The History of Antiquity Volume Iv Part 12

[281] Manu, 7, 154-158.

[282] Manu, 7, 63-68.

[283] Manu, 7, 107, 158-163, 198.

[284] Manu, 7, 205, 210.

[285] Manu, 7, 90-93.

[286] Ramayana, 2, 52.

[287] Ramayana, 2, 1-17.

[288] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 166, 416, 417. The ritual for the consecration of kings, according to the Aitareya-Brahmana, is given in Colebrooke, "Asiatic Researches," 8, 408 ff. Cf. Schlegel, "Ind.

Bibliothek," 1, 431, and La.s.sen, "Alterth." 2, 246, 427.

[289] Grimm, "Rechtsalterthumer," s. 156 ff.

[290] Manu, 3, 150 ff.

[291] Manu, 8, 229-260.

[292] Mill, "History of British India," 2, 66. Montgom. Martin, "Political Const.i.tution of the Anglo-Eastern Empire," p. 271.

[293] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 242, 245, 247.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CASTES AND THE FAMILY.

The book of the law was the canon of pure conduct, and the holy order of the state and society, which the Brahmans held up before the princes and nations on the Ganges. They made no attempt to get the throne into their own hands; they had no thought of giving an effective political organisation to their caste; they did not seek to set up a hierarchy which should take its place by the side of the state, or rise superior to it, and thus secure such obedience for their demands among clergy and laity as would ensure the carrying out of the commands of the book. For this the Brahmans had not sufficient practical or political capacity; they were too deeply plunged in their hair-splitting and fanciful speculations, in their ceremonial and their penances. They were content with demanding the place of a.s.sessor or president at the funeral feasts in the families of the Kshatriyas and Vaicyas, the influence of which position went far beyond their expectations; with recommending members of their order as ministers, judges, and magistrates to the king; with requiring that he should protect the Brahmans as his sons, provide for their support, be greatly liberal to them, abstain from imposing taxes on learned Brahmans, and maintain their advantages and rights against the other cla.s.ses. If a Brahman had no heirs, the king must not take his property, but present it to the members of the order, and give to a Brahman any treasure which he may happen to find. In the epic poetry an exaggerated attempt is made to bring this liberality plainly before the mind: the Brahmans acquire hundreds of thousands of cows, treasures without end, and the whole earth.[294] But all these commands are only wishes; as a fact the Brahmans had no other status as against the kings than the respect which their educational knowledge of the doctrine, their acquaintance with the forms and ritual of sacrifice, gave them: they had only the moral influence which their dogma and their exhortations could exercise on the heart of the king, the power of the faith which they could excite in their disciples. Their power, as we have seen, they knew how to support by their views on the merit acquired by the king in this and the next world by reason of his good works towards the Brahmans, by the fear of the punishments in h.e.l.l and the regenerations, with which the book of the law so liberally threatens all who despise Brahmans. But they had no external means for enforcing obedience to their law, respect for their purifications, expiations, and penances, in case it was not rendered willingly. They did not extend their power beyond the limits of the conscience of the king and the people. They were as absolutely the subjects of the king as the other orders; no political limitations, no inst.i.tutions, checked the authority of the king in its operations on the Brahmans; and the knowledge of the Veda and the law was accessible to him. The princes held up in the Epos as patterns are praised for their knowledge of the holy Scriptures and the law. The kings, not the Brahmans, offer the great sacrifices; but they cannot offer them without the Brahmans, the Purohita (p. 202), and other priests. This position of the Brahmans at the side of the king, and that which they subsequently obtained by the side of the people in the clans, enabled them by moral means, by conviction and faith, to shape the life and politics of the Indians according to their system, and establish a lasting dominion over them.

