Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 52
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications
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FEBRUARY, 1993
MANU'S “MIXED CASTES”
28
So much for Manu's express marriage-law. But by implication this is by no means all of it. When we turn to his chapter on Mixed Castes we find a far more complex and far less ideal state of affairs. The right or license to take a wife from below is seemingly extended to the first wife, and treated as quite en règle, such a union being anuloma or 'with the hair, and contrasted with a much lower type of marriage, the praliloma, or against the hair, i.e. a marriage between a woman of high and a man of lower caste. Pratiloma has results so curious that they deserve to be set forth in a table", thus :Pratiloma.
--- Anuloma.
IV.
A Nishada3 X a Sadra's dr. . . .But if she marry a Kshatriya ...... a Brahmana. a Pukkasa's dr. X a Chandála. an Ugra's dr. X a Brâhmana: . . a Kshattri. i Sopaka - =(5) an Avrita.
a Svapâka. 1 a Nishâda (Pârasava)'s dr. X a Sadra : ...or a Chandala
Kukkutaka. Antyâvasấyin. III. A Sadra X a Vaisya's dr. . . . But if she X a Brahmana. an Ayogava's dr. X a Brahmana. an Ambashtha's dr. x. a Brahmana : ora Vaidehaka. a Dhigvana.
an Abhira.
a Vena. an Ayogava's dr. X a Dasyu ...a Vaideha .. or a Nishada.
a Sairandhra. Maitreyaka. a Dasa or Margava. A Sadra ... a Vaisya X a Kshatriya's dr. Kshattri.
a Màgadha.
(5)
A Sadra ... & Vaisya.
or a Kshatriya X a Brahmana's dr.
& Chándala
(1)
a sata
(3) a Vaideha's dr. X a Nishada.... a Chandala. ... a Nishâda
a Pandusopaka. an Åhindika. Kârâvara's dr. X & Vaideha .... a Kâråvara.
(2)
a Meda a n Andhra. The Brahmana being the highest in rank, the degradation attaching to his daughter, if she marries beneath her, is the greatest. If she marry a Sadra, their son will be the lowest of men' as Manu says more than once. Thus we can correct the order of degradation in X, $26. The order should be Chandala, Vaidehaka, Sata, Magadha, Kshattri, and Ayogava. But obviously the principle can still operate, and so Manu explains "just as a Súdra begets
Hero | = son of: X='married' and 's='whoge' or 'and his'.
3 Nárada gives a different account of the Nishada's origin. He says the Nishada is distinct from and inferior to the Paragava. The Nishada is a Sudra woman's son by a Kshatriya, while the Parasa &
her son by a Brahman : SBE., XXXIII, p. 188 (XII. & 108). This would make the Nishida of NArada the same as Manu's Ugra. But the MSS. differ, a Nepalego text making the Ugra, Parasava and Nishada all anuloma sons of a Bodra woman by husbands of the (three) higher castes : ibid. p. 186 n, to $ 193. But if this text is correct we are driven to making the Ugra a son of a Sadra woman by a Vaisya, so that the ascending scale would be :-Ugra, Parasava, Nishada, as Narada gives it. This shows how unreal the application of the principleg must have been.
