The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I (of IV)

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90. The Hindu deities and the sacrificial meal.

Thus there seems reason to suppose that the caste-tie of the Hindus is
the same as that which united the members of the city-states of Greece
and Italy, that is the eating of a sacramental food together. Among
the Vedic Aryans that country only was considered pure and fit for
sacrifice in which the Aryan gods had taken up their residence. [231]
Hindustan was made a pure country in which Aryans could offer
sacrifices by the fact that Agni, the sacrificial god of fire, spread
himself over it. But the gods have changed. The old Vedic deities
Indra, the rain-god, Varuna, the heaven-god, the Maruts or winds,
and Soma, the divine liquor, have fallen into neglect. These were the
principal forces which controlled the existence of a nomad pastoral
people, dependent on rain to make the grass grow for their herds,
and guiding their course by the sun and stars. The Soma or liquor
apparently had a warming, exhilarating effect in the cold climate
of the Central Asian steppes, and was therefore venerated. Since in
the hot plains of India abstinence from alcoholic liquor has become
a principal religious tenet of high-caste Hindus, Soma is naturally
no more heard of. Agni, the fire-god, was also one of the greatest
deities to the nomads of the cold uplands, as the preserver of life
against cold. But in India, except as represented by the hearth,
for cooking, little regard is paid to him, since fires are not
required for warmth. New gods have arisen in Hinduism. The sun was
an important Vedic deity, both as Mitra and under other names. Vishnu
as the sun, or the spirit of whom the sun is the visible embodiment,
has become the most important deity in his capacity of the universal
giver and preserver of life. He is also widely venerated in his
anthropomorphic forms of Rama, the hero-prince of Ajodhia and leader
of the Aryan expedition to Ceylon, and Krishna, the divine cowherd,
perhaps some fabled hero sprung from the indigenous tribes. Siva
is the mountain-god of the Himalayas and a moon-deity, and in his
character of god of destruction the lightning and cobra are associated
with him. But he is really worshipped in his beneficent form of the
phallic emblem as the agent of life, and the bull, the fertiliser
of the soil and provider of food. Devi, the earth, is the great
mother goddess. Sprung from her are Hanuman, the monkey-god, and
Ganpati, the elephant-god, and in one of her forms, as the terrible
goddess Kali, she is perhaps the deified tiger. [232] Lachmi, the
goddess of wealth, and held to have been evolved from the cow, is
the consort of Vishnu. It was thus not the god to whom the sacrifice
was offered, but the sacrifice itself that was the essential thing,
and participation in the common eating of the sacrifice constituted
the bond of union. In early times a sacrifice was the occasion for
every important gathering or festivity, as is shown both in Indian
history and legend. And the caste feasts above described seem to be
the continuation and modern form of the ancient sacrifice.