If the Brahmans had no rights upward, they had at any rate forced the Kshatriyas out of the first place; and they did not intend that the aristocratic position which they had obtained over the other orders, their privileges and advantages in regard to those beneath them, should rest on moral authority merely. The book of the law is never weary of impressing in every direction the pre-eminence of the Brahmans, the subjection of the other orders. But as the wisdom of the Brahmans was throughout unacquainted with the foundations and supports used by aristocracies elsewhere to acquire and maintain their position--as they were unable to create inst.i.tutions of this kind--only one real and effective means remained for legalising and securing their importance, position, and privileges--and this was the exercise of penal jurisdiction. In the division of penances and punishments, according to the various orders, they attempted to bring the pre-eminence of their own order into a position recognised and established by law. This fact no doubt helped in causing the Brahmans to estimate the power of punishment so highly. "Punishment alone," says the book, "guarantees the fulfilment of duties according to the four castes; without punishment a man out of the lower caste could take the place of the highest." But here again there was a difficulty; it was not the Brahmans but the kings who in the first instance had to dispense justice; the application of the law depended on the princes.

Though, in general, it is a supreme principle of law that it shall be administered without respect of persons, that the same punishment for the same offence shall overtake every offender, be his rank and position what it may, the system of caste leads to an arrangement diametrically opposite. Throughout, the book of the law measures out punishment unequally, according to the rank of the castes, so that in an equal offence the highest order has as a rule to undergo the least punishment.

This apportionment of punishment according to the castes is most striking in the case of injuries and outrages inflicted by members of the lower orders on the members of the higher. The Brahmans, and in a less degree the Kshatriyas and Vaicyas, are protected by threats of barbarous punishments. The cudra who has been guilty of injuring a Dvija by dangerous language, is to have his tongue clipped; if he has spoken disrespectfully of him, a hot iron is to be thrust into his mouth, and boiling oil poured into his mouth and ears. If a cudra ventures to sit on a seat with a "twice-born," he is to be branded; if he lays hold of a Brahman, both hands are to be amputated; if he spits at a Brahman, his lips are cut off, etc. In actual injuries done to members of the higher castes by the lower, the members of the latter are doomed in each case to lose the offending member: he who has lifted up his hand, or a stick, loses his hand; he who has lifted up his foot, loses the foot. For slighter offences of language against a Brahman the cudra is whipped, the Vaicya is fined 200 panas, the Kshatriya, 100. If, on the contrary, a Brahman injures one of the lower castes he pays 50 panas to the Kshatriya, 25 to the Vaicya, and 12 to the cudra. If members of the same caste injure each other in word, small fines of 12 or at most 24 panas are sufficient. More unfair still are other privileges secured by the law to the Brahmans,--that in suits for debt they are never to be given up as slaves to the creditors; that no crime or transgression on the part of a Brahman is to be punished by confiscation of his property, or by corporal punishment. He is never, even for the worst crime, to be condemned to death; at the utmost he can only be banished.[295] On the other hand, as has been remarked in the case of theft, the fine increases according to the caste of the offender, so that here we have a gradation in the opposite direction: the Brahman is fined eight-fold the sum paid by the cudra in a similar case; and in loans the Brahman is allowed to receive only the lowest rate of interest--two per cent. In courts of law the Brahman was addressed differently, and asked to give his evidence differently, from the other orders; his oath is given in different terms. With Brahmans, who naturally come to maturity sooner than the other orders, the consecration by invest.i.ture takes place in the eighth year, with the Kshatriyas in the eleventh, with the Vaicyas not till the twelfth. The holy girdle, the common symbol of the Dvija as opposed to the cudra, must consist with the Brahmans of three threads of cotton, with the Kshatriyas of three threads of hemp, with the Vaicyas of three threads of sheep's wool. The Brahman wears a belt of sugar-cane, and carries a bamboo staff; the Kshatriya has a belt of bow-strings, and a staff of banana-wood; the Vaicya a girdle of hemp, and a staff of fig-wood. The staff of the Brahman reaches to his hair, that of the Kshatriya to the brow, that of the Vaicya to the tip of his nose. This staff must be covered with the bark, must be straight, pleasing to the eye, and have nothing terrifying about it. The Brahman wears a shirt of fine hemp, and as a mantle the skin of the gazelle; the Kshatriya a shirt of linen, and the skin of a deer as a cloak; the Vaicya a woollen shirt, and a goat-skin. Any one who is inclined to do a civility, must, says the book, ask the Brahman whether he is advancing in sanct.i.ty, the Kshatriya whether he suffers in his wounds, the Vaicya whether his property is thriving, the cudra whether he is in health.[296]

