Indian Antiquary Vol 41

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

Page 80

76
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1912.
(3) A less erroneous view that Non-Hindus may become Hindus, but they must form new and separate Castes.
According to a more moderate form of this view shared by many educated people, each separate recognised caste is a closed body, into which no outsider may enter. It is acknowledged that Hinduism was a proselytising religion in its palmy days, but this assertion is qualified by the remark that whenever a non-Hindu or non-Aryan element entered the fold of Hinduism, it invariably formed a separate caste; the old recognized castes would never admit new members. The people like the Ahoms of Assam, the Kachharis of Kichhar and the Koches of the various parts of Eastern Bengal and Assam are well-known instances in which the newly converted tribes have formed new castes.
(3) The true view that Non-Hindus might become Hindus by Conversion and be incorporated into the recognized Castes.
Yet the truth seems to be that Hinduism was fully a proselytising religion and that the caste was more elastic and accommodating in earlier times. It is borne out by ethnological and epigraphical, besides other kinds of evidence, that sometimes the barbarians or Mlechchhas were admitted into the recognized castes of the Hindu religion and society. Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar has brought together very valuable testimony to this effect in his learned article on the "Foreign elements in the Hindu population" in a recent issue of this Journal.
Medhâtithi supports the third view.
In this short note, I shall bring forward a passage from Medhâtithi's Manu-bhashya which supports this view and which has hitherto escaped the notice of scholars and ethnologists. It runs thus:
यदि कश्चित् क्षत्रियाविजातीयो राजा साध्याचरणी म्लेच्छान पराजयेत चातुर्वर्ण्य बासयेत् म्लेच्छांच आर्यावर्त्त इव चाण्डालान् व्यवस्थापयेत् सोऽपि स्यात् बज्ञियः यतो न भूमिः स्वतो दुष्टा संसर्गाद्धि सा दूष्याते । — Manu-bhashya, II, 28.
"If some pious king belonging to the Kshatriya or some other caste should defeat the Mlechchhas (barbarians, aborigines) and establish a settlement of the four castes [in their territories] and accept the Mlechchhas, thus defeated, as Chandalas [as a part of the Hindu Society] as is the case in Aryavarta, then that country also becomes fit for sacrifices. For no land is impure of itself. A land becomes so only by contact."
This passage is not only important from the historical and ethnographical points of view, but it is also remarkable for its liberal spirit, which became so rare in subsequent Smriti literature. It is curious that Herr Julius Jolly should have failed to realize the true value of this passage and consequently considered it unfit for insertion in his Manuṭikdsangraha. Here Medhdtithi explicitly states it as a matter of history, well-known in his days, that some Mlechchhas were actually converted to Hinduism and recognized as members of a well-known caste (Chandala) in northern India.
The majority of the Chandalas of South-Eastern Bangal were originally Non-Aryan Converts to Hinduism.
It may be mentioned in passing, that it is only on the theory of the conversion of non-Aryans into Hindus of the lower castes, that we can satisfactorily account for the great preponderance of the Namahçudra (Chandala) population in some of the south-eastern districts of Bengal (vide R. C. Dutt's Civilization in Ancient India, Vol. III, Bk. IV. Ch. 9, pp. 155157, where a similar view is taken).