91. Development of the occupational caste from the tribe.

The Roman population, as already seen, consisted of a set of clans
or _gentes_. The clans were collected in tribal groups such as the
_curia_, but it does not appear that these latter were endogamous. The
rite which constituted a Roman citizen was participation in the
Suovetaurilia, the communal sacrifice of the domestic animals, the pig,
the ram, and the bull. Since all the Roman citizens at first lived
in a comparatively small area, they were all able to be present at
the sacrifice. The other states of Greece and Italy had an analogous
constitution, as stated by M. Fustel de Coulanges. It may be supposed
that the Aryans were similarly divided into clans and tribes. The
word _visha,_ the substantive root of Vaishya, originally meant
a clan. [233] But as pointed out by M. Senart, they did not form
city-states in India, but settled in villages over a large area of
country. Their method of government was by small states under kings,
and probably they had a kind of national constitution, of which the
king was the centre and embodiment. But these states gradually lost
their individuality, and were merged in large empires, where the king
could no longer be the centre of the state or of the common life
of his people, nor perform a sacrifice at which they could all be
present, as the Roman kings did. This religious idea of nationality,
based on participation in a common sacrifice, was the only one which
existed in early times. Thus apparently the Aryans retained their
tribal constitution instead of expanding it into a national one,
and the members of clans within a certain local area gathered for a
communal sacrifice. But there was a great class, that of the Sudras
or indigenous inhabitants, who could not join in the sacrifices at
all. And between the Sudras and the Vaishyas or main body of the
Aryans there gradually grew up another mixed class, which also could
not properly participate in them. The priests and rulers, Brahmans
and Kshatriyas, tended to form exclusive bodies, and in this manner a
classification by occupation gradually grew up, the distinction being
marked by participation in separate sacrificial feasts. The cause
which ultimately broke down the religious distinctions of the Roman
and Greek states was the development of a feeling of nationality. In
the common struggle for the preservation of the city the prejudices
of the patricians weakened, and after a long internal conflict, the
plebeians were admitted to full rights of citizenship. The plebeians
were employed as infantry in the Roman armies, while the patricians
rode, and the increased importance of infantry in war was one great
cause of the improvement in the position of the plebeians. [234] In
India, in the absence of any national feeling, and with the growth of
a large and powerful priestly order, religious barriers and prejudices
became accentuated rather than weakened. The class distinctions grew
more rigid, and gradually, as the original racial line of cleavage was
fused by intermarriage and the production of groups of varying status,
these came to arrange themselves on a basis of occupation. This is
the inevitable and necessary rule in all societies whose activities
and mode of life are at all complicated. Racial distinctions cannot
be preserved unless in the most exceptional cases, where they are
accentuated by the difference of colour, and such a moral and social
gulf as that which exists between the whites and negroes in North
America. In primitive society there is no such mental cleavage to
render the idea of fusion abhorrent to the superior race; the bar is
religious, and while it places the inferior race in a despised and
abject position, there is no prohibition of illicit unions nor any
such moral feeling or principle as would tend to restrict them. The
ideas of the responsibilities and duties of parentage in connection
with heredity, or the science of eugenics, are entirely modern, and
have no place at all in ancient society. As racial and religious
distinctions fade away, and social progress takes place, a fresh
set of divisions by wealth and occupation grows up. But though this
happened also in the Greek and Italian cities, the old religious
divisions were not transferred to the new occupational groups, but
fell slowly into abeyance, and the latter assumed the simply social
character which they have in modern communities. The main reason
for the obliteration of religious barriers, as already stated, was
the growth of the idea of nationality and the public interest. But
in India the feeling of nationality never arose. The Hindu states
and empires had no national basis, since at the period in question
the only way in which the idea of nationality could be conceived,
was by participation of the citizens in a common sacrifice, and this
participation is only possible to persons living in a small local
area. Hence Hindu society developed on its own lines independently
of the form of government to which it was subject, and in the new
grouping by occupation the old communal sacrifices were preserved
and adapted to the fresh divisions. The result was the growth of
the system of occupational castes which still exists. But since
the basis of society was the participation of each social group in
a communal meal, the group could not be extended to take in persons
of the same occupation over a large area, and as a result the widely
ramified system of subcastes came into existence. The subcaste or
commensal group was the direct evolutionary product of the pre-existing
tribe. Its size was limited by the fact that its members had to meet
at the periodical sacrificial feasts, by which their unity and the
tie which bound them together was cemented and renewed. As already
seen, when members of a subcaste migrated to a fresh local area,
and were cut off from communication with those remaining behind,
they tended as a rule to form a fresh endogamous and commensal
group. Since the tie between the members of the subcaste was
participation in a sacrificial meal of grain cooked with water, and
as this food was held to be sacred, the members of the subcaste came
to refuse to eat it except with those who could join in the communal
feast; and as the idea gradually gained acceptance, that a legitimate
child must be the offspring of a father and mother both belonging
to the commensal group, the practice of endogamy within the subcaste
became a rule.