We cannot exactly ascertain what position the old n.o.bility, the Kshatriyas, took up after the establishment of the new system. The increased power of the kings, the elevation of the priesthood, the change in the whole view of life, diminished their importance to a considerable degree. If in some small tribes the warlike n.o.bility on the Ganges maintained its old position so far as to prevent the establishment of the monarchy, or removed it altogether, this was an exception.[297] In the Panjab, which did not completely follow the development achieved in the regions on the Ganges, it was more generally the case that the n.o.bility overpowered the monarchy, and drove out the old princes. This took place, no doubt, when the latter showed a desire to take up a despotic position. In the fourth century we find among "the free Indians," as the Greeks call them, numerous n.o.ble families in a prominent position. The book of the law allows that the Brahmans cannot exist without the Kshatriyas, but neither could the Kshatriyas without the Brahmans; salvation is only to be obtained by a union of the two orders: by this were Brahmans and Kshatriyas exalted in this world and the next.[298] We have already remarked, that within their own caste the old families of the Kshatriyas occupy a prominent place.

According to the book, the members of all the castes, like every created being, fulfil duties imposed upon them, _i.e._ carry on the occupations allotted to them. The life of the Brahmans is to be devoted to the Holy Scriptures, the sacred services, the teaching of the Veda and the law (the latter could be taught by none but Brahmans), and, finally, to contemplation and penance in the forest. But how was it possible to keep the whole order of the Brahmans to the study of the Veda, to sacrifice and worship, when it was also necessary for them to find support? How could the whole order disregard the care of their maintenance, especially when it was a duty to bring up a numerous family, or give up every desire to ama.s.s property? True it is, that liberality to the Brahmans was impressed on the kings and the other castes as a supreme duty; the pupils of the Brahmans were bidden to support their teachers by gifts; and the law permitted the Brahmans to live by gifts, to beg, to gather corn or ears of rice. From the Buddhist sutras we know that the kings followed the commands of the law, and that a mult.i.tude of Brahmans lived at the royal courts. We also know from the Greeks that every house was open to the wandering Brahman, and in the market they were overburdened with presents of the necessaries of life. Greek and Indian accounts inform us that troops of Brahmans wandered through the land--a mode of life which in India is not the most unpleasant; and it is certain that a considerable number lived as anchorites in the forests. But these habits required that a man should give up all thoughts of wife and child, house and home; and this all could not undertake to do. On what, then, were the Brahman householders to live, who possessed nothing, and were without land sufficient for their support? There were only two means for keeping the whole order to the study of the Veda and the performance of sacrifice; either they must be provided with sufficient land, or they must be maintained at the cost of the state. Among the Egyptians the priesthood lived on the land of the temples; among the Phenicians and Hebrews, on the t.i.thes of the harvest, paid to the temples; in the middle ages our hierarchy lived on its own land and people, on t.i.thes and other taxes: but all these were political inst.i.tutions, and the Brahman lawgivers had neither the capacity to discover them, nor had their states the power to establish and maintain them. Still less could refuge be taken in a law forbidding to marry; all Brahmans could not be allowed to live from youth up as anchorites in the forest, if the Brahmans were to continue to exist as a caste by birth, and it was on superiority of blood that their whole position rested.

