________________
Vol. XX, No.4
139
but it had come about by 600 A.D. undoubtedly. His argument is that unt uchability was born in the age when cow-slaughter was banned and beef-eating became sinful. As cow-killing was made a capital offence by the Gupta kings sometime in the 4th century A.D., Ambedkar concludes that untouchability was born sometime about 400 A D. Strong points of the theory
Almost all the questions generally raised about the origin of untouchability are answered by the thesis of Dr. Ambedkar. That is the first merit of the thesis,
It is the only thesis chat answers why and since when the untouchables live outside the villages in a manner that makes sense. It is stronger and more sensible than that of Prof. Ghurye who contends that they lived undoubtedly in side the villages to the days of Päņini and it was sometime during the period between Pāņini and Manu that Chandal, Mstah etc were driven out and made untouchables 3 Ghurye does not care to explain the reason, nor does he name the emperor who could have done that throughout the country. Such fantastic assertions can be easily dismissed in favour of the view that the Chandālas etc. were defeated, Broken Men and as such they had to live outside the villages. That fits in well with what we kpow about them. That is the second merit of the theory.
Thirdly, the theory does not attach undue importance to the race factor. Contrary to the views of Ambedkar, most of the scholars believe that more than two races came to India, had conflicts with one another and finally lost their separate identities by amalga. mation. There were two bio-types among the Aryans, namely, the Nordics and Alpines. The Dravidians too consisted of two types, namely the Mediterraneans and Armenoids. Besides the Mongol, Negroto and Proto-Australoid types have also left their mark on the population of India. The literature of India refers to the Yaksas, Rākşasas, Pishachas, Kinnaras, Gandharyas and Nāgas It refers to the enemies of the Nāgas, the “Birds" and their chief Garuda too. I wonder if they can be explained by assuming two or three races only. Still it would be a blunder to label any caste or varna as descendants of a particular race in view of the frequent mixture of different races in all castes. Niether the Brahmanas of the whole of India belong to one race nor do the untouchables. How absurd it would be to seek to explain the differences in varna and caste on the basis of racial differences becomes obvious from the fact that the Brābmaņas and Kayasthas who constitute the upper class in the
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
