THE FORMATION OF THE CASTES IN INDIA

B.C. 1200

GUSTAVE LE BON'

W. W. HUNTER

The institution of caste was not peculiar to India. In Rome there was a long struggle over the connubium. Among the Greeks the right of commensality, or eating together, was restricted. In fact, the phenomena of caste are world-wide in their extent. In India the priests and nobles contended for the first place. India had progressed along the line of ethnic evolution from a loose confederacy of tribes into several nations, ruled by kings and priests, and the iron fetters of caste were becoming more rigidly welded. At first the father of the family was the priest. Then the chiefs and sages took the office of spiritual guide, and conducted the sacrifices. As writing was unknown, the liturgies were learned by heart, and handed down in families. The exclusive knowledge of the ancient rymns became hereditary, as it were. The ministrants increased in number, and thus sprang up the powerful priestly

caste.

Then the warrior class arose and grew strong in numbers and power, becoming differentiated from the agriculturists, and forming the military caste. The husbandmen drifted into another caste, and the three orders were rigidly separated by a cessation of intermarriage.

At the bottom came the Sudras, or slave bands, the servile dregs of the population. In course of time, from various influences, the third class became almost eliminated in many provinces. From the cradle to the grave these cruel barriers still intervene between the strata of the people, relentless as fate and insurmountable as death.

GUSTAVE LE BON

IN ancient times the power of kings [in India] was only nominal. In the Aryan village, forming a little republic, the chief, bearing the name of rajah, was secure in his fortress, exercising full sway. Such was the political system prevailing in India through all the ages, and which has always been respected by the conquerors, whoever they might be. So, for so

'Translated from the French by Chauncey C. Starkweather.

many centuries back we see arise the first elements of an organization which still endures.

We find here also the beginnings of that system of castes, which, at first indistinct and floating, when the classes sought only to be distinguished from each other, was to become so rigid, when it was constituted under the influence of ethnological reasons, as to dig fathomless abysses between the races.

In the Vedas may be traced the progression of the distance between the priests and the warriors, at first slight, and then increasing more and more. The division of functions did not stop there. While the sacrificing priest was consecrating himself more exclusively day by day to the accomplishment of the sacred rites and to the composition of hymns; while the warrior passed his days in adventurous expeditions or daring feats, what would have become of the land and what would it have produced if others had not applied themselves without ceasing, to cultivate it? A third class became distinct, the agriculturists.

In one of the last hymns of Rig Veda these three classes appear, absolutely separated and already designated by the three words Brahmans, Kchatryas, Vaisyas.

The fourth class, that of the Sudras, was to arise later and to include the mass of conquered peoples when the latter joined the circle of Aryan civilization. The classes, hitherto mingling, now became rigidly separated castes.

The most important of these divisions, and that which was first formed, was the one between the priests and the warriors. The Brahmans, intermediaries between men and the gods, soon became more and more exacting, and finally considered themselves as entirely superior beings and were accepted as such.

The distinction between the warriors and the agriculturists also soon became marked, arising doubtless rather from a difference in fortune than in functions.

The war chief, who returned laden with booty, covered himself with rings of gold, rich vestments, and gleaming arms. He became "rajah," that is to say "shining," for such was the meaning of the word at the Vedic epoch.

Still no absolute barrier between the classes had arisen. They mingled to offer sacrifices, and sometimes ate in common.

Heredity of office and profession began to be established. The sacred songs were handed down in families, as were also the functions of the sacrificers. And here among the Vedic Aryans are seen in process of elaboration the germs of the institution which later gained so much power in India and which dominates it still with apparent immutability.

The system of castes has been the corner-stone of all the institutions of India for two thousand years. Such is its importance, and so generally is it misunderstood, that it will be well briefly to explain its origins, sources, and consequences. A system, the result of which is to permit a handful of Europeans to hold sway over two hundred and fifty millions of men deserves the attention of the observer.

The system of castes has existed for more than twenty centuries in India. It doubtless had its origin in the recognition of the inevitable laws of heredity. When the white-skinned conquerors, whom we call Aryans, penetrated India, they found, in addition to other invaders of Turanian origin, black, half-savage populations whom they subjugated. The conquerors were half-pastoral, half-stationary tribes, under chiefs whose authority was counterbalanced by the all-powerful influence of the priests whose duty it was to secure the protection of the gods. Their occupations were divided into classes, that of Brahmans or priests, Kchatryas or warriors, and Vaisyas, laborers or artisans. The last class was perhaps formed by the invaders anterior to the Aryans, whom we have just mentioned.

