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

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95. Caste and Hinduism.

In _The Religions of India_ M. Barth defined a Hindu as a man
who has a caste: 'The man who is a member of a caste is a Hindu;
he who is not, is not a Hindu.' His definition remains perhaps the
best. There is practically no dogma which is essential to Hinduism,
nor is the veneration of any deity or sacred object either necessary
or heretical. As has often been pointed out, there is no assembly more
catholic or less exclusive than the Hindu pantheon. Another writer
has said that the three essentials of a Hindu are to be a member
of a caste, to venerate Brahmans, and to hold the cow sacred. Of
the latter two, the veneration of Brahmans cannot be considered
indispensable; for there are several sects, as the Lingayats, the
Bishnois, the Manbhaos, the Kabirpanthis and others, who expressly
disclaim any veneration for Brahmans, and, in theory at least, make
no use of their services; and yet the members of these sects are
by common consent acknowledged as Hindus. The sanctity of the bull
and cow is a more nearly universal dogma, and extends practically
to all Hindus, except the impure castes. These latter should not
correctly be classed as Hindus; the very origin of their status is,
as has been seen, the belief that they are the worshippers of gods
hostile to Hinduism. But still they must now practically be accounted
as Hindus. They worship the Hindu gods, standing at a distance when
they are not allowed to enter the temples, perform their ceremonies
by Hindu rites, and employ Brahmans for fixing auspicious days,
writing the marriage invitation and other business, which the Brahman
is willing to do for a consideration, so long as he does not have to
enter their houses. Some of the impure castes eat beef, while others
have abandoned it in order to improve their social position. At the
other end of the scale are many well-educated Hindu gentlemen who
have no objection to eat beef and may often have done so in England,
though in India they may abstain out of deference to the prejudices
of their relatives, especially the women. And Hindus of all castes
are beginning to sell worn-out cattle to the butchers for slaughter
without scruple--an offence which fifty years ago would have entailed
permanent expulsion from caste. The reverence for the cow is thus not
an absolutely essential dogma of Hinduism, though it is the nearest
approach to one. As a definition or test of Hinduism it is, however,
obviously inadequate. Caste, on the other hand, regulates the whole of
a Hindu's life, his social position and, usually, his occupation. It
is the only tribunal which punishes religious and social offences,
and when a man is out of caste he has, for so long as this condition
continues, no place in Hinduism. Theoretically he cannot eat with any
other Hindu nor marry his child to any Hindu. If he dies out of caste
the caste-men will not bury or burn his body, which is regarded as
impure. The binding tie of caste is, according to the argument given
above, the communal meal or feast of grain cooked with water, and this,
it would therefore seem, may correctly be termed the chief religious
function of Hinduism. Caste also obtains among the Jains and Sikhs,
but Sikhism is really little more than a Hindu sect, while the Jains,
who are nearly all Banias, scarcely differ from Vaishnava Hindu Banias,
and have accepted caste, though it is not in accordance with the real
tenets of their religion. The lower industrial classes of Muhammadans
have also formed castes in imitation of the Hindus. Many of these
are however the descendants of converted Hindus, and nearly all of
them have a number of Hindu practices.

