THE FOUR CASTES DIFFERENTIATE.

91

remnants of the vanquished aboriginal tribes whose lives had been spared. These were 'the slave-bands of black descent,' the Dásas of the Veda. They were distinguished from their 'Twiceborn' Aryan conquerors as being only Once-born,' and by many contemptuous epithets. They were not allowed to be present at the great national sacrifices, or at the feasts which followed them. They could never rise out of their servile condition; and to them was assigned the severest toil in the fields, and all the hard and dirty work of the village community.

Kshat

increase.

Of the four Indian castes, three had a tendency to increase. The BráhAs the Aryan conquests spread, more aboriginal tribes were mans, reduced to serfdom, as Súdras. The warriors, or Kshattriyas, triyas, and would constantly receive additions from wealthy or enterprising Súdras members of the cultivating class. When an expedition or migration went forth to subdue new territory, the whole colonists would for a time lead a military life, and their sons would probably all regard themselves as Kshattriyas. In ancient times, entire tribes, and at the present day the mass of the population throughout large tracts, thus claim to be of the warrior or Rájput caste. Moreover, the kings and fighting-men of aboriginal races who, without being conquered by the Aryans, entered into alliance with them, would probably assume for themselves the warrior or Kshattriya rank. We see this process going on at the present day among many of the aboriginal peoples. The Bráhmans, in their turn, appear at first to have received into their body distinguished families of Kshattriya descent. In later times, too, we find that sections of aboriginal races were also 'manufactured' wholesale into Brahmans. Unmistakeable cases of such 'manufactures' or ethnical syncretisms are recorded; and besides the upperclass agricultural Bráhmans, there are throughout India many local castes of Bráhmans who follow the humble callings of fishermen, blacksmiths, ploughmen, and potato-growers.1

diminish.

The Vaisya or cultivating caste did not tend, in this manner, The to increase. No one felt ambitious to win his way into it, Vaisyas except perhaps the enslaved Súdras, to whom any change of condition was forbidden. The Vaisyas themselves tended in early times to rise into the more honourable warrior class; and at a later period, to be mingled with the labouring multitude of Súdras, or with the castes of mixed descent. In many Provinces they have now almost disappeared as a distinct In ancient India, as at the present day, the three conspicuous castes were (1) the priests and (2) warriors of 1 See Hunter's Orissa, vol. i. pp. 239-264 (1872).

caste.

Struggle between priestly and warrior castes.

Rising

Aryan birth, and (3) the serfs or Súdras, the remnants of earlier races. The Súdras had no rights; and, once conquered, ceased to struggle against their fate. But a long contest raged between the priests and warriors for the chief place in the Aryan commonwealth.

In order to understand this contest, we must go back to the time when the priests and warriors were simply fellowtribesmen. The Brahman caste seems to have grown out of the families of Rishis who composed the Vedic hymns, or who were chosen to conduct the great tribal sacrifices. In after-times, the whole Bráhman population of India pretended to trace their descent from the Seven Rishis, heads of the seven priestly families to whom the Vedic hymns were assigned. But the composers of the Vedic hymns were sometimes kings or distinguished warriors rather than priests; indeed, the Veda itself speaks of these royal Rishis (Rájarshis). When the Brahmans put forward their claim to the highest pretension rank, the warriors or Kshattriyas were slow to admit it; and when the Brahmans went a step further, and declared that only members of their families could be priests, or gain admission into the priestly caste, the warriors seem to have disputed their pretensions. In later ages, the Brahmans, having the exclusive keeping of the sacred writings, effaced from them, as far as possible, all traces of their struggle with the Kshattriyas. The Brahmans taught that their caste had come forth from the mouth of God, divinely ordained to the priesthood from the beginning of time. Nevertheless, the Vedic and Sanskrit texts record a long contest, perhaps representing a difference in race or separate waves of Aryan migrations.

of the Brahmans.

