CHAPTER VIII. RISE OF HINDUISM (750 TO 1520 A.D.). HINDU FROM these diverse races, pre-Aryan, Aryan, and Scythic, RISE OF the population of India has been made up. The task of organizing them fell to the Bráhmans. That ancient caste, which had never quitted the scene even during the height of the Buddhistic supremacy, stepped forward to the front of the stage upon the decay of the Buddhist faith. The Chinese pilgrim, about 640 A.D., had found Brahmanism and Buddhism co-existing throughout India. The conflict of creeds brought forth a great line of Bráhman apostles, from the 8th to the 16th century A.D., with occasional successors down to our own day. The disintegration of Buddhism, as we have seen, occupied many hundred years, perhaps from 300 to 1000 A.D.1 A. D. The Hindus take the 8th century as the turning-point in the Kumárila, struggle. About 750 A.D., arose a holy Bráhman of Bengal, 750 (?) Kumárila Bhatta by name, preaching the old Vedic doctrine of a personal Creator and God. Before this realistic theology, the impersonal abstractions of the Buddhists succumbed; and according to a later legend, the reformer wielded the sword of the flesh not less trenchantly than the weapons of the spirit. A Sanskrit writer, Madhava-Achárya, of the 14th century A.D., relates how Sudhanwan, a prince in Southern India, 'commanded his servants to put to death the old men and the Persecu children of the Buddhists, from the bridge of Ráma [the ridge tion (?) of of reefs which connects India with Ceylon] to the Snowy Mountain let him who slays not, be slain.' 2 1 From the language of the Saddharma Pundarika, translated into Chinese before the end of the 3rd century A.D., H. H. Wilson infers that even at that early date the career of the Buddhists had not been one of uninterrupted success, although the opposition had not been such as to arrest their progress' (Essays, vol. ii. p. 366, ed. 1862). The existence of Buddhism in India is abundantly attested to 1000 A.D. 2 Quoted by H. H. Wilson, ut supra. See also Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. iv. p. 708; Colebrooke's Essays, p. 190. Buddhism. True value of the legend. Twofold basis of Hinduism; caste and religion. Caste basis ism. The race origin of caste. It is needless to say that no sovereign existed at that time in India whose power to persecute extended from the Himálayas to Cape Comorin. So far as the legend has any truth, it refers to one of many local religious reprisals which took place at the Indian courts during the struggle between the Buddhists and the Bráhmans. Such reprisals recurred in later days, on a smaller scale, between the rival Hindu sects. The legend of Kumárila is significant, however, as placing on a religious basis the series of many-sided evolutions which resulted in Hinduism. These evolutions were the result of ethnical processes, more subtle than the scheming of any caste of men. The Brahmans gave a direction to Hinduism, but it was the natural development of the Indian races which produced it. Hinduism is a social organization and a religious confederacy. As a social organization, it rests upon caste, with its roots deep down in the ethnical elements of the Indian people. As a religious confederacy, it represents the coali tion of the old Vedic faith of the Bráhmans with Buddhism on the one hand, and with the ruder rites of the pre-Aryan and Indo-Scythic races on the other. The ethnical basis of caste is disclosed in the fourfold division of Hindu of the people into the 'twice-born' Aryan castes, including the Brahmans, Kshattriyas (Rájputs), and Vaisyas; and the once-born' non-Aryan Súdras. The Census proves that this classification remains the fundamental one to the present day. The three 'twice-born' castes still wear the sacred thread, and claim a joint, although an unequal, inheritance in the holy books of the Veda. The once-born' castes are still denied the sacred thread, and their initiation into the old religious literature of the Indo-Aryans has only been effected by the secular teaching of our Anglo-Indian schools. But while caste has thus its foundations deep in the distinctions of race, its superstructure is regulated by another system of division, based on the occupations of the people. The early classification of the people may be expressed either ethnically as 'twice-born' Aryans, and once-born' non-Aryans; or socially, as priests, warriors, husbandmen, and serfs. On these two principles of classification, according to race and to employment, still further modified by geographical position, has been built up the ethnical and social organization of Indian caste. Modified by occupation' and 'locality.' Complexity of caste. From the resulting cross-divisions arises an excessive complexity, which renders any brief exposition of caste superficial. As a rule, it may be said that the Aryan or 'twice-born' castes adhere most closely to the ethnical principle of Brahmans unit. division; the once-born' or distinctly non-Aryan to the same principle, but profoundly modified by the concurrent principle of employment; while the mixed progeny of the two are classified solely according to their occupation. But even Even the among the Brahmans, whose pride of race and continuity of not an tradition should render them the firmest ethnical unit among ethnical the Indian castes, classification by employment and by geographical situation plays a very important part; and the Bráhmans, so far from being a compact unit, are made up of several hundred castes, who cannot intermarry, nor eat food cooked by each other. They follow every employment, from the calm pandits of Behar in their stainless white robes, and the haughty priests of Benares, to the potato-growing Brahmans of Orissa, 'half-naked peasants, struggling along under their baskets of yams, with a filthy little Bráhmanical thread over their shoulder.'1 In many parts of India, Bráhmans may be found earning The Bráhtheir livelihood as porters, shepherds, cultivators, potters, and man caste analyzed. 