96. The Hindu reformers.

There have not been wanting reformers in Hinduism, and the ultimate
object of their preaching seems to have been the abolition of the
caste system. The totem-clans, perhaps, supposed that each species
of animals and plants which they distinguished had a different
kind of life, the qualities of each species being considered as
part of its life. This belief may have been the original basis of
the idea of difference of blood arising from nobility of lineage
or descent, and it may also have been that from which the theory of
caste distinctions was derived. Though the sacrificial food of each
caste is the same, yet its members may have held themselves to be
partaking of a different sacrificial feast and absorbing a different
life; just as the sacrificial feasts and the gods of the different
Greek and Latin city-states were held to be distinct and hostile,
and a citizen of one state could not join in the sacrificial feast
of another, though the gods and sacrificial animals might be as a
matter of fact the same. And the earth-goddess of each village was a
separate form or part of the goddess, so that her land should only be
tilled by the descendants of the cultivators who were in communion
with her. The severe caste penalties attached to getting vermin in
a wound, involving a long period of complete ostracism and the most
elaborate ceremonies of purification, may perhaps be explained by the
idea that the man so afflicted has in his body an alien and hostile
life which is incompatible with his forming part of the common life
of the caste or subcaste. The leading feature of the doctrines of
the Hindu reformers has been that there is only one kind of life,
which extends through the whole of creation and is all equally
precious. Everything that lives has a spark of the divine life and
hence should not be destroyed. The belief did not extend to vegetable
life, perhaps because the true nature of the latter was by then
partly realised, while if the consumption of vegetable life had been
prohibited the sect could not have existed. The above doctrine will
be recognised as a comparatively simple and natural expansion of the
beliefs that animals have self-conscious volitional life and that each
species of animals consists of one common life distributed through its
members. If the true nature of individual animals and plants had been
recognised from the beginning, it is difficult to see how the idea of
one universal life running through them all could have been conceived
and have obtained so large a degree of acceptance. As the effect of
such a doctrine was that all men were of the same blood and life,
its necessary consequence was the negation of caste distinctions. The
transmigration of souls followed as a moral rule apportioning reward
and punishment for the actions of men. The soul passed through a cycle
of lives, and the location or body of its next life, whether an animal
of varying importance or meanness, or a human being in different
classes of society, was determined by its good or evil actions in
previous lives. Finally, those souls which had been purified of all
the gross qualities appertaining to the body were released from the
cycle of existence and reabsorbed into the divine centre or focus of
life. In the case of the Buddhists and Jains the divine centre of life
seems to have been conceived of impersonally. The leading authorities
on Buddhism state that its founder's doctrine was pure atheism, but one
may suggest that the view seems somewhat improbable in the case of a
religion promulgated at so early a period. And on such a hypothesis it
is difficult to understand either the stress laid on the escape from
life as the highest aim or the sanctity held to attach to all kinds
of animal life. But these doctrines follow naturally on the belief
in a divine centre or focus of life from which all life emanates
for a time, to be ultimately reabsorbed. The Vaishnava reformers,
who arose subsequently, took the sun or the spirit of the sun as the
divine source of all life. They also preached the sanctity of animal
life, the transmigration of souls, and the final absorption of the
purified soul into the divine centre of life. The abolition of caste
was generally a leading feature of their doctrine and may have been
its principal social aim. The survival of the individual soul was not
a tenet of the earlier reformers, though the later ones adopted it,
perhaps in response to the growing perception of individuality. But
even now it is doubtful how far the separate existence of the
individual soul after it has finally left the world is a religious
dogma of the Hindus. The basis of Hindu asceticism is the necessity
of completely freeing the soul or spirit from all the appetites and
passions of the body before it can be reabsorbed into the god. Those
who have so mortified the body that the life merely subsists in it,
almost unwillingly as it were, and absolutely unaffected by human
desires or affections or worldly events, have rendered their individual
spark of life capable of being at once absorbed into the divine life
and equal in merit to it, while still on earth. Thus Hindu ascetics
in the last or perfect stage say, 'I am God,' or 'I am Siva,' and are
revered by their disciples and the people as divine. Both the Buddhists
and Jains lay the same stress on the value of asceticism as enabling
the soul to attain perfection through complete detachment from the
appetites and passions of the body and the cares of the world; and
the deduction therefore seems warranted that the end of the perfect
soul would be a similar reabsorption in the divine soul.

