CASTE (INDIAN). The term caste is in English hardly older than 1 Soo, before which year it was spelt "cast." Borrowed from the French "caste," itself an adaptation of the Portuguese "casta" (also Spanish) meaning "breed" or "clan," it was used by the earlier Portuguese travellers in the sense of tribe or even race, being often applied to the lowest Indian classes in contra distinction to their overlords. The word is probably derived ulti mately from the Latin castus, "pure." It has no general equivalent in modern India.
The invaders, it may be inferred from the earliest hymns of the Rig-Veda, were a pastoral folk, loosely organized into groups of related families or clans which, aggregated, formed tribes. Authority over these vested in chieftains and a nobility, the mass of the tribes being designated the "clans" or "peoples" always in the plural—foreshadowing the use of "caste" by Portuguese writers—while priests mostly conducted the public sacrifices of the tribe, leaving family worship entirely in the hands of its head and his consort.
But as yet there was no restriction of even the privilege of tribal sacrifice to a sacerdotal class, since it could be solemnized by a scion of a ruling family and occasionally others disputed the priestly claims. Hence we can at most distinguish three nas cent orders, the noble, the priest and the mass of the clansmen; all three excluding the aborigines or Dasyus.
In the latest Vedic literature, the Brahman is represented as the incontestable head of society with the noble next and below him the "clans" or third estate ; while the lower classes form the lowest or fourth order in which it would seem are merged the Dasyus, or such of them as survived. This organization was con fined to quite a small area of Northern India, Kurukshetra and the adjoining lands, roughly in Moghul days the province of Sirhind. Within it lay Brahmanarta, the peculiarly holy land between the Sarasvati and the Drisbachvati; the Bicharshidisha was quite a small part of the extensive Aryaland, Aryevarta.
After the Vedic period the principal document is the Laws of Manu, compiled soon after the Christian era but most probably going back to a much earlier epoch. This specifies the four cardi nal varnas, "complexions," of Indian society, viz., the Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas (the twice born) and the Sadras, and appears to deny or forbid the existence of a fifth one. To reconcile fact with this classification, however, Manu apparently resorted to a strange device, assigning to the fruit of mixed marriages certain lowly avocations and tribes of impure descent. In so doing he recognized two main principles: (i.) that while the ideal spouse for a man is a bride of his own caste (endogamy q.v.), marriage to a woman of a caste below his (hypergamy q.v.) is by comparison a venial offence against the endogamous rule, the chief penalty for it being a diminution of the son's shares in the inheritance; (ii.) that the union of a woman with a man of higher status was, in some circumstances, an unpardonable sin, disinheriting their children and relegating them to a degraded caste. Manu allotted a name to almost all castes in this scheme. In it, for instance, the son of a Kshatriya lady by a Brahman husband seems to be a Brahman but forfeits a fourth of his heritage. But a Brah man's son by a Vaisya wife would be an Ambashthan (mod. Ambattan), an unpretentious barber-surgeon, while his son by a Sudra became a Nishada, normally a fisherman but in the text a Parasava, a living corpse. Since the fisherman's trade must have existed before Manu, he is regarded as defining the status of pratiloma sons in terms of existing occupational groups. Similarly he defines a Vaisya's son by a Kshatriya wife as a Magadha, or man of Magadha, i.e., S. Behar, while his son by a Brahman wife is to be a Vaideha, or man of Videha, otherwise Mithila, mod. Tirhut in Behar. For the Abhira, a generic name for tribes of the north-west, he finds a status as sons of a Brahman by an Ambashtha's daughter, and so for the Sairandhras, appar ently the people of Sirhind in the E. Punjab, a much lowlier origin, nearly, if not as degraded as that of an Andhra, a man of Telin gana which lay far to the south.