These divisions corresponded, as is evident, to our three ancient castes, the clergy, the nobility, and the third estate. Beneath these classes was the aboriginal population, the Sudras, forming three quarters of the whole population.

Experience soon revealed the inconveniences which might rise from the mixture of the superior race with the inferior ones, and all the proscriptions of religion tended thereafter to prevent it. "Every country which gives birth to men of mixed races," said the ancient law-giver of the Hindus, the sage Manu, "is soon destroyed together with those who inhabit it." The decree is harsh, but it is impossible not to recognize its truth. Every superior race which has mingled with another too inferior has speedily been degraded or absorbed by it.

The Spaniards in America, the Portuguese in India, are proofs of the sad results produced by such mixtures. The descendants of the brave Portuguese adventurers, who in other days conquered part of India, fill to-day the employments of servants, and the name of their race has become a term of contempt.

Imbued with the importance of this anthropological truth, the Code of Manu, which has been the law of India for so many centuries, and which, like all codes, is the result of long anterior experiences, neglects nothing to preserve the purity of blood.

It pronounces severe penalties against all intermingling of the superior castes between themselves, and especially with the caste of the Sudras. There are no frightful threats which it does not employ to keep the latter apart.

But in the course of the centuries nature triumphed over these formidable prohibitions. Woman always has her charms, no matter how inferior she may be in caste. In spite of Manu, crossings of caste were numerous, and one need not travel India throughout to perceive that, to-day, the populations of all the races are mixed to a large extent. The number of individuals white enough to prove that their blood is quite pure is very restricted. The word caste, taken in its primitive sense, is no longer a synonym of color, as it used to be in Sanscrit, and, if caste had had only formerly prevailing ethnological reasons to invoke, it would have had no reason for continuing. In fact, the primitive divisions of caste have long since disappeared. They were replaced by new divisions, the origin of which is other than the difference of races, except in the case of the Brahmans, who still form the less mixed portion of the population.

Among the causes which have perpetuated the system of castes, the law of heredity has furthermore continued to play a fundamental part. Aptness is inevitably hereditary among the Hindus, and, also inevitably, the son follows the profession of the father. The principle of heredity of the professions being universally admitted, there has resulted the formation of castes as numerous as the professions themselves, and to-day in India castes are numbered by the thousand. Each new profession has for an immediate consequence the formation of a new caste.

The European who comes to India to live soon perceives to what an extent the castes have multiplied in observing the number of different persons whom he is obliged to hire to wait on him. To the two preceding causes of the formations of castes, the ethnological cause, now very weak, and the professional, which is still very strong, are added political office, and the heterogeneity of religious beliefs.

The castes springing from political office might, strictly speaking, be placed in the category of professional castes, but those produced by diversity of religious beliefs should be attached to none of the preceding causes. In theory, that is, only judged by the reading of books, all India would be divided into two or three great religions only. But practically these religions are very numerous. New gods, considered as simple incarnations of ancient ones, are born and die every day, and their votaries soon form a new caste as rigid in its exclusions as the others.

Two fundamental signs mark the conformity of castes, and separate from all the others the persons belonging to them. The first is that the individuals of the same caste cannot eat except among themselves. The second is that they can only marry among themselves.

These two proscriptions are quite fundamental, and the first not less than the second. You may meet by the hundreds in India Brahmans who are employed by the government in the post-office and railway service, or even Brahmans who are beggars. But the humble functionary or wretched mendicant would rather die than sit at table with the viceroy of India.

The quality of Brahmans is hereditary, like a title of nobility in Europe. It is not a synonym of priest, as is generally believed, because it is from this caste that priests are recruited. This caste was formerly so exalted that the rank of royalty was not sufficient to enable one to aspire to the hand of a Brahman's daughter.

The Hindu would rather die than violate the laws of his caste. Nothing is more terrible than for him to lose it. Such loss may be compared to excommunication in the middle ages, or to a condemnation for an infamous crime in modern Europe. To lose his caste is to lose everything at one blow, parents, re