97. Decline of the caste system.

The caste system has maintained its vigour unimpaired either by
the political vicissitudes and foreign invasions of India or by
Muhammadan persecution. Except where it has been affected by European
education and inventions, Hindu society preserved until recently
a remarkably close resemblance to that of ancient Greece and Rome
in the classical period. But several signs point to the conclusion
that the decay of caste as the governing factor of Indian society is
in sight. The freedom in selection of occupation which now obtains
appears to strike at the root of the caste system, because the relative
social status and gradation of castes is based on their traditional
occupations. When in a large number of the principal castes the
majority of the members have abandoned their traditional occupation
and taken freely to others, the relative status of castes becomes a
fiction, which, though it has hitherto subsisted, cannot apparently be
indefinitely maintained. The great extension of education undertaken by
Government and warmly advocated by the best Indian opinion exercises
an analogous influence. Education is free to all, and, similarly,
in the careers which it opens to the most successful boys there is
no account of caste. Thus members of quite low castes obtain a good
social position and, as regards them personally, the prejudices and
contempt for their caste necessarily fall into abeyance. The process
must, probably, in time extend to general social toleration. The
educated classes are also coming to regard the restrictions on food
and drink, and on eating and drinking with others, as an irksome and
unnecessary bar to social intercourse, and are gradually abandoning
them. This tendency is greatly strengthened by the example and social
contact of Europeans. Finally, the facilities for travelling and the
democratic nature of modern travel have a very powerful effect. The
great majority of Hindus of all castes are obliged by their comparative
poverty to avail themselves of the cheap third-class fares, and have
to rub shoulders together in packed railway carriages. Soon they
begin to realise that this does them no harm, and get accustomed
to it, with the result that the prejudices about bodily contact
tend to disappear. The opinion has been given that the decline of
social exclusiveness in England was largely due to the introduction
of railway travelling. Taking account of all these influences, and
assuming their continuance, the inference may safely be drawn that
the life of the Indian caste system is limited, though no attempt
can be made to estimate the degree of its vitality, nor to predict
the form and constitution of the society which will arise on its decay.

ARTICLES ON RELIGIONS AND SECTS

Arya Samaj

[_Bibliography_: Sir E.D. Maclagan's _Punjab Census Report of 1891_;
Mr. R. Burn's _United Provinces Census Report of 1901_; Professor
J. C. Oman's _Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India_.]

List of Paragraphs

1. _The founder of the sect, Dayanand Saraswati_.
2. _His methods and the scientific interpretation of the Vedas_.
3. _Tenets of the Samaj_.
4. _Modernising tendencies_.
5. _Aims and educational institutions_.
6. _Prospects of the sect_.

1. The founder of the sect, Dayanand Saraswati.

_Arya Samaj Religion_.--This important reforming sect of Hinduism
numbered nearly 250,000 persons in India in 1911, as against 92,000 in
1901. Its adherents belong principally to the Punjab and the United
Provinces. In the Central Provinces 974 members were returned. The
sect was founded by Pandit Dayanand Saraswati, a Gujarati Brahman,
born in 1824. According to his own narrative he had been carefully
instructed in the Vedas, which means that he had been made to commit a
great portion of them to memory, and had been initiated at an early
age into the Saiva sect to which his family belonged; but while
still a mere boy his mind had revolted against the practices of
idolatry. He could not bring himself to acknowledge that the image
of Siva seated on his bull, the helpless idol, which, as he himself
observed in the watches of the night, allowed the mice to run over it
with impunity, ought to be worshipped as the omnipotent deity. [240]
He also conceived an intense aversion to marriage, and fled from home
in order to avoid the match which had been arranged for him. He was
attracted by the practice of Yoga, or ascetic philosophy, and studied
it with great ardour, claiming to have been initiated into the highest
secrets of _Yoga Vidya_. He tells in one of his books of his many
and extensive travels, his profound researches in Sanskritic lore,
his constant meditations and his ceaseless inquirings. He tells how,
by dissecting in his own rough way a corpse which he found floating
on a river, he finally discerned the egregious errors of the Hindu
medical treatises, and, tearing up his books in disgust, flung
them into the river with the mutilated corpse. By degrees he found
reason to reject the authority of all the sacred books of the Hindus
subsequent to the Vedas. Once convinced of this, he braced himself
to a wonderful course of missionary effort, in which he formulated
his new system and attacked the existing orthodox Hinduism. [241]
He maintained that the Vedas gave no countenance to idolatry, but
inculcated monotheism, and that their contents could be reconciled
with all the results of modern science, which indeed he held to be
indicated in them. The Arya Samaj was founded in Lahore in 1877,
and during the remainder of his life Dayanand travelled over northern
India continually preaching and disputing with the advocates of other
religions, and founding branches of his sect. In 1883 he died at Ajmer,
according to the story of his followers, from the effects of poison
administered to him at the instigation of a prostitute against whose
profession he had been lecturing. [242]

