering it must be very easy, for the effects of the loss of it are now scarcely observable. It occurs, no doubt, and prosecutions are not unfrequent in our courts for unjust exclusion from cast; but in a long residence in India I do not remember ever to have met with or heard of an individual placed in the circumstances which I have described. The greatest change of all is, that there no longer exists a servile class. There are still præ CHAP I. BOOK II. dial slaves in the south of India, and some of the mountain and forest districts elsewhere. These may possibly be the remains of the ancient Súdras, but in other parts of the country all classes are free. Domestic slaves form no exception, being individuals of any class reduced by particular circumstances to bondage. Though scrupulous genealogists dispute the existence of pure Súdras at the present day, yet many descriptions of people are admitted to be such even by the Bramins. The whole of the Marattas, for instance, belong to that class. The proper occupation of a Súdra is now thought to be agriculture; but he is not confined to that employment, for many are soldiers; and the Cáyets, who have been mentioned as rivalling the Bramins in business and every thing connected with the pen, are (in Bengal at least) pure Súdras, to whom their profession has descended from ancient times.* The institution of casts, though it exercises a most pernicious influence on the progress of the nation, has by no means so great an effect in obstructing the enterprise of individuals as European writers are apt to suppose. There is, indeed, scarcely any part of the world where changes of condition are so sudden and so striking as in India.† * Colebrooke, Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. 58. The last Péshwa had, at different times, two prime ministers one of them had been either an officiating priest or a singer in a temple (both degrading employments), and the other was a Súdra, and originally a running footman, The A new cast may be said to have been introduced CHAP. by the establishment of the monastic orders. I. orders. The origin of these communities can only be Monastic touched on as a matter of speculation. By the rules of Menu's Code, a Bramin in the fourth stage of his life, after having passed through a period of solitude and mortification as an anchoret*, is released from all formal observances, and permitted to devote his time to contemplation. It is probable that persons so situated might assemble for the purpose of religious discussion, and that men of superior endowments to the rest might collect a number of hearers, who would live around them without forming any religious community. Such, at least, was the progress from single monks to cenobites, among the early Christians. The assemblies of these inquirers might in time be attended by disciples, who, though not Bramins, were of the classes to whom the study of theology was permitted, each, however, living independently, according to the practice of his own. class. This would seem to be the stage to which Rája of Jeipúr's prime minister was a barber. The founder of BOOK II. these religious institutions had attained in the time of Alexander, though there are passages in the early Greek writers from which it might be inferred that they had advanced still further towards the present model of regular monastic orders.* Unless that evidence be thought sufficient, we have no means of conjecturing at what period those assemblages formed themselves into religious communities, subject to rules of their own, distinct from those of their respective classes. The earliest date to which the foundation of any monastic order can be traced in the Hindú books is the eighth century of our æra; and few of those now in existence are older than the fourteenth.† Some orders are still composed of Bramins alone, and a few among them may be regarded as the representatives of the original societies adverted to in the last page; but the distinguishing peculiarity of the great majority of the orders is, that all distinctions of cast are levelled on admission. Bramins break their sacerdotal thread; and Cshétryas, Veisyas, and Súdras renounce their own class on entering an order, and all become equal members of their new community. This bold innovation is supposed * See Appendix III. It appears, in the same place, that these assemblies included persons performing the penances enjoined to Bramins of the third stage of life (or anchorets), who, by the strict rule laid down for them, were bound to live in solitude and silence. + It may, perhaps, be construed into an indication of the existence of such orders in Menu's time, that in Book V. v. 89. funeral rites are denied to heretics, who wear a dress of religion unauthorised by the Veda. |