Indian Antiquary Vol 41

SR No.: 032533
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 320
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 39 MB

Page 133

June, 1912.]
THE CASTES IN INDIA
129
THE CASTES IN INDIA. BY E. SENART OF THE INSTITUT DE FRANCE.
(Translated in part from the French) BY REV. A. HEGGLIN, S. J.; BOMBAY
(Continued from p. 114.)
V.-Genesis of the Indian Caste. We are approaching the knotty point of this research. The similarities which I have recorded bare ben, for the most part, already recognized and noted. They are only examples-indications. Their number could be easily enlarged. The essential thing is to weigh their signification.
Every evidence is leading us back to the old family constitution; the true name of caste is Ali which means 'race'. However, we must state the matter more exactly. The family was not the only social organism, at the time when the Aryans of India went apart to follow their own testinies. It was comprised in larger corporations : the clan, the tribe. Their existence is certain, though the facts, variable and vague, are not easily brought under strict definitions.
Discussions have been going on, and this rather in a confused way, on the reciprocal relation of the different groups, on the order in which they have been formed. One thing at least is clear. These concentrical ciroles which include an area ever widening are conceived in the Aryan world nfter one and the same type. Thus it could be held tbat the clan and the tribe, whatever their names be in the different countries, are only the enlargement of the family; they copy its organication while extending it. 54 Their genealogy, in reality, concerns us little. The fact is, that their respective constitution is strictly analogons. In speaking of the family constitution I bare le constitution of the tribe and of the clan equally in view. . .
The terms, here in use, agree very well; gens, curia, tribus, in Rome ; family, phratria, phyle, in Greece ; family, gotra, caste, in India. It is the more instructive, because, in the origin, if we judge it by all analogies, the most essential difference between clan and tribe, as between section and caste, amounts to this, that the group which is more restricted, is exogamic ; the group which is Burger, endogamic. The political organization, at the pretty late time in which the classical coun
ries are well known to ne, has only sbaken, or displaced certain customs; and for instance, in the case of the endogamic law, replaced the one tribe by the whole of the city. What is surprising is to ind that the directing principles, on both sides, have survived, in so visible traces, the separationwhich, therefore, must be very old-of the ethnical branches in which we follow severally their destinies.
If the caste covers exactly the whole domain of the old gentile right, this can be neither a foritous agreement nor a modern resurrection. Still less is it due to chance that its practices have act relations with the primitive notions and continue their spirit. The whole is completo, well unected, closely soldered with the past and that in a matter which supremely rules life and the nost private concerns. It, therefore, is an organic institution which draws its sap from very deep 9. urces.
The guilds of the middle ages remind us, by more than one custom, of the known traits of ancient organization. Who would dare to assert that they are their direct heirs ? Customs, which
der the sway of new ideas and a complete moral revolution, could only have survived by losing in the public consciousness, their signification and their proper life, may have found their way into them again through more or less obscure windings; I am willing to admit that the patronage of a saint is the reflection of the eponymism of the antique heroes, that the repast which, oa certain
04 Hours, p. 138 s. ; Loist Alter. jus civ, p. 46; 84-8.