2. His methods and the scientific interpretation of the Vedas.

Dayanand's attempt to found a sect which, while not going entirely
outside Hinduism, should prove acceptable to educated Hindus desiring
a purer faith, appears to have been distinctly successful. The leaders
of the Brahmo Samaj were men of higher intelligence and ability than
he, and after scrupulously fair and impartial inquiry were led to
deny the infallibility of the Vedas, while they also declined to
recognise caste. But by so doing they rendered it impossible for a
man to become a Brahmo and remain a Hindu, and their movement has
made little headway. By retaining the tenet of the divine authority
of the Vedas, Dayanand made it possible for educated Hindus to join
his sect without absolutely cutting themselves adrift from their old
faith. But Dayanand's contention that the Vedas should be figuratively
interpreted, and are so found to foreshadow the discoveries of modern
science, will naturally not bear examination. The following instances
of the method are given by Professor Oman: "At one of the anniversary
meetings of the society a member gravely stated that the Vedas
mentioned _pure_ fire, and as pure fire was nothing but electricity,
it was evident that the Indians of the Vedic period were acquainted
with electricity. A leading member of the sect, who had studied
science in the Government college, discovered in two Vedic texts,
made up of _only eighteen words in all_, that oxygen and hydrogen
with their characteristic properties were known to the writers of the
Rig Veda, who were also acquainted with the composition of water,
the constitution of the atmosphere, and had anticipated the modern
kinetic theory of gases." [243] Mr. Burn gives the following parallel
versions of a verse of the Rig Veda by Professor Max Mueller and the
late Pandit Guru Datt, M.A., of the Arya Samaj:

_Professor Max Mueller_.--"May Mitra, Varuna, Aryaman, Ayu, Indra,
the Lord of the Ribhus, and the Maruts not rebuke us because we shall
proclaim at the sacrifice the virtues of the swift horse sprung from
the Gods."

_Pandit Guru Datt_.--"We shall describe the power-generating virtues of
the energetic horses endowed with brilliant properties (or the virtues
of the vigorous force of heat) which learned or scientific men can
evoke to work for purposes of appliances. Let not philanthropists,
noble men, judges, learned men, rulers, wise men and practical
mechanics ever disregard these properties." In fact, the learned
Pandit has interpreted horse as horse-power.

3. Tenets of the Samaj.

Nevertheless the Arya Samaj does furnish a haven for educated Hindus
who can no longer credit Hindu mythology, but do not wish entirely
to break away from their religion; a step which, involving also the
abandonment of caste, would in their case mean the cessation to a
considerable extent of social and family intercourse. The present
tenets and position of the Arya Samaj as given to Professor Oman
by Lala Lajpat Rai [244] indicate that, while tending towards the
complete removal of the over-swollen body of Hindu ritual and the
obstacles to social progress involved in the narrow restrictions of
the caste system, the sect at present permits a compromise and does
not require of its proselytes a full abjuration. In theory members
of any religion may be admitted to the Samaj, and a few Muhammadans
have been initiated, but unless they renounce Islam do not usually
participate in social intercourse. Sikhs are freely admitted, and
converts from any religion who accept the purified Hinduism of the
Samaj are welcome. Such converts go through a simple ceremony of
purification, for which a Brahman is usually engaged, though not
required by rule. Those who, as Hindus, wore the sacred thread are
again invested with it, and it has also been conferred on converts,
but this has excited opposition. A few marriages between members of
different subcastes have been carried out, and in the case of orphan
girls adopted into the Samaj caste, rules have been set aside and they
have been married to members of other castes. Lavish expenditure on
weddings is discouraged. Vishnu and Siva are accepted as alternative
names of the one God; but their reputed consorts Kali, Durga, Devi,
and so on, are not regarded as deities. Brahmans are usually employed
for ceremonies, but these may also, especially birth and funeral
ceremonies, be performed by non-Brahmans. In the Punjab members of
the Samaj of different castes will take food together, but rarely
in the United Provinces. Dissension has arisen on the question of
the consumption of flesh, and the Samaj is split into two parties,
vegetarians and meat-eaters. In the United Provinces, Mr. Burn states,
the vegetarian party would not object to employ men of low caste as
cooks, excepting such impure castes as Chamars, Doms and sweepers,
so long as they were also vegetarians. The Aryas still hold the
doctrine of the transmigration of souls and venerate the cow, but
they do not regard the cow as divine. In this respect their position
has been somewhat modified from that of Dayanand, who was a vigorous
supporter of the Gaoraksha or cow-protection movement.