92. Veneration of the caste implements.

Since all the citizens of the Roman State participated in a
common sacrifice, they might be considered as a single caste,
or even a subcaste or commensal group. The Hindu castes have a
common ceremony which presents some analogy to that of the Roman
state. They worship or pay homage once or twice a year to the
implements of their profession. The occasions for this rite are
usually the Dasahra festival in September and the fast after the Holi
festival in March. Both these are festivals of the goddess Devi or
Mother Earth, when a fast is observed in her honour, first before
sowing the spring crops and secondly before reaping them. On each
occasion the fast lasts for nine days and the Jawaras or pots of
wheat corresponding to the Gardens of Adonis are sown. The fasts and
festivals thus belong primarily to the agricultural castes, and they
worship the earth-mother, who provides them with subsistence. But the
professional and artisan castes also take the occasion to venerate the
implements of their profession. Thus among the Kasars or brass-workers,
at the festival of Mando Amawas or the new moon of Chait (March),
every Kasar must return to the community of which he is a member
and celebrate the feast with them. And in default of this he will
be expelled from the caste until the next Amawas of Chait comes
round. They close their shops and worship the implements of their
profession on this day. The rule is thus the same as that of the Roman
Suovetaurilia. He who does not join in the sacrificial feast ceases to
be a member of the community. And the object of veneration is the same;
the Romans venerated and sacrificed the domestic animals which in the
pastoral stage had been their means of subsistence. The Kasars and
other occupational castes worship the implements of their profession
which are also their means of livelihood, or that which gives them
life. Formerly all these implements were held to be animate, and to
produce their effect by their own power and volition. The Nats or
acrobats of Bombay say that their favourite and only living gods
are those which give them their bread: the drum, the rope and the
balancing-pole. The Murha or earth-digger invokes the implements of his
trade as follows: "O, my lord the basket, my lord the pickaxe shaped
like a snake, and my lady the hod! Come and eat up those who do not
pay me for my work!" Similarly the Dhimar venerates his fishing-net,
and will not wear shoes of sewn leather, because he thinks that the
sacred thread which makes his net is debased if used for shoes. The
Chamar worships his currier's knife; the Ghasia or groom his horse and
the peg to which the horse is secured in the stable; the Rajput his
horse and sword and shield; the writer his inkpot, and so on. The Pola
festival of the Kunbis has a feature resembling the Suovetaurilia. On
this occasion all the plough-bullocks of the cultivators are mustered
and go in procession to a _toran_ or arch constructed of branches
and foliage. The bullock of the village proprietor leads the way,
and has flaming torches tied to his horns. The bullocks of the other
cultivators follow according to the status of each cultivator in
the village, which depends upon hereditary right and antiquity of
tenure, and not on mere wealth. A Kunbi feels bitterly insulted if
his bullocks are not awarded the proper place in the procession. A
string across the arch is broken by the leading bullock, and the
cattle are then all driven helter-skelter through the arch and back
to the village. The rite would appear to be a relic of the communal
sacrifice of a bullock, the torches tied to the proprietor's bullock
signifying that he was formerly killed and roasted. It is now said
that this bullock is full of magic, and that he will die within
three years. The rite may be compared to the needfire as practised
in Russia when all the horses of the village were driven between two
fires, or through fire, and their bridles thrown into the fire and
burnt. The burning of the bridles would appear to be a substitute
for the previous sacrifice of the horse. [235] The Pola ceremony of
the Kunbis resembles the Roman Suovetaurilia inasmuch as all the
cultivators participate in it according to their status, just as
the rank of Roman citizens was determined by their position at the
ceremony. Formerly, if a bull was sacrificed and eaten sacramentally
it would have been practically an exact parallel to the Roman rite.