Viswámitra and Vasishtha

The quarrel between the two sages Viswamitra and Vasishtha, which, as has been mentioned, runs through the whole Veda, is typical of this struggle. Viswámitra stands as a representative of the royal-warrior rank, who claims to perform a great public sacrifice. The white-robed Vasishtha represents the Brahmans or hereditary priesthood, and opposes the warrior's claim. In the end, Viswamitra established his title to conduct the sacrifice; but the Bráhmans explain this by saying that his virtues and austerities won admission for him into the priestly family of Bhrigu. He thus became a Brahman, and could lawfully fill the priestly office. Viswámitra serves as a typical link, not only between the priestly and the worldly castes, but also between the sacred and the profane sciences. He was the legendary founder of the art of war, and his equally legendary son Susruta is quoted as the earliest authority on

BRAHMANS AND KSHATTRIYAS.

93

Indian medicine. These two sciences of war and medicine, together with music and architecture, form upa- Vedas, or supplementary sections of the divinely-inspired knowledge of the Bráhmans.

Kshat

Bráhman

Another famous royal Rishi, Vítahavya, 'attained the con- Other dition of Brahmanhood, venerated by mankind,' by a word cases of of the saintly Bhrigu. Parasu-Ráma, the Divine Champion of triyas atthe Brahmans, was of warrior descent by his mother's side. taining to Manu, their legislator, sprang from the warrior caste; and his hood. father is expressly called 'the seed of all the Kshattriyas.' But when the Brahmans had firmly established their supremacy, they became reluctant to allow the possibility of even princes finding an entrance into their sacred order. King Ganaka was more learned than all the Brahmans at his court, and performed terrible penances to attain to Bráhmanhood. Yet the legends leave it doubtful whether he gained his desire. The still more holy, but probably later, Matanga, wore his body to skin and bone by a thousand years of austerities, and was held up from falling by the hand of the god Indra himself. Nevertheless, he could not attain to Bráhmanhood. Gautama Buddha, who in the 6th century before Christ overthrew the Brahman supremacy, and founded a new religion, was a prince of warrior descent; perhaps born in too late an age to be adopted into, and utilized by, the Bráhman caste.

'Middle

Land,' the

ism.

Among some of the Aryan tribes the priests apparently failed The to establish themselves as an exclusive order. Indeed, the four castes, and especially the Bráhman caste, seem only to have focus of obtained their full development amid the plenty of the Middle BrahmanLand (Madhya-desha), watered by the Jumna and the Ganges. The early Aryan settlements to the west of the Indus long remained outside the caste system; the later Aryan offshoots to the south and east of the Middle Land only partially carried that system with them. But in the Middle Land itself, with Delhi as its western capital, and the great cities of Ajodhya (Oudh) and Benares on its eastern frontier, the Brahmans grew by degrees into a compact, learned, and supremely influential body, the makers of Sanskrit literature. Their language, their religion, and their laws, became in after times the standards aimed at throughout all India. They naturally denounced all who did Aryan not submit to their pretensions, and they stigmatized the other tribes beyond Aryan settlements who had not accepted their caste system as the Bráhlapsed tribes or outcasts (Vrishalas). Among the lists of such manical pale. fallen races we read the name afterwards applied to the Ionians or Greeks (Yavanas). The Brahmans of the Middle

Brahman

tures.

Land had not only to enforce their supremacy over the powerful warriors of their own kingdoms; they had also to extend it among the outlying Aryan tribes who had never fully accepted their caste system. This must have been a slow work of ages, and it seems to have led to bitter feuds.

There were moments of defeat, indeed, when Bráhman discomfi- leaders acknowledged the superiority of the warrior caste. 'None is greater,' says the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, than the Kshattriya; therefore the Bráhman, under the Kshattriya, worships at the royal sacrifice (rájasúya).'1 It seems likely that numbers of the Vaisyas or cultivators would take part with the Kshattriyas, and be admitted into their caste. That the contest was not a bloodless one is attested by many legends, especially that of Parasu-Ráma, or Ráma of the Axe.' This hero, who was divinely honoured as the sixth Incarnation of Vishnu, appeared on the scene after alternate massacres by Bráhmans and Kshattriyas had taken place. He fought on the Bráhman side, and covered India with the carcases of the warrior caste. Thrice seven times,' says the Sanskrit epic, 'did he clear the earth of the Kshattriyas,' and so ended in favour of the Brahmans the long struggle.

