Indian Antiquary Vol 46

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

Page 99

MAY, 1917)
CASTES IN INDIA
87
husband; (2) Compulsory widowhood a milder form of burning ; (3) Imposing celibacy on the widower; (4) Wedding him to a girl not yet marriageable. Though, as I said above, burning the widow and imposing celibacy on the widower are of doubtful service to the group in its endeavour to preserve its endoga my, all of them operate as means. But means, as forces, when liberated or set in motion create an end. What then is the end that these means create? They create and perpetuate endogamy, while caste and endogamy, according to our analysis of the various definitions of caste, are one and the same thing. Thus the existence of these means is identical with caste and caste involves these means.
This, in my opinion, is the general mechanism of a caste in a system of castes. Let us now turn from these high generalities to the castes in Hindu society and inquire into their mechanism. I need hardly promise that there are a great many pitfalls in the path of those who try to unfold the past, and caste in India to be sure is a very ancient institution. This is especially true where there exist no authentic or written records, or where the people, like the Hindus, are so constituted that to them writing history is a folly. for the world is an illusion. But institutions do live, though for a long time they may remain unrecorded and as often as not customs and morals are like fossils that tell their. own history. If this is true, our task will be amply rewarded if wo scrutinize the solution the Hindus arrived at to meet the problems of the surplus man and surplus woman.
Complex though it be in its general working the Hindu Society, even to & superficial observer, presents three singular uxorial customs, namely
(i) Sati or the burning of the widow on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband. (ii) Enforced widowhood by which a widow is not allowed to remarry. (ii) Girl marriage.
In addition, one also notes a great hankering after sannyasa (renunciation) on the part of the widower, but this may in some cases be due purely to psychic disposition.
So far as I know, no scientific explanation of the origin of these customs is forthcoming even to-day. We have plenty of philosophy to tell us why these customs were honoured, but nothing to tell us the causes of their origin and existence. Sati has been honoured (Cf. A. K. Coomaraswamy, Sati: a Defence of the Eastern Woman in the British Sociological Review, Vol. VI. 1913) because it is a "proof of the perfect unity of body and soul" between husband and wife and of“ devotion beyond the grave;" because it embodied the ideal of wifehood, which is well expressed by Umâ when she said “Devotion to her Lord is woman's honour, it is her eternal heaven: and O Maheshvara," she adds with a most touching human cry, "I desire not paradise itself if thou art not satisfied with me!" Why compulsory widowhood is honoured I know not, nor have I yet met with any one who sang in praise of it, though there are a great many who adhere to it. The eulogy in honour of girl marriage is reported by Dr. Ketkar to be as follows: "A really faithful man or woman ought not to feel affection for a woman or a man other than the one with whom he or she is united. Such purity is compulsory not only after marriage, but even before marriage, for that is the only correct ideal of chastity. No maiden could be considered pure if she feels love for a man other than the one to whom she might be married. As she does not know to whom she is going to be married, she must not feel affection for any man at all before marriage. If she does so, it is a sin. So it is better for a girl to know whom she has to love, before any sexual consciousness has been awakened in her."3 Hence girl marriage.
* History of Caste in India, 1909, pp. 32-33.