93. The caste _panchayat_ and its code of offences.

The tribunal for the punishment of caste offences is known as the
_panchayat_, because it usually consists of five persons (_panch_,
five). As a rule a separate _panchayat_ exists for every subcaste over
an area not too large for all the members of it to meet. In theory,
however, the _panchayat_ is only the mouthpiece of the assembly,
which should consist of all the members of the subcaste. Some castes
fine a member who absents himself from the meeting. The _panchayat_
may perhaps be supposed to represent the hand acting on behalf of
the subcaste, which is considered the body. The _panchayat_, however,
was not the original judge. It was at first the god before whom the
parties pleaded their cause, and the god who gave judgment by the
method of trial by ordeal. This was probably the general character
of primitive justice, and in some of the lower castes the ordeal is
still resorted to for decisions. The tribe or subcaste attended as
jurors or assessors, and carried out the proceedings, perhaps after
having united themselves to the god for the purpose by a sacrificial
meal. The _panchayat_, having succeeded the god as the judge, is
held to give its decisions by divine inspiration, according to the
sayings: 'God is on high and the _panch_ on earth,' and 'The voice
of the _panchayat_ is the voice of God.' [236] The headship of the
_panchayat_ and the subcaste commonly descends in one family, or did
so till recently, and the utmost deference is shown to the person
holding it, even though he may be only a boy for the above reason. The
offences involving temporary or permanent excommunication from caste
are of a somewhat peculiar kind. In the case of both a man and woman,
to take food from a person of a caste from whom it is forbidden to
do so, and especially from one of an impure caste, is a very serious
offence, as is also that of being beaten by a member of an impure
caste, especially with a shoe. It is also a serious offence to be
sent to jail, because a man has to eat the impure jail food. To be
handcuffed is a minor offence, perhaps by analogy with the major one
of being sent to jail, or else on account of the indignity involved
by the touch of the police. As regards sexual offences, there is no
direct punishment for a man as a rule, but if he lives with a low-caste
woman he is temporarily expelled because it is assumed that he has
taken food from her hands. Sometimes a man and woman of the caste
committing adultery together are both punished. A married woman who
commits adultery should in the higher and middle castes, in theory
at least, be permanently expelled, but if her husband does not put
her away she is sometimes readmitted with a severe punishment. A girl
going wrong with an outsider is as a rule expelled unless the matter
can be hushed up, but if she becomes pregnant by a man of the caste,
she can often be readmitted with a penalty and married to him or to
some other man. There are also some religious crimes, such as killing
a cow or a cat or other sacred domestic animal; and in the case of
a woman it is a very serious offence to get the lobe of her ear torn
apart at the large perforation usually made for earrings; [237] while
for either a man or a woman to get vermin in a wound is an offence of
the first magnitude, entailing several months' exclusion and large
expenditure on readmission. Offences against ordinary morality are
scarcely found in the category of those entailing punishment. Murder
must sometimes be expiated by a pilgrimage to the Ganges, but other
criminal offences against the person and property are not taken
cognisance of by the caste committee unless the offender is sent
to jail. Both in its negative and positive aspects the category
of offences affords interesting deductions on the basis of the
explanation of the caste system already given. The reason why there
is scarcely any punishment for offences against ordinary morality is
that the caste organisation has never developed any responsibility
for the maintenance of social order and the protection of life and
property. It has never exercised the function of government, because
in the historical Hindu period India was divided into large military
states, while since then it has been subject to foreign domination. The
social organisation has thus maintained its pristine form, neither
influenced by the government nor affording to it any co-operation or
support. And the aims of the caste tribunal have been restricted to
preserving its own corporate existence free from injury or pollution,
which might arise mainly from two sources. If a member's body was
rendered impure either by eating impure food or by contact with a
person of impure caste it became an unfit receptacle for the sacred
food eaten at the caste feast, which bound its members together in
one body. This appears to be the object of the rules about food. And
since the blood of the clan and of the caste is communicated by descent
through the father under the patriarchal system, adultery on the part
of a married woman would bring a stranger into the group and undermine
its corporate existence and unity. Hence the severity of the punishment
for the adultery of a married woman, which is a special feature of
the patriarchal system. It has already been seen that under the rule
of female descent, as shown by Mr. Hartland in _Primitive Paternity_,
the chastity of women was as a rule scarcely regarded at all or even
conceived of. After the change to the patriarchal system a similar
laxity seems to have prevailed for some period, and it was thought
that any child born to a man in his house or on his bed was his own,
even though he might not be the father. This idea obtained among the
Arabs, as pointed out by Professor Robertson Smith in _Kinship and
Marriage in Early Arabia_, and is also found in the Hindu classics,
and to some extent even in modern practice. It was perhaps based on
the virtue assigned to concrete facts; just as the Hindus think that a
girl is properly married by going through the ceremony with an arrow
or a flower, and that the fact of two children being suckled by the
same woman, though she is not their mother, establishes a tie akin
to consanguinity between them, so they might have thought that the
fact of a boy being born in a man's house constituted him the man's
son. Subsequently, however, the view came to be held that the clan
blood was communicated directly through the father, to whom the life
of the child was solely assigned in the early patriarchal period. And
the chastity of married women then became of vital importance to the
community, because the lack of it would cause strangers to be born
into the clan, which now based its tie of kinship on descent from
a common male ancestor. Thus the adultery of women became a crime
which would undermine the foundations of society and the state,
and as such was sometimes punished with death among communities
in the early patriarchal stage. It is this view, and not simply
moral principle, which has led to the severe caste penalties for the
offence. Some of the primitive tribes care nothing about the chastity
of unmarried girls, but punish unfaithful wives rigorously. Among the
Maria Gonds a man will murder his wife for infidelity, but girls are
commonly unchaste. Another rule sometimes found is that an unmarried
girl becoming with child by an outsider is put out of caste for the
time. When her child, which does not belong to the caste, has been
born, she must make it over to some outside family, and she herself
can then be readmitted to the community. Out of the view of adultery
as a religious and social offence, a moral regard for chastity is
however developing among the Hindus as it has in other societies.

