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UTTARAJJHAYANA AND SOCIO-RELIGIOUS
FORMALISM
Ram Prakash Poddar
In the priest-dominated society of ancient India certain customs and practices were generally regarded as conducive to temporal and eternal good. Consequently their observance had become almost obligatory. These were ceremonial sacrifices, respective order and duties of castes and stages of life, and rites of consecretion.
Ceremonial sacrifices included, besides prayers, material oblations and gifts, killing of animals such as horses and goats. Thus they contravened the general scriptural injunction-'One should not cause injury to living beings.'1 Yet they were prescribed, specially for the kings, to secure supremacy in this world and heaven in the next.2 Performer of one hundred ceremonial sacrifices was supposed to rise to Indrahood and command all the pleasures of heaven, Not only the legendary kings but the historical ones too performed ceremonial sacrifices and rose to prominence.
Society was divided into four castes in order of importanc, viz. Brahmana, Ksatriya, Vaisya and Sūdra. They had their respective duties and occupations. Reading the Vedas, performing sacrifices and giving gifts to the Brāhmaṇas were the sacred duties of the first three castes. Their respective occupations were to teach, to protect the sudjects and to earn money by trade and agriculture. Upon the Śüdras was enjoned to serve the other three castes. Initially the caste system might have emerged from a necessity of division of labour. But subsequently it grew rigid and birth became its foremost criterion. Inter-marriages being generally disfavoured, the accidental mixed castes were separately grouped and placed lower ; the UntouchablesCāndālas and Sopakas were lowest down in the hierarchy. The latter were not allowed to enter at will the habitations of the higher castes. They were forced to live in suburbs and cemeteries and also move about like nomads. Their duties were to dispose of unclaimed dead bodies and behead the criminals sentenced to death. Clothes of the dead were their attire and asses and dogs their only possession.
Proper performance of the caste-duties earned merit for the subject and transgression brought sin and disgrace; an important duty of the king was to see that no one swerved from caste-duties - Rama had to be head a Sudra for practising asceticism. In the Bhagavadgilā Krisna admonished Arjuna that it was betier to die in course of performing one's own
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