The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1

“Thus their existence as a distinct nation is established in the neighbourhood of the Indus, that is to say in the region in which, in the oldest time, the Aryan Indians dwelt. The Aryans probably conquered these indigenous inhabitants first; and when the others in the interior of the country were subsequently subdued and enslaved, the name Sūdra was extended to the whole servile caste. There seems to have been some hesitation in the Aryan community about the actual religious position to be given to the Sūdras. In the time of the liturgical Brāhmanas of the Vedas, they were sometimes admitted to take part in the Aryan sacrifices. Not long afterwards, when the conquests of the Aryans were greatly extended, and they formed a settled state of society among the affluents of the Jumna and Ganges, the Sūdras were degraded to the humiliating and painful position which they occupy in Manu. There is no mention of any of the Sankara or mixed castes in the Vedas.”26

From the above evidence it seems clear that the Sūdras were really the indigenous inhabitants of India, who were subdued by the Aryans as they gradually penetrated into India. When the conquering race began to settle in the land, the indigenous tribes, or such of them as did not retire before the invaders into the still unconquered interior, became a class of menials and labourers, as the Amalekites were to the children of Israel. The Sūdras were the same people as the Dasyus of the hymns, after they had begun to live in villages with the Aryans, and had to be admitted, though in the most humiliating fashion, into the Aryan polity. But the hostility between the Aryas and the Dasyus or Sūdras, though in reality racial, was felt and expressed on religious grounds, and probably the Aryans had no real idea of what is now understood by difference of race or deterioration of type from mixture of races. The Sūdras were despised and hated as worshippers of a hostile god. They could not join in the sacrifices by which the Aryans renewed and cemented their kinship with their god and with each other; hence they were outlaws towards whom no social obligations existed. It would have been quite right and proper that they should be utterly destroyed, precisely as the Israelites thought that Jehovah had commanded them to destroy the Canaanites. But they were too numerous, and hence they were regarded as impure and made to live apart, so that they should not pollute the places of sacrifice, which among the Aryans included their dwelling-houses. It does not seem to have been the case that the Aryans had any regard for the preservation of the purity of their blood or colour. From an early period men of the three higher castes might take a Sūdra woman in marriage, and the ultimate result has been an almost complete fusion between the two races in the bulk of the population over the greater part of the country. Nevertheless the status of the Sūdra still remains attached to the large community of the impure castes formed from the indigenous tribes, who have settled in Hindu villages and entered the caste system. These are relegated to the most degrading and menial occupations, and their touch is regarded as conveying defilement like that of the Sūdras.27 The status of the Sūdras was not always considered so low, and they were sometimes held to rank above the mixed castes. And in modern times in Bengal Sūdra is quite a respectable term applied to certain artisan castes which there have a fairly good position. But neither were the indigenous tribes always reduced to the impure status. Their fortunes varied, and those who resisted subjection were probably sometimes accepted as allies. For instance, some of the most prominent of the Rājpūt clans are held to have been derived from the aboriginal28 tribes. On the Aryan expedition to southern India, which is preserved in the legend of Rāma, as related in the Rāmāyana, it is stated that Rāma was assisted by Hanumān with his army of apes. The reference is generally held to be to the fact that the Aryans had as auxiliaries some of the forest tribes, and these were consequently allies, and highly thought of, as shown by the legend and by their identification with the mighty god Hanumān. And at the present time the forest tribes who live separately from the Hindus in the jungle tracts are, as a rule, not regarded as impure. But this does not impair the identification of the Sūdras with those tribes who were reduced to subjection and serfdom in the Hindu villages, as shown by the evidence here given. The view has also been held that the Sūdras might have been a servile class already subject to the Aryans, who entered India with them. And in the old Pārsi or Persian community four classes existed, the Athornan or priest, the Rathestan or warrior, the Vasteriox or husbandman, and the Hutox or craftsman.29 The second and third of these names closely resemble those of the corresponding Hindu classical castes, the Rājanya or Kshatriya and the Vaishya, while Athornan, the name for a priest, is the same as Atharvan, the Hindu name for a Brāhman versed in the Atharva-Veda. Possibly then Hutox may be connected with Sūdra, as h frequently changes into s. But on the other hand the facts that the Sūdras are not mentioned in the Vedas, and that they succeeded to the position of the Dasyus, the black hostile Indians, as well as the important place they fill in the later literature, seem to indicate clearly that they mainly consisted of the indigenous subject tribes. Whether the Aryans applied a name already existing in a servile class among themselves to the indigenous population whom they subdued, may be an uncertain point.

