Indian Antiquary Vol 59

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 64

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ MARCH, 1930
IV. The four original castes.-In fact such mechanical treatment of the subject tends rather to increased obscurity, and we have to go back to the ancient tradition, in accordance with which all Hindus were originally divided into four castes only, viz., "The Brahmans, destined to fulfil the high functions of spiritual priesthood and to show the way of salvation to their fellowmen, [who] issue from the head of the Creator; the Kshatriyas, endowed with physical force and destined to undergo the fatigues of war, [who] have their origin in the shoulders and arms of Brahma; the Vaisyas, whose duty it is to provide the food, the clothing and other bodily necessities of man, [who] are born in the belly of the god; and the Sudras, whose lot is servitude and rude labour in the fields, [who] issue from his feet." (Abbé Dubois, Hindu Manners and Customs, p. 47.) Of these castes, the first three are considered twiceborn and are entitled to wear the sacred thread, though the Vaisya receives it only upon marriage. From this it will be seen that the Hindu legislators, like all social legislators, holding as a cardinal principle (Dubois, p. 30) that every member of the community should be useful, prescribed for each caste its peculiar public duty, but as State exigencies often ignore all rules, so also they allowed the necessary latitude. Thus we are told by Dubois (pp. 31-32): "It must here be remarked, however, that the four great professions without which a civilized nation could not exist, namely the army, agriculture, commerce and weaving, are held everywhere in the highest esteem. All castes from the Brahman to the Parish are permitted to follow the first three, and the fourth can be followed by all the principal classes of Sudras." From this we may, perhaps, conclude that, originally, it was not so much the occupation as the way in which and the motives from which it was followed that distinguished the different castes.
All Hindus, included in the hundreds (the Imperial Gazetteer says nearly 2,400) of now existent castes, belong to one or other of the four original castes and some suppose, therefore, that the whole Caste System is only the Indian modification of a division of Society into four classes-priests, warriors, cultivators and artisans-such as once existed in Persia, Egypt and Arabia; but if that were all that is to be said upon the subject, why should the system have collapsed everywhere else and yet retained such extraordinary vitality in India?
V. Suggested reason and occasion for the institution of the Hindu Caste System, viz., the necessity of finding a stable system of Society after the breakdown of an older civilization.-The Article on Caste in the Imperial Gazetteer (I, 348) concludes with the statement that "the origin of Caste is, from the nature of the case, an insoluble problem. We can only frame more or less plausible conjectures, derived from the analogy of observed facts." This is certainly true if by origin we mean the name of its author and the date of its institution, but, if we mean the cause and object, I think it is one of those things, like names in large letters on a crowded map, the very obviousness of which makes them hard to discern. If it can be shown that any course of intelligent action or thought leads definitely and inevitably to a particular end, desirable or otherwise, it is, I think, not unreasonable to suppose that this end was the cause or motive, i.e., the origin, of that course of action or thought. In this case, as Vincent Smith observes (Oxford History, p. 41):-"The chief attribute of the Caste System is its stability." Is it then not more than probable that the reason for establishing this system was the hope that in it would be found a permanent basis for a stable form of Society? Again, if it is clear that a particular course of action or thought would, in all probability, be suggested by only one particular kind of event, and if it were known that such events had repeatedly happened in times not far removed, is it not most probable that such an event did actually happen and did furnish the occasion for that course of action or thought? Now the search for a more stable form of Society would not suggest itself as a problem for serious consideration in a time of social rest or peace, but would be most likely to do so after some great upheaval like a revolution or coup-d'état or after some great catastrophe like a foreign conquest, followed by the breakdown of the Social system and resulting, in the former case, in the slaughter or flight of the late rulers and, in the latter case, in the flight of those of the conquered people, naturally