4. Modernising tendencies.

Again Dayanand enunciated a very peculiar doctrine on Niyoga or the
custom of childless women, either married or widows, resorting to men
other than their husbands for obtaining an heir. This is permitted
under certain circumstances by the Hindu lawbooks. Dayanand laid down
that a Hindu widow might resort in succession to five men until she
had borne each of them two children, and a married woman might do
the same with the consent of her husband, or without his consent if
he had been absent from home for a certain number of years, varying
according to the purpose for which he was absent. [245] Dayanand held
that this rule would have beneficial results. Those who could restrain
their impulses would still be considered as following the best way;
but for the majority who could not do so, the authorised method
and degree of intimacy laid down by him would prevent such evils as
prostitution, connubial unfaithfulness, and the secret _liaisons_
of widows, resulting in practices like abortion. The prevalence of
such a custom would, however, certainly do more to injure social
and family life than all the evils which it was designed to prevent,
and it is not surprising to find that the Samaj does not now consider
Niyoga an essential doctrine; instead of this they are trying in face
of much opposition to introduce the natural and proper custom of the
remarriage of widows. The principal rite of the Samaj is the old Hom
sacrifice of burning clarified butter, grain, and various fragrant
gums and spices on the sacred fire, with the repetition of Sanskrit
texts. They now explain this by saying that it is a sanitary measure,
designed to purify the air.

The Samaj does not believe in any literal heaven and hell, but
considers these as figurative expressions of the state of the soul,
whether in this life or the life to come. The Aryas therefore do not
perform the _shradhh_ ceremony nor offer oblations to the dead, and
in abolishing these they reduce enormously the power and influence
of the priesthood.

5. Aims and educational institutions.

The above account indicates that the Arya Samaj is tending to become
a vaguely theistic sect. Its religious observances will probably
fall more and more into the background, and its members will aspire
to observe in their conduct the code of social morality obtaining in
Europe, and to regulate their habit of life by similar considerations
of comfort and convenience. Already the principal aims of the
Samaj tend mainly to the social improvement of its members and their
fellow-Indians. It sets its face against child-marriage, and encourages
the remarriage of widows. It busies itself with female education,
with orphanages and schools, dispensaries and public libraries, and
philanthropic institutions of all sorts. [246] Its avowed aim is to
unite and regenerate the peoples of Aryavarrta or India.

As one of its own poets has said: [247]

Ah! long have ye slept, Sons of India, too long!
Your country degenerate, your morals all wrong.

Its principal educational institutions are the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic
College at Lahore and the Anglo-Vedic School at Meerut, a large
orphanage at Bareilly, smaller ones at Allahabad and Cawnpore, and a
number of primary schools. It employs a body of travelling teachers
or Upadeshaks to make converts, and in the famine of 1900 took charge
of as many famine orphans as the Local Governments would entrust
to it, in order to prevent them from being handed over to Christian
missionaries. All members of the Samaj are expected to contribute one
per cent of their incomes to the society, and a large number of them
do this. The Arya Samaj has been accused of cherishing political aims
and of anti-British propaganda, but the writers quoted in this article
unite in acquitting it of such a charge as an institution, though some
of its members have been more or less identified with the Extremist
party. From the beginning, however, and apparently up to the present
time, its religious teaching has been directed to social and not to
political reform, and so long as it adheres to this course its work
must be considered to be useful and praiseworthy. Nevertheless some
danger may perhaps exist lest the boys educated in its institutions
may with youthful intemperance read into the instruction of their
teachers more than it is meant to convey, and divert exhortations
for social improvement and progress to political ends.

6. Prospects of the sect.

The census of 1911 showed the Arya Samaj to be in a flourishing
and progressive condition. There seems good reason to suppose that
its success may continue, as it meets a distinct religious and
social requirement of educated Hindus. Narsinghpur is the principal
centre of the sect in the Central Provinces, and here an orphanage is
maintained with about thirty inmates; the local members have an _ata_
fund, to which they daily contribute a handful of flour, and this
accumulates and is periodically made over to the orphanage. There is
also a Vedic school at Narsinghpur, and a Sanskrit school has been
started at Drug. [248]