Practical life bid complete defiance to doctrine. The law must be content to moderate in part, and in part to give up entirely the ideal demands, the principles and results of system in favour of the necessity for maintenance. It must allow that the Brahman householders, who possessed no property, might lead the life of the Kshatriya. This permission has been and is still used; at this time a great part of the native Anglo-Indian army consists of born Brahmans. If a Brahman could not earn a livelihood by service in war, he might lead the life of a Vaicya, and attempt to maintain himself by tilling the land and keeping flocks. But if possible the Brahman must avoid tilling the field himself; "the work of the field depends on the help of cattle; the ploughshare cleaves the soil and kills the living creatures contained in it." If the Brahman cannot live as a farmer, or a herdman, he may live even by the "truth and falsehood of trade." But in regard to certain articles of trade, the book is inexorable, and though it cannot threaten trade in these with punishments from the state, it holds up the melancholy consequences of such an occupation as a terror. Trade in intoxicating drinks, juices of plants, perfumes, b.u.t.ter, honey, linen and woollen cloths, turns the Brahman in seven nights into a Vaicya: trade in milk makes him a cudra in three days. The Brahman who sells sesame-seeds will be born again as a worm in the excrement of dogs; and the punishment will even come upon his ancestors. The Brahman merchant, like the Vaicya, must never lend money on interest--in other places, as has been mentioned, the law allows a low rate of interest (p. 240)--no Brahman must attempt to gain a living by seductive arts, singing and music, and he must never live by "the work of the slave--the life of the dog."[299] The same exceptions are allowed by the law for the Kshatriya as for the Brahman, if he possesses no property and cannot acquire anything by the profession of arms. The Vaicya, who cannot live by agriculture, or trade, or handicraft, is allowed to live the life of a cudra. Hence there are the Brahmans of the Holy Scriptures and Brahmans by birth,[300] and also Kshatriyas and Vaicyas who belong to these orders by birth only, not by occupation. Thus new distinctions arose which must soon have become fixed and current.

If the law is compelled to make these large concessions, so contradictory to the system, it seeks in the opposite direction to maintain the distinctions of the castes as strongly as possible; the higher castes may descend to the lower, but no lower caste can ever engage in the occupation of the higher. Such interference is punished with confiscation of property and banishment. Still, even here, the law allows an exception, and that in favour of the lowest caste, the cudras, whom the law rigidly keeps in the servitude imposed upon them by force of arms. The cudra is meant for a servant; he who is not born a slave is to serve voluntarily for hire; he must first seek service with a Brahman, then with Kshatriyas, then with Vaicyas. Blind submission to the command of his master is the duty of the cudra. Yet if he cannot find service anywhere, he may support himself by handicraft; but the law adds, "it is not good for a cudra to acquire wealth, for he will use it in order to raise himself to an equality with the other orders." The impure castes among the cudras are not, for this very reason, to be employed among the Dvijas for labour in the house and field.

In the law the four castes are races divided from each other by creation. As in all distinctions of orders, so in India, the separation first applied to the men. The final point was not reached, the rigidity of the order was not complete, the caste did not exist, till the women also were included in the division, till the marriages between the orders ceased and were forbidden, till the free circulation of blood among the people was thus checked, and the cla.s.ses stood towards each other as distinct races and tribes of alien blood. In the book of Manu we find two views on the connubium of the orders existing side by side, one more strict than the other. From the nature of the case, and the position which it occupies in the book of the law, the milder view is the older, the more strict the later. According to the older view caste is determined by descent from the father; a man belonging to the three upper castes, _i.e._ a Dvija, may take a wife from the Brahmans, Kshatriyas, or Vaicyas, as he pleases; cudra women only are excluded. In this sense the law lays down that cudra wives are not suitable for men of the three upper cla.s.ses, and wives of the three upper castes are not suitable for cudra husbands. In order to transform this, the current custom, into a more severe practice, the law does not indeed forbid marriage with women from any other of the three higher castes, but it recommends that a maid of a man's own caste should be taken as his first wife; and after this he may proceed according to the rank of the castes.

This recommendation met with more favour, it would seem, because a cudra woman could be taken as a second wife. It is obvious that only a wife of equal birth could perform the sacrifices of the house with the lord.[301] A cudra woman could not be the first, _i.e._ the legitimate wife; the Brahman who married a woman of that caste would be expelled from his own.[302] The essential rule, by which the later and stricter view seeks to remove the connubium existing among the three castes of the Dvijas is this: in all orders, without exception, the children born of women of that order remain partic.i.p.ators in the order of the father.