13. The Vaishya

In the Vedas, moreover, M. Senart shows that the three higher castes are not definitely distinguished; but there are three classes—the priests, the chiefs and the people, among whom the Aryans were comprised. The people are spoken of in the plural as the clans who followed the chiefs to battle. The word used is Visha. One verse speaks of the Vishas (clans) bowing before the chief (Rājan), who was preceded by a priest (Brāhman). Another verse says: “Favour the prayer (Brahma), favour the service; kill the Rakshasas, drive away the evil; favour the power (khatra) and favour the manly strength; favour the cow (dherm, the representative of property) and favour the people (or house, visha).”30

Hindu sculptures

Similarly Wilson states that in the time of the Vedas, visha (related to vesha, a house or district) signified the people in general; and Vaishya, its adjective, was afterwards applied to a householder, or that appertaining to an individual of the common people. The Latin vicus and the Greek οἶκος are the correspondents of vesha.31 The conclusion to be drawn is that the Aryans in the Vedas, like other early communities, were divided by rank or occupation into three classes—priests, nobles and the body of the people. The Vishas or clans afterwards became the Vaishyas or third classical caste. Before they entered India the Aryans were a migratory pastoral people, their domestic animals being the horse, cow, and perhaps the sheep and goat. The horse and cow were especially venerated, and hence were probably their chief means of support. The Vaishyas must therefore have been herdsmen and shepherds, and when they entered India and took to agriculture, the Vaishyas must have become cultivators. The word Vaishya signifies a man who occupies the soil, an agriculturist, or merchant.32 The word Vasteriox used by the ancestors of the Pārsis, which appears to correspond to Vaishya, also signifies a husbandman, as already seen. Dr. Max Müller states: “The three occupations of the Aryas in India were fighting, cultivating the soil and worshipping the gods. Those who fought the battles of the people would naturally acquire influence and rank, and their leaders appear in the Veda as Rājas or kings. Those who did not share in the fighting would occupy a more humble position; they were called Vish, Vaishyas or householders, and would no doubt have to contribute towards the maintenance of the armies.33 According to Manu, God ordained the tending of cattle, giving alms, sacrifice, study, trade, usury, and also agriculture for a Vaishya.”34 The Sūtras state that agriculture, the keeping of cattle, and engaging in merchandise, as well as learning the Vedas, sacrificing for himself and giving alms, are the duties of a Vaishya.35 In the Mahābhārata it is laid down that the Vaishyas should devote themselves to agriculture, the keeping of cattle and liberality.36 In the same work the god Vayu says to Bhishma: “And it was Brahma’s ordinance that the Vaishya should sustain the three castes (Brāhman, Kshatriya and Vaishya) with money and corn; and that the Sūdra should serve them.”37

In a list of classes or occupations given in the White Yajur-Veda, and apparently referring to a comparatively advanced state of Hindu society, tillage is laid down as the calling of the Vaishya, and he is distinguished from the Vāni or merchant, whose occupation is trade or weighing.38 Manu states that a Brāhman should swear by truth; a Kshatriya by his steed and his weapons; a Vaishya by his cows, his seed and his gold; and a Sūdra by all wicked deeds.39 Yellow is the colour of the Vaishya, and it must apparently be taken from the yellow corn, and the yellow colour of ghī or butter, the principal product of the sacred cow; yellow is also the colour of the sacred metal gold, but there can scarcely have been sufficient gold in the hands of the body of the people in those early times to enable it to be especially associated with them. The Vaishyas were thus, as is shown by the above evidence, the main body of the people referred to in the Vedic hymns. When these settled down into villages the Vaishyas became the householders and cultivators, among whom the village lands were divided; the Sūdras or indigenous tribes, who also lived in the villages or in hamlets adjoining them, were labourers and given all the most disagreeable tasks in the village community, as is the case with the impure castes at present.

