Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 38

26
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ FDRUARY, 1923
on a Brahmana female a boing who is outcast from the Aryan community, so that out-caste bagets on females of the four casted sons even more worthy of being outcasted than he is himself.". Such are in effect Manu's words, but the train of his thought can best be followed in the table. Manu omits to specify which is the mixed caste formed when a Brâhmana's daughter marries a Chandala, or a Vaideha, etc. He is equally silent as to what results when a Kshatriya's or a Vaisya's daughter marries & Chandala, etc. In other words he gives us no illustrations to X, $ 30.
But the principle of pratiloma can go on operating among the mixed castes inter se. Indeed Manu says there are fifteen more mixed castes, engendered on females of higher rank (but not of the four castes) by men who are vdhya or 'excluded,' and these lower races are still more worthy of being outoasted than the former : 8 31. These fifteen he does not specify fully, but he clearly gives samples of them. E.g., (reading the lower part of the table) a Vaideha's daughter has by a Chandala a Påndusopaka, a 'dealer in cane.' And an Ayogava's daughter has by & Vaideha a Maitreyaka or 'bell-ringer. These two specimens do not bring out the principle at all well, for the two resulting occupational castes are quite clean and respectable, though ex hypothesi the Påndusopåka ought to be lower, much lower, than a Chandala; and a Maitreyaka lower than a Vaideha. Thus we not only fail to trace the 18 castes, but doubt whether the two specified are correctly ranked in Manu as we have him. Before we try to track down the other castes in the table, let us look at the anuloma castes.
First, a man marrying only one caste below him begets no new caste, so the table has only to exhibit what happens when there is more than one degree of hypergamy. When a Sadra's daughter (top of the table) has an Ugra son by a Kshatriya his rank is fairly good, seeing that his daughter, espoused to a Brahmana, bears an Avrita, apparently a respectable caste, though its status is left undefined. But in $ 49, we find an Ugra equated to a Kshattri, so that anuloma does not avail the Ugra much. Although he resembles a Kshatriya just as much as a Sadra, V, 89, the function assigned to him is catching animals living in holes. One can understand the degradation of the Sudra wife's progeny by a Brahmana, because Manu denounced such unions, as already noted. Yet the Nishada whom she bears is inter. preted to be distinct from the pratiloma Nishada who catches fish. The daughter of an anuloma Nishada marrying a Chandala must however be regarded as marrying beneath her, for their son is an Antyävasayin, who is "employed in burial-grounds and despised even by those excluded":X, $ 39, being seemingly inferior to a Kukkutaka, her son by a Sadra.
The cases of a Vaisya's daughter seem much simpler. Her son by & Brahmana is a professional man, practising the art of healing': X, $ 47. And his daughter by marrying a Brahmana can raise their issue to the decent status of an. Abhira, though Manu does not define that status. But if an Ambashtha's daughter espouse a husband of distinctly low status, an admittedly degraded Vaidehaka, her son must be a Vena, whom the commentators identify with the Baruda or 'basket-maker': X, $ 19. But at best the illustrations are not very convincing and all we can do is to suggest that both the pratiloma and anuloma principles are on work on this side also.
Moreover the table shows several castes whose origin is not described. A Nishada appears to be below a Sadra; at all events there is a pratiloma Nishada, and by marrying him a Sadra's daughter loses caste for her sons, who become Pukkasas, equated to Ugras
4 Manu deuoribes the Ugra a "ferocious in his manners and delighting in cruelty":X, 19. The Mgrå was one of the two conseoratory (1) rites at a coronation, and was so called because it'ofected the subjugation of enemies': Law, Ancient Indian Polity, p. 196.
6 V, n. 7 on p. 403. Yet so low is the anulonu Nighada that hin niokname Parasava is inter prstod to mean'a living oorps'; IX, 80178,