When this rule was carried out, the castes were finally closed. The law supported it by the doctrine that the children of mixed marriages, according as the father or mother belonged to this or that order, formed new divisions of the people. These divisions are impure because arising out of a sinful union, and they perpetuate the stain of their origin.[303] The law mentions by name a whole series of impure castes of this kind, which must have been already in existence; it shows from what combinations they have arisen, and sets them up as a warning example against mixed marriages.

These impure castes, which are said to have arisen from the mutual connubium of the orders, were really, in part, tribes of the ancient population, who did not submit, like the majority of the cudras, to the Aryas, and accept their law and mode of life, but either amalgamated with them and lived on in poverty after the manner of their fathers, or preserved a certain independence in inaccessible regions; in part they were Aryan tribes, which did not follow the development on the Ganges, and never adapted their mode of life to the Brahmanic system. These tribes are commanded by the law to carry on occupations which did not become the Dvijas,[304] for some it prescribes that they must only make nets and catch fish; for others, that they must occupy themselves with hunting;[305] from which it is clear that these were the original occupations of such branches of the population. From the marriage of a Brahman with a Vaicya wife spring, according to the law, the Ambashthas,[306] who in the Epos are spoken of as nations fighting in the ancient manner with clubs.[307] From the marriage of a Brahman with a cudra woman spring the Nishadas, whose vocation, according to the law, it is to catch fish.[308] From the marriage of a Kshatriya with cudra wives come the Ugras, who are to catch and kill animals living in holes;[309] from the marriage of a Brahman with an Ambashtha, the Abhiras, whom we have already mentioned as cowherds at the mouths of the Indus;[310] from the marriage of a cudra with a Brahman woman comes the Chandala, "the most contemptible mortal." The Chandalas are a numerous non-Aryan tribe on the Ganges. The book lays down the rule that they are not to live in villages or cities, or to have any settled habitation at all. A Brahman is polluted by meeting them; they are distinguished by marks fixed for them by the king; and must not come into the towns except in the daytime, in order that they may be avoided. They cannot possess any but the most contemptible animals, dogs and a.s.ses, nor any harness that is not broken; they can only marry with each other. No one can have any dealings with them. If a Dvija wishes to give food to a Chandala beggar, he may not do it with his own hand, but must send it by a servant on a potsherd. Executions--which in the minds of the Aryans and the Brahmans were impure actions--were to be carried out by Chandalas, and the clothes of the persons executed are to be given to them; these and the clothes of the dead are the only garments which they may wear.[311]

We can easily see that the rank, allotted by the law to the so-called mixed castes, is taken from the degree of impurity a.s.signed by the Brahmans to the mode of life followed by them. By excluding them from the other orders they compelled them to pursue these occupations for ever, and so kept them in their despised condition. As they were all branded with the stain of sinful intercourse between the castes, men shrank from marriages outside their own caste, and if such connections did take place, the children were thrust into the ranks of these despised orders, they were compelled to adopt their modes of life and occupations, and transmit them to their descendants. According to the theory lying at the base of these regulations on the mixed castes, the mixture is comparatively less impure in which men of higher castes are connected with women of lower, and that mixture is the worst and most impure in which women of the highest castes are united with men of the lowest. The children of a Brahman by a wife of the Kshatriya caste stand on the highest level, those of a cudra by a Brahman on the lowest.[312]

The mixed castes, in their disposition and character, correspond to the better or worse combination, just as in their duties the vocation of the paternal caste is to be preserved in a descending line, and lower degree, _e.g._ the Ugra--the son of a Kshatriya by a cudra--is to live by hunting, which is the vocation of a Kshatriya, but he is only to hunt animals which live in holes, etc. The mixture of the impure castes with the pure and other impure castes produces in turn new cla.s.ses of men with special duties and special dispositions, such as the Abhiras. The system of mixed and consequently impure origin could not be very well