But while disparaging tribes of non-Aryan or not purely Aryan blood as mixed castes, Manu also branded a number of quite cleanly avocations, such as carpentry, as disreputable. The post Vedic caste system had some merits. The Brahman was the priest and scholar who was to teach the other castes, and if he awarded himself great privileges including benefit of clergy for criminous clerks, he had renounced by a self-denying ordinance all preten sions to temporal authority. The function of the Kshatriya was defence of the realm, and if to it was added all administrative power under the king, himself a Kshatriya, that power was to be exercised under Brahman counsels, even the king's conscience being kept in a manner by Brahman advisers. The Vaisyas were the graziers, yeomen and burgesses of the community, while the Sudras were to serve all the other castes. To which of the four Manu assigned the mixed castes is not clear but few of them can have ranked above the Sudras, though he recognized the principle that the children of an anuloma union could by marrying in the paternal caste regain their father's status in six generations. For the fruit of pratiloma unions there was no hope of promotion in the social scale. In all Manu recognizes more than a score of mixed castes as already existing, and it is self-evident that two new mixed castes could on his principles be formed by old ones if sufficiently remote in status. If, in the event, mixed castes were not multiplied Manu had paved the way for the creation of new castes on an extended scale by creating degrees of legitimacy based on disparities of status, by bastardizing the issue of prati loma unions, and recognizing function as a factor in caste-forma tion. From the midland the influence of his laws spread all over India, and in the south acquired new vigour by being grafted on Dravidian institutions. After Manu's time the history of caste in India enters on a period of obscurity except in the north-east, where we get light from the Buddhist writings. This part of India had rejected the Brahmanism of the midland. Thus in Buddha's time and of ter it we find in N.E. India a social stratification which is astonishingly western and almost modern in essentials. The Kshatriya forms the highest class, and Buddha himself claimed Kshatriya birth, being a scion of the princely Sakyas of Kapila vatthu, Kapilavastu in the Buddhist Madhyadesa or "Midland" which lay to the east of the Aryan midland. But a legend tells us that Buddha in a previous incarnation had in his mind debated whether he should be reborn as a Kshatriya or a Brahman, and he decided to be re-incarnated as a Kshatriya as the then higher of the two. We find the term Kshatriya of Magadha and its adja cent principalities applied to the ruling classes in general and thus corresponding to the Vedic title of Rajanya. The Kshatriya was a warrior, a civil functionary and a teacher. His education was fully equal to that of a Brahman and youths of princely families trudged on foot from the north-east to distant Taxila, in the north-west, then the great university where all sciences were im parted to princes and Brahmans by famous teachers—one of them a former incarnation of Buddha himself. Thus equipped, the Kshatriya held his own against the Brahman's pretensions and even acted as his instructor. The Kshatriya had played a similar part in the profound teachings of the Upanishad, wherein he had been the Brahman's teacher, and was again to assume that role, after the lapse of centuries in the remote Punjab, as the found er of Sikhism. The Buddhists, carrying on keen propaganda in their witty Birth Stories (the Jatakas), invented a dialogue be tween Buddha and Ambattha, a Brahman with a surely plebeian name, in which the latter admits that a Kshatriya's son by a Brah man wife would be recognized as a full Brahman by his caste fel lows but not by the Kshatriyas, among whom purity of blood, nay more, purity of Kshatriya descent, was of cardinal importance.
The Brahmans occupied in the Buddhist society of the north east a curiously anomalous position. They were in fact or in Buddhist theory divided into two groups, the true Brahman and the worldling. The Brahman who adopted the life and practices of a homeless ascetic, who sought no worldly wealth and attained to the ideals of his own scriptures was reverenced, whereas he who prided himself on birth, erudition in the Vedas and sacrifices per formed, was contemned. But the Brahmans regarded themselves as almost a caste in the modern sense. Birth, not calling, was the prime condition of its membership. A Brahman might change his vocation and pursue the lowest without loss of "caste," which could, however, be forfeited by a mesalliance or by eating defiled food. Yet we read of nothing like an organization of the "caste." It had as yet no head and no council. Exclusion from it was ap parently enforced solely by general sentiment—which was, in deed, strong enough to drive a Brahman, who when starving had devoured a Chandala's leavings, to suicide.
In the Buddhist writings, however, the Brahman's distinctive calling was his function as officiant in sacrificial rites, in exorcism and the interpretation of dreams and omens. Buddhism con demned animal sacrifices, and when a king, terrified by a fancied portent, orders a fourfold sacrifice of that type completed with its four human victims, a Birth Story explains away the evil omen and discomfits the Brahmans, whereupon the king destroys the place of sacrifice. Yet we find all classes from the king downwards invoking a Brahman's aid when menaced by evil signs or in domes tic events. The Brahmans as a body played an influential part in social life ; they were well educated and many acquired wealth, often owning villages, bestowed on them by grateful kings as fees for their ministrations. Above all was the Brahman of the north west held in respect.
In Buddhist times we find no Vaisya caste in the Vedic sense. Originally in the oldest Vedic days a term applied to the Aryan settlers engaged in cattle raising and cultivation, the Vaisya was made to fit into the Brahmanical scheme of caste, but comprised in fact an almost indefinite number of social groups. The prin cipal of these included the householders, grihapati, the lower landed gentry and the wealthier and more prominent burgesses of the cities. In this class the foremost rank was taken by the Masters of the Guilds, the sreshtins, mod. seth, whose wealth and office brought them into close touch with the court, where they represented the commercial interests of the kingdom and often wielded great influence as personal friends of a king, while their sons were playmates of his sons and sharing in their education. The sreshtin, indeed, often appears as a country gentleman having doubtless made money and purchased an estate. But his wealth was based on commerce, and we find him financing businesses, e.g., a tailor's and a spirit-seller's, without any apparent loss of repute. Yet the sreshtins as a group are careful to marry their sons in their own class and their office was hereditary.
Neither the sreshtin nor the grihapati formed a caste in any real sense. Almost a synonym for the latter term is kutumbika. They too formed a class of capitalists lending money to rural clients and carrying on such trades as grain dealing. They were found both in the towns and in the villages whence their daughters were sought in wedlock by leading townsmen of presumably their own class.