14. Mistaken modern idea of the Vaishyas

The demonstration of the real position of the Vaishyas is important, because the Hindus themselves no longer recognise this. The name Vaishya is now frequently restricted to the Bania caste of bankers, shopkeepers and moneylenders, and hence the Banias are often supposed to be the descendants and only modern representatives of the original Vaishyas. Evidence has been given in the article on Bania to show that the existing Bania caste is mainly derived from the Rājpūts. The name Bāni, a merchant or trader, is found at an early period, but whether it denoted a regular Bania caste may be considered as uncertain. In any case it seems clear that this comparatively small caste, chiefly coming from Rājputāna, cannot represent the Vaishyas, who were the main body or people of the invading Aryans. At that time the Vaishyas cannot possibly have been traders, because they alone provided the means of subsistence of the community, and if they produced nothing, there could be no material for trade. The Vaishyas must, therefore, as already seen, have been shepherds and cultivators, since in early times wealth consisted almost solely of corn and cattle. At a later period, with the increased religious veneration for all kinds of life, agriculture apparently fell into some kind of disrepute as involving the sacrifice of insect life, and there was a tendency to emphasise trade as the Vaishya’s occupation in view of its greater respectability. It is considered very derogatory for a Brāhman or Rājpūt to touch the plough with his own hands, and the act has hitherto involved a loss of status: these castes, however, did not object to hold land, but, on the contrary, ardently desired to do so like all other Hindus. Ploughing was probably despised as a form of manual labour, and hence an undignified action for a member of the aristocracy, just as a squire or gentleman farmer in England might consider it beneath his dignity to drive the plough himself. No doubt also, as the fusion of races proceeded, and bodies of the indigenous tribes who were cultivators adopted Hinduism, the status of a cultivator sank to some extent, and his Vaishyan ancestry was forgotten. But though the Vaishya himself has practically disappeared, his status as a cultivator and member of the village community appears to remain in that of the modern cultivating castes, as will be shown subsequently.

15. Mixed unions of the four classes

The settlement of the Aryans in India was in villages and not in towns, and the Hindus have ever since remained a rural people. In 1911 less than a tenth of the population of India was urban, and nearly three-quarters of the total were directly supported by agriculture. Apparently, therefore, the basis or embryo of the gradation of Hindu society or the caste system should be sought in the village. Two main divisions of the village community may be recognised in the Vaishyas or cultivators and the Sūdras or impure serfs and labourers. The exact position held by the Kshatriyas and the constitution of their class are not quite clear, but there is no doubt that the Brāhmans and Kshatriyas formed the early aristocracy, ranking above the cultivators, and a few other castes have since attained to this position. From early times, as is shown by an ordinance of Manu, men of the higher castes or classes were permitted, after taking a woman of their own class for the first wife, to have second and subsequent wives from any of the classes beneath them. This custom appears to have been largely prevalent. No definite rule prescribed that the children of such unions should necessarily be illegitimate, and in many cases no doubt seems to exist that, if not they themselves, their descendants at any rate ultimately became full members of the caste of the first ancestor. According to Manu, if the child of a Brāhman by a Sūdra woman intermarried with Brāhmans and his descendants after him, their progeny in the seventh generation would become full Brāhmans; and the same was the case with the child of a Kshatriya or a Vaishya with a Sūdra woman. A commentator remarks that the descendants of a Brāhman by a Kshatriya woman could attain Brāhmanhood in the third generation, and those by a Vaishya woman in the fifth.40 Such children also could inherit. According to the Mahābhārata, if a Brāhman had four wives of different castes, the son by a Brāhman wife took four shares, that by a Kshatriya wife three, by a Vaishya wife two, and by a Sūdra wife one share.41 Manu gives a slightly different distribution, but also permits to the son by a Sūdra wife a share of the inheritance.42 Thus the fact is clear that the son of a Brāhman even by a Sūdra woman had a certain status of legitimacy in his father’s caste, as he could marry in it, and must therefore have been permitted to partake of the sacrificial food at marriage;43 and he could also inherit a small share of the property.

