Indian Antiquary Vol 41

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

Page 110

106
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1912.
His conviction, on this point, however ardent it be, might of course give rise to many objections and restrictions, but it is not at all connected indissolubly with his opinion on the professional origin of the caste. The same may be said of the etymological deductions of the legendary facts in which he pretends to lay hold on the history of many of the castes, from its very beginning, in the exact moment in which they separate in successive swarms from the original tribes. The nformation is here more varied, and the combination more brilliant, than the method rigorous. -
Perhaps Mr. Nesfield has too much studied the caste from its outward and actual aspect. He has commenced with daily experience ; this is an advantage, it is also a danger. His theory has so much taken possession of his mind that he has been naturally carried away to present it to us in a deductive explanation, rather than to follow the demonstration, step by step. Will be convert many inquirers to a thesis which derives so peculiar a historical phenomenon from such general speculative constructions ?
In giving the first place, on one hand, to the profession, on the other, to the organization of the tribe, be bas at least faithfully summed up an impression which manifests itself in most observers of contemporary life. All are struck by that entanglement of more or less extended ethnical groups, of which I have sought to give some idea, and of which it is important that neither the complication, nor the mobility, should be lost out of sight. They see them how they in number less gradations, approach more or less the type of the caste, how they approach it the nearer the more completely the community of profession has been substituted for the bond of origin ; and, naturally, this double observation reflects upon their theoretical conclusions.
Less decisive, less minutely worked out than that of Mr. Nesfield, the thesis of Mr. D. Ibbetsonli is based upon the same data. Being of a less systematic turn of mind and more impressed by shades variable enough to discourage general theories, he wraps himself up with reservations,
Still he sums up his views, and the stages which he discerns in the history of the caste are as follows:- (1) the organization of the tribe, which is common to all primitive societies; (2) the guilds founded on the heredity of occupation ; (3) the exaltation peculiar to India of sacerdotal ministry; (4) the exaltation of the lesitic blood by the importance attached to heredity ; (5). the strengthening of the principle by the elaboration of a series of entirely artificial laws, drawn from Hinda beliefs, which regulate marriage and fix the limits in which it can be contracted, declare. certain professions and certain foods impure and determine the conditions and the degrees of contacts allowed between the castes.
We see which place is also bere taken by the profession and the constitution of the tribe. Only, this time, the part of the Brahmins has been inverted. Anxious to consolidate a power which, at first was founded on their knowledge of religion, but for which this foundation was becoming too weak, they found, according to Ibbetson, a valuable hint in the division of the people into tribes, in the theory of heredity of occupations which had sprung from it; they made their profit by it. Froin it they drew this network of restrictions and of incapacities which entangle a high-caste Hindu from his birth.12 Thus the Brahmins are represented as dependent upon the spontaneous organization of the country.
This system may appear more logical than that of Nesfield; nuore still, perhaps, it proceeds from a quite gratuitous conjecture which is not supported by any attempt of "proof. And what shall we say of such a conception of the most essential and most characteristic rules of the caste ? These rules which are so strict, which excise so absolute & dominion on conscionce, would be nothing but an artificial and late invention contrived with a party-spirit. #1 Donail Charles Jelf Ibbetson, Report on the Consues of the Punjab (1881), Caloutta 1883, 841, oto.
Ibbotsong 212.