The Bráh

man su

premacy estab

lished.

They

make a wise use

of it.

6

It is vain to search into the exact historical value of such legends. They suffice to indicate an opposition among the early Aryan kingdoms to the claims of the Bráhmans, and the mingled measures of conciliation and force by which that opposition was overcome. The Brahman caste, having established its power, made a wise use of it. From the ancient Vedic times its leaders recognised that if they were to exercise spiritual supremacy, they must renounce earthly pomp. arrogating the priestly function, they gave up all claim to the royal office. They were divinely appointed to be the guides of nations and the counsellors of kings, but they could not be kings themselves. As the duty of the Súdra was to serve, of the Vaisya to till the ground and follow middle-class trades or crafts, so the business of the Kshattriya was with

In

1 It is easy to exaggerate the significance of this passage, and dangerous to generalize from it. The author has to thank Prof. Cowell and the late Dr. John Muir for notes upon its precise application. Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit. p. 54 (1878), describes the rájasúya as 'the consecration of the king.' The author takes this opportunity of expressing his many obligations to Dr. John Muir, his first teacher in Sanskrit. Dr. Muir, after an honourable career in the Bengal Civil Service, devoted the second half of his life to the study of ancient Indian literature; and his five volumes of Original Sanskrit Texts form one of the most valuable and most permanent contributions to Oriental learning made in our time.

THE BRAHMAN RULE OF LIFE.

95

the public enemy, and that of the Brahmans with the national gods.

own caste.

Brahman's

The

He Householder

While the Brahman leaders thus organized the occupations Four of the commonwealth, they also laid down strict rules for their stages of a They felt that as their functions were mysterious life. and above the reach of other men, so also must be their lives. Each day brought its hourly routine of ceremonies, studies, and duties. Their whole life was mapped out into four clearlydefined stages of discipline. For their existence, in its full First stage: religious significance, commenced not at birth, but on being Learner invested at the close of childhood with the sacred thread of the (brahmaTwice-Born. Their youth and early manhood were to be spent chári). in learning by heart from some Bráhman sage the inspired Scriptures, tending the sacred fire, and serving their preceptor. Having completed his long studies, the young Bráhman (2) The entered on the second stage of his life, as a householder. married and commenced a course of family duties. When he (grihashad reared a family, and gained a practical knowledge of the tha). world, he retired into the forest as a recluse, for the third period (3) The of his existence; feeding on roots or fruits, and practising his Forestreligious rites with increased devotion. The fourth stage was (vinathat of the ascetic or religious mendicant, wholly withdrawn from prastha). earthly affairs, and striving to attain a condition of mind (4) The which, heedless of the joys, or pains, or wants of the body, is Ascetic intent only on its final absorption into the deity. The Brahman, yasi). in this fourth stage of his life, ate nothing but what was given to him unasked, and abode not more than one day in any village, lest the vanities of the world should find entrance into his heart. Throughout his whole existence, he practised a strict temperance; drinking no wine, using a simple diet, curbing the desires, shut off from the tumults of war, and his thoughts fixed on study and contemplation. "What is this world?' says a Bráhman sage. 'It is even as the bough of a tree, on which a bird rests for a night, and in the morning flies away.'

Recluse

(san

life.

It may be objected that so severe a life of discipline could Brahman never be led by any large class of men. And no doubt there ideal of have been at all times worldly Bráhmans; indeed, the struggle for existence in modern times has compelled the great majority of the Brahmans to betake themselves to secular pursuits. But the whole body of Sanskrit literature bears witness to the fact that this ideal life was constantly before their eyes, and that it served to the whole caste as a high standard in its two really essential features of self-culture and self-restraint.