94. The status of impurity.

It has been seen that the Sudras as well as the plebeians were regarded
as impure, and the reason was perhaps that they were considered to
belong to a hostile god. By their participation in the sacrifice
and partaking of the sacrificial food, the Indian Aryans and other
races considered that they were not only in fellowship with, but
actually a part of the god. And similarly their enemies were part
of the substance of a hostile god, whose very existence and contact
were abhorrent to their own. Hence their enemies should as far as
possible be completely exterminated, but when this was impossible
they must dwell apart and not pollute by contact of their persons,
or in any other way, the sacred soil on which the gods dwelt, nor
the persons of those who became part of the substance of the god by
participation in the sacrificial meal. For this reason the plebeians
had to live outside the Roman city, which was all sacred ground, and
the Sudras and modern impure castes have to live outside the village,
which is similarly sacred as the abode of the earth-goddess in her
form of the goddess of the land of that village. For the same reason
their contact had to be avoided by those who belonged to the village
and were united to the goddess by partaking of the crops which she
brought forth on her land. As already seen, the belief existed that the
life and qualities could be communicated by contact, and in this case
the worshippers would assimilate by contact the life of a god hostile
to their own. In the same manner, as shown by M. Salomon Reinach in
_Cults, Myths and Religions_, all the weapons, clothes and material
possessions of the enemy were considered as impure, perhaps because
they also contained part of the life of a hostile god. As already seen,
[238] a man's clothing and weapons were considered to contain part
of his life by contact, and since the man was united to the god by
partaking of the sacrificial feast, all the possessions of the enemy
might be held to participate in the life of the hostile god, and hence
they could not be preserved, nor taken by the victors into their own
houses or dwellings. This was the offence which Achan committed when
he hid in his tent part of the spoils of Jericho; and in consequence
Jehovah ceased to be with the children of Israel when they went up
against Ai, that is ceased to be in them, and they could not stand
before the enemy. Achan and his family were stoned and his property
destroyed by fire and the impurity was removed. For the same reason the
ancient Gauls and Germans destroyed all the spoils of war or burned
them, or buried them in lakes where they are still found. At a later
stage the Romans, instead of destroying the spoils of war, dedicated
them to their own gods, perhaps as a visible sign of the conquest and
subjection of the enemy's gods; and they were hung in temples or on
oak-trees, where they could not be touched except in the very direst
need, as when Rome was left without arms after Cannae. Subsequently
the spoils were permitted to decorate the houses of the victorious
generals, where they remained sacred and inviolable heirlooms. [239]