16. Hypergamy

The detailed rules prescribed for the status of legitimacy and inheritance show that recognised unions of this kind between men of a higher class and women of a lower one were at one time fairly frequent, though they were afterwards prohibited. And they must necessarily have led to much mixture of blood in the different castes. A trace of them seems to survive in the practice of hypergamy, still widely prevalent in northern India, by which men of the higher subcastes of a caste will take daughters in marriage from lower ones but will not give their daughters in return. This custom prevails largely among the higher castes of the Punjab, as the Rājpūts and Khatris, and among the Brāhmans of Bengal.44 Only a few cases are found in the Central Provinces, among Brāhmans, Sunārs and other castes. Occasionally intermarriage between two castes takes place on a hypergamous basis; thus Rājpūts are said to take daughters from the highest clans of the cultivating caste of Dāngis. More commonly families of the lower subcastes or clans in the same caste consider the marriage of their daughters into a higher group a great honour and will give large sums of money for a bridegroom. Until quite recently a Rājpūt was bound to marry his daughters into a clan of equal or higher rank than his own, in order to maintain the position of his family. It is not easy to see why so much importance should be attached to the marriage of a daughter, since she passed into another clan and family, to whom her offspring would belong. On the other hand, a son might take a wife from a lower group without loss of status, though his children would be the future representatives of the family. Another point, possibly connected with hypergamy, is that a peculiar relation exists between a man and the family into which his daughter has married. Sometimes he will accept no food or even water in his son-in-law’s village. The word sāla, signifying wife’s brother, when addressed to a man, is also a common and extremely offensive term of abuse. The meaning is now perhaps supposed to be that one has violated the sister of the person spoken to, but this can hardly have been the original significance as sasur or father-in-law is also considered in a minor degree an opprobrious term of address.

17. The mixed castes. The village menials

But though among the four classical castes it was possible for the descendants of mixed unions between fathers of higher and mothers of lower caste to be admitted into their father’s caste, this would not have been the general rule. Such connections were very frequent and the Hindu classics account through them for the multiplication of castes. Long lists are given of new castes formed by the children of mixed marriages. The details of these genealogies seem to be destitute of any probability, and perhaps, therefore, instances of them are unnecessary. Matches between a man of higher and a woman of lower caste were called anuloma, or ‘with the hair’ or ‘grain,’ and were regarded as suitable and becoming. Those between a man of lower and a woman of higher caste were, on the other hand, known as pratiloma or ‘against the hair,’ and were considered as disgraceful and almost incestuous. The offspring of such unions are held to have constituted the lowest and most impure castes of scavengers, dog-eaters and so on. This doctrine is to be accounted for by the necessity of safeguarding the morality of women in a state of society where kinship is reckoned solely by male descent. The blood of the tribe and clan, and hence the right to membership and participation in the communal sacrifices, is then communicated to the child through the father; hence if the women are unchaste, children may be born into the family who have no such rights, and the whole basis of society is destroyed. For the same reason, since the tribal blood and life is communicated through males, the birth and standing of the mother are of little importance, and children are, as has been seen, easily admitted to their father’s rank. But already in Manu’s time the later and present view that both the father and mother must be of full status in the clan, tribe or caste in order to produce a legitimate child, has begun to prevail, and the children of all mixed marriages are relegated to a lower group. The offspring of these mixed unions did probably give rise to a class of different status in the village community. The lower-caste mother would usually have been taken into the father’s house and her children would be brought up in it. Thus they would eat the food of the household, even if they did not participate in the sacrificial feasts; and a class of this kind would be very useful for the performance of menial duties in and about the household, such as personal service, bringing water, and so on, for which the Sūdras, owing to their impurity, would be unsuitable. In the above manner a new grade of village menial might have arisen and have gradually been extended to the other village industries, so that a third group would be formed in the village community ranking between the cultivators and labourers. This gradation of the village community may perhaps still be discerned in the main social distinctions of the different Hindu castes at present. And an attempt will now be made to demonstrate this hypothesis in connection with a brief survey of the castes of the Province.