Of Sudras in Buddhist literature we read little but the name. That the "caste" exists is tacitly assumed. Buddha did not seek to abolish classes. He stressed their spiritual equality, their ability to attain nirvana, "emancipation," by righteous conduct. In his teaching even the outcasts, the Chandala and the Pukkusa, could be virtuous and self-controlled since none among those who had won peace of soul was higher or lower than his fellows. But what avocations were included in the term Sudra does not appear, an indication that it was quite vaguely used in practice of all the lower orders, excluding those which stood below the social scheme.
The depressed classes were undoubtedly remnants of the con quered races of Eastern India, speaking their own dialect or dia lects, and relegated to hamlets outside the villages, and confined to uncleanly functions. To them generally the term Chandala was applied until it became a term of abuse. Yet lower than the Chan dala ranked the Pulkasa or Pukkusa, trappers who lived by snar ing animals which dwelt in holes. The hunter was also degraded probably because he destroyed life, but he did not constitute a class and could, seemingly, rise in social esteem by taking up the higher pursuits. On the other hand the Nishada, fisher as well as hunter, could not. He, too, dwelt apart, but in a hamlet of his own, not with the Chandala and Pulkasa. The origin of the name is unknown but they are assuredly not occupational terms.
In N. E. India the Buddhist times held certain crafts in disre pute. The basket maker and wheelwright, the weaver, tanner, potter and barber were all despised. The Vena who wove articles of willow and cane ranked on a level with the builder of carts, and the joiner, whose abode was outside the town by the gates, graded between the Chandala and the Pulkusa, or at least no higher than those "out-castes," though one imagines that even if the basket making Vena was a gipsy he was less impure than an aboriginal out-caste, even though his mode of life set him below the car penter to whose craft a needy Brahman could occasionally resort. All these groups bore occupational names and the Buddhist writers speak of the sippas or "arts" without disparagement (the word is applied to all the i8 "sciences" taught at Taxila), while seeming to draw some distinction between the jati or tribes of the aborig ines and those who were so designated.
In a very similar scheme, to the carpenter (Ayogava) Manu assigns a semi-servile status, emphasizing his duty to serve the twice-born castes, his inability to own property (at least when in a Brahman's service) and his obligation to serve.
The king's service was then as now a highly important nu merous body. The royal ministers formed a class apart, being neither Brahmans nor Kshatriyas, but holding heritable offices. At their head stood the senapati, in war commander-in-chief, in peace the chief judiciary. His relations with the other ministers of justice and magistrates are vaguely defined; but the principal of them could on occasion intervene to rectify a decision wrongly given by the king in person. The judicial council as a body could be asked to give legal advice. These functionaries might be Brah mans by birth but are quite clearly distinguished as a class apart, having precedence over the Brahmans as well as the other classes. A salaried cadre of officials, surveyors, tax-collectors, treasurers, executioners and watchmen is also mentioned. But for all these officers we find no general term. Each seems to have formed a separate hereditary body, in which the king could appoint or dis miss at will, without regard to birth or standing.
Finally, outside the pale of class, were the homeless ascetics, those who had chosen an anchoret's life and had by so doing abandoned all worldly ties. They were recruited from all classes, from the king down to the barber, even to the Chandala and the Pukkusa.
In more modern times, the king found ways to influence caste a good deal. Various legends declare that a Raja was often com pelled to create new Brahmans—to increase the number which sacerdotal etiquette demanded should be fed at some great occasion—by issuing invitations to recognized and unrecognized Brahmans alike and thus elevating the latter to Brahmanhood in the lower degrees. But as a rule these new creations were either of suspected descent or of status lowered by function, or, less frequently, tribal priests of local indigenous deities.
Contrariwise a ruler could on occasion lower a caste, if we are to credit legends like that of Raja Ballal Sen of Eastern Bengal who deprived the Suvarnababikas, "traders in gold," once acknowledged to be Vaisyas of high standing, of the right to wear the sacred thread, and with them degraded their Brahmans too. Occasionally a king would enfranchise a servile caste which had rendered him good service in the field, or restore privileges for merly confiscated. The chief privilege bestowed was the right to wear the sacred thread.
That the king exercised considerable authority over caste af fairs is, however, beyond question. The caste assembly or coun cil, or the guild, judged offences against its rules, but it might be unable to enforce its decrees, whereupon the king could either execute its decisions or reverse them. The Brahman could pre scribe penances for such breaches or for religious offences but he had to hand the offender over to the secular arm to secure their enforcement. On the whole the king interfered little with caste constitution. His policy was to uphold the existing social order. Any attempt to interfere with caste equilibrium might have dis solved the whole system with results not to be foreseen.
Of the transition from the older system to the new but few facts emerge. A noteworthy incident in the process of change is the disappearance of the Kshatriya caste. A myth informs us that Parasurama, an incarnation of Vishni, literally axed them re peatedly. What historical event is concealed in the myth it is impossible to say, but the fact remains that of this, the most im portant lay caste of ancient Hinduism, hardly a trace remains to-day. The Kshatriyas never founded a great landed class as far as we know. Though Indra was a divine Kshatriya and the wel fare of the Brahmans was regarded as dependent on their main taining good relations with the Kshatriyas, their social extermina tion was complete and the only caste which preserves their name is the Khatris, a trading caste localized in upper India.