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 allow food prepared by a man of inferior caste to pass their lips. Classification by locality introduces another set of distinctions among the Bráhmans. 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 Brahman prisoners. In 1864, the author saw a Bráhman 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 Bráhman septs, the 1 See Hunter's Orissa, vol. i. pp. 238 et seq. (ed. 1872), where 25 pages are devoted to the diversities of the Brahmans in occupation and race. Also Hindu Tribes and Castes, by the Rev. M. A. Sherring, Introd. xxi. vol. ii. (4to, Calcutta, 1879). * Thus tabulated according to a Sanskrit mnemonic Sloka :I. The five Gauras north of the Vindhya range VOL. VI. (1) The Saraswatas, so called from the country watered by (2) The Kányakubjas, so called from the Kányakubja or N The lower more com plex. Sáraswatas in the Punjab, consist of 469 classes.1 Sherring enumerated 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 Bráhmans. It will be readily understood, therefore, how numerous are castes still the sub-divisions, and how complex is the constitution, of the lower castes. The Rajputs now number 590 separatelynamed tribes in different parts of India. 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. Well-known legends have been handed down of large bodies of aliens being incorporated from time to time even into the Bráhman caste.5 But besides these 'manufactured Bráhmans,' and the ethnical syncretisms which they represent, there has been a steady process of amalgamation among the Hindus by mixed marriage. The The build- Súdras, says Mr. Sherring, 'display a great intermingling ing up of of races. Every caste exhibits this confusion. castes. 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 (3) The Gauras proper, so called from Gaur, or the country of the Lower Ganges. (4) The Utkalas, of the Province of Utkala or Odra (Orissa). (5) The Maithilas, of the Province of Mithila (Tirhut). II. The five Dravidas south of the Vindhya range (1) The Maháráshtras, of the country of the Marathi language. (2) The Andhras or Tailangas, of the country of the Telugu language. (3) The Dravidas proper, of the country of the Dravidian or Tamil language. (4) The Karnátas, of the Karnátika, or the country of the Canarese language. (5) The Gurjaras, of Gurjaráshtra, or the country of the Gujarátí language. 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 See Sherring, Hindu Tribes and Castes, vol. ii. pp. lv.-lxv. See Sherring, Hindu Tribes and Castes, vol. ii. P. lxvii. Hunter's Orissa, vol. i. p. 247 (in Oudh), p. 248 (in Bhagalpur), 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. SURVIVALS OF POLYANDRY. 195 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.'1 relating to marriage, law. of the process. The Hindu custom now forbids marriage between (1) per- The slow developsons of the same gotra or kindred, and (2) persons of different ment of castes. But this precise double rule has been arrived at only Hindu after many intermediate experiments in endogamous and exo- marriage gamous tribal life. The transitions are typified by the polyandry of Draupadi in the Mahábhárata, and by many caste customs inheritance, and the family tie, which survive to this day. Such survivals constitute an important branch of law, in fact, the domestic 'common law' of India,2 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 polyandry of the old Nairs, the permissive polyandry of the Punjab 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 re-marriage of widows among the low-caste Hindus, and the stringent provisions against such re-marriages among the higher castes. At this day, the Nairs exhibit several of the stages in the advance from polyandric to monogamous institutions. The conflict between polyandry and the more civilised marriage system of the Hindus is going on before our eyes in Malabar. 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.' of castes. The Brahmanas indicate that the blood of the Hindus Ancient was, even in the early post-Vedic period, greatly intermingled.3 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 2 4 Calcutta Review, cxlii. p. 225. Among many treatises on this subject, Arthur 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 more strictly legal treatises), for Bengal. 3 The Taittiriya Bráhmana of the Krishna Yajur Veda (quoted by Dr. J. Wilson, Caste, i. pp. 127-132) enumerates 159 castes. • Anuloma. |