Indian Antiquary Vol 40

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 14

8
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Translation.
The Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sûdras are the (four) castes; the (first) three are the twice-born. All exist in every yuga, (but) in Kali the first and last (only) obtain.
In order to substantiate the above doctrine the following verses from the Bhagavata are often quoted:
महापद्मपतिः कचिनन्दः क्षत्रविनाशकृत् ।
ततो नृपा भविष्यन्ति शूद्रप्रायास्त्वधार्मिकाः ॥ ८ स एकच्छत्रां पृथिवीमनुल्लंघितशासनः । वासिष्यति महापद्मो द्वितीय इव भार्गवः ॥ ९
Translation.
[JANUARY, 1911.
Bhagavata, Skandha XII.
(8) A certain Nanda, the lord Mahâpadma, will cause the destruction of the Kshatriyas. Thereafter the kings will be well-nigh Sûdras and impious.
(9) That Mahapadma, with his commands not transgressed, will rule over the earth under one (royal) parasol, as if he were a second Bhargava.
Here the Nanda prince, Mahâpadma, is compared to Bhargava or Parasurama, and is said to have destroyed the Kshatriyas; and the kings that succeeded him are spoken of as having been Sûdras. The Bhagavata-purana is thus considered as pointing to the annihilation of the Kshatriya caste after the Nandas.
But whether we regard all these four, or only two, castes as at present existing, therea are numerous other castes ranging between them, which are said by the Hindu legislators to have sprung from intercourse between persons of two different castes, either by the anuloma or the pratiloma method. The marriage of a male of any one of the four castes with a female of the lower caste is styled anuloma, whereas that of a man with a woman- of the higher caste is called pratiloma. Though such marriages appear from the works on Hindu law to have once been in vogue, still the issue of such marriages was always relegated to a lower rank. It has consequently been argued that the higher castes at any rate of the Hindu population maintain their purity of blood to the present day, and that it is only the lower castes where an admixture of blood can at all be supposed to have taken place. A Brahmana, Kshatriya or Vaisya has been a Brahmana, Kshatriya or Vaisya since the days of the Rigveda when the hymn, from which a verse has been cited above, was composed. Again, it is held by many that Hinduism is a non-proselytising religion, that a Hindu means an individual born of Hindu parents and not converted to Hinduism, and that, consequently, Hinduism was always a barrier to foreign races being incorporated into Hindu society. Many will naturally, therefore, ask themselves: how we can at all talk of any foreign element contained in the higher Hindu castes? Let us, therefore, see how far this popular belief is tenable. But let us, in the first place, see whether Sanskrit literature itself contains any statements, which run counter to this view.
To an orthodox Hindu the most sacred works are, of course, his Vedas. Of these the Bigveda is considered to be the earliest. It consists of ten parts called mandalas. Some of these contain hymas composed by different individual riskis. Now, who were the authors of these hymns? Were they all Brahmanas? Most certainly not. The third mandala of the Rigveda was composed by Visvamitra and his family, and every Hindu knows that Viśvâmitra originally was not a Brahmana, but a Kshatriya. The authors of the forty-third and forty-fourth hymn of the fourth mandala were Ajamiḍha and Puramiḍha. That these were Kshatriyas will be seen from the following verse from the Vishnu-purana :
बृहत्क्षत्रस्य सुहोत्रः सुहोत्राद्धस्ती य इई हस्तिनापुरमारोपयामास । अजमीढ-द्विमीढ पुरुमीडास्त्रयो हस्तिनस्तनयाः । भजमीढात्कण्वः कण्वान्मेधातिथिर्यतः काण्वावना दिजाः ||
Asia IV., Cap. 19., v. 10.