18. Social gradation of castes

An examination of the social status of the castes of the Central Provinces, which, as already seen, are representative of a great part of India, shows that they fall into five principal groups. The highest consists of those castes who now claim to be directly descended from the Brāhmans, Kshatriyas or Vaishyas, the three higher of the four classical castes. The second comprises what are generally known as pure or good castes. The principal mark of their caste status is that a Brāhman will take water to drink from them, and perform ceremonies in their houses. They may be classified in three divisions: the higher agricultural castes, higher artisan castes, and serving castes from whom a Brāhman will take water. The third group contains those castes from whose hands a Brāhman will not take water; but their touch does not convey impurity and they are permitted to enter Hindu temples. They consist mainly of certain cultivating castes of low status, some of them recently derived from the indigenous tribes, other functional castes formed from the forest tribes, and a number of professional and menial castes, whose occupations are mainly pursued in villages, so that they formerly obtained their subsistence from grain-payments or annual allowances of grain from the cultivators at seedtime and harvest. The group includes also some castes of village priests and mendicant religious orders, who beg from the cultivators. In the fourth group are placed the non-Aryan or indigenous tribes. Most of these cannot properly be said to form part of the Hindu social system at all, but for practical purposes they are admitted and are considered to rank below all castes except those who cannot be touched. The lowest group consists of the impure castes whose touch is considered to defile the higher castes. Within each group there are minor differences of status some of which will be noticed, but the broad divisions may be considered as representing approximately the facts. The rule about Brāhmans taking water from the good agricultural and artisan castes obtains, for instance, only in northern India. Marātha Brāhmans will not take water from any but other Brāhmans, and in Chhattīsgarh Brāhmans and other high castes will take water only from the hands of a Rāwat (grazier), and from no other caste. But nevertheless the Kunbis, the great cultivating caste of the Marātha country, though Brāhmans do not take water from them, are on the same level as the Kurmis, the cultivating caste of Hindustān, and in tracts where they meet Kunbis and Kurmis are often considered to be the same caste. The evidence of the statements made as to the origin of different castes in the following account will be found in the articles on them in the body of the work.

19. Castes ranking above the cultivators

The castes of the first group are noted below:

The Brāhmans are, as they have always been, the highest caste. The Rājpūts are the representatives of the ancient Kshatriyas or second caste, though the existing Rājpūt clans are probably derived from the Hun, Gūjar and other invaders of the period before and shortly after the commencement of the Christian era, and in some cases from the indigenous or non-Aryan tribes. It does not seem possible to assert in the case of a single one of the present Rājpūt clans that any substantial evidence is forthcoming in favour of their descent from the Aryan Kshatriyas, and as regards most of the clans there are strong arguments against such a hypothesis. Nevertheless the Rājpūts have succeeded to the status of the Kshatriyas, and an alternative name for them, Chhatri, is a corruption of the latter word. They are commonly identified with the second of the four classical castes, but a Hindu law-book gives Rājapūtra as the offspring of a Kshatriya father and a mother of the Karan or writer caste.45 This genealogy is absurd, but may imply the opinion that the Rājpūts were not the same as the Aryan Kshatriyas. The Khatris are an important mercantile caste of the Punjab, who in the opinion of most authorities are derived from the Rājpūts. The name is probably a corruption of Kshatri or Kshatriya. The Banias are the great mercantile, banking and shopkeeping caste among the Hindus and a large proportion of the trade in grain and ghī (preserved butter) is in their hands, while they are also the chief moneylenders. Most of the important Bania subcastes belonged originally to Rājputāna and Central India, which are also the homes of the Rājpūts, and reasons have been given in the article on Bania for holding that they are derived from the Rājpūts. They, however, are now commonly called Vaishyas by the Hindus, as, I think, under the mistaken impression that they are descended from the original Vaishyas. The Bhāts are the bards, heralds and genealogists of India and include groups of very varying status. The Bhāts who act as genealogists of the cultivating and other castes and accept cooked food from their clients may perhaps be held to rank with or even below them. But the high-class Bhāts are undoubtedly derived from Brāhmans and Rājpūts, and rank just below those castes. The bard or herald had a sacred character, and his person was inviolable like that of the herald elsewhere, and this has given a special status to the whole caste.46 The Kāyasths are the writer caste of Hindustān, and the Karans and Prabhus are the corresponding castes of Orissa and Bombay. The position of the Kāyasths has greatly risen during the last century on account of their own ability and industry and the advantages they have obtained through their high level of education. The original Kāyasths may have been village accountants and hence have occupied a lower position, perhaps below the cultivators. They are an instance of a caste whose social position has greatly improved on account of the wealth and importance of its members. At present the Kāyasths may be said to rank next to Brāhmans and Rājpūts. The origin of the Prabhus and Karans is uncertain, but their recent social history appears to resemble that of the Kāyasths. The Guraos are another caste whose position has greatly improved. They were priests of the village temples of Siva, and accepted the offerings of food which Brāhmans could not take. But they also supplied leaf-plates for festivals, and were village musicians and trumpeters in the Marātha armies, and hence probably ranked below the cultivators and were supported by contributions of grain from them. Their social position has been raised by their sacred character as priests of the god Siva and they are now sometimes called Shaiva Brāhmans. But a distinct recollection of their former status exists.