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TULSI-PRAJNA
discuss the questions in order to further investigate the truth.
The first two questions raised by Ambedkar are one and the same in fact. Both are concerned with the vast number in the official list. So it must be clarified at the outset that the schedule of 1935 is a single list divided in nine parts from the legal point of view only. Actually it is a collection of nine lists prepared separately for nine different parts of India. A single list can contain the name of a caste only once, not five, seven or nine times. But the name of the same caste occurs several times in different parts of the Schedule. Such recurrence gives an unreal picture. Sometimes, the name of the same caste occurs with nominal changes in spelling Again, branches of the same caste are often treated as separate castes; eg. Bhântu. Habārā and Sāns are the branches of one caste and the Dherkars and Bansphor are the branches of the other caste but they are all mentioned separately. So the very procedure of preparing the list has inflated the number in the schedule and we cannot expect such a big number anywhere else.
It was not possible in the days of the Dharmaśāstras to prepare a list after conducting a census throughout the country. Instead, they wrote about different castes according to social conditions of their own region guided by their own knowledge, experience and whims. The Mahābhārata and the Manusmrti did not intend to prepare a list of untouchables. Their passages referred to above were written simply for registering certain castes as Vrātya, Vrsala or Varnasarkara. Atri, Angira and Yama mention seven castes called Antyajas and say they are untouchables36, but the internal evidence shows they regard other castes like Candāla, śvapaca etc as untouchables too. The Vedavyāsa Smộti enumerates twelve castes and adds and others who eat beef are called Antyajas''87. That means the list is not exhaustive. The rest of the Dharmaśāstras do not attempt to prepare a list as they did not deem it necessary. Even the British who ruled over the whole of the country for a long time did not experience the need of such a list before 1935. How then the authors of the Dharmaśāstras find it necessary ? Names of
few castes are mentioned in the Dharmaśāstras as exception and that is done to confirm their status and remove doubts about them.
How are we to explain the fact that the names mentioned in the Smrtis do not find a place in the Schedule ? One of the reasons is the change in the names that has taken place due to lapse of time and difference of place. Certain castes are undoubtedly known by new names today and it is not difficult to trace them in the Schedule. For example, Buruda is the same as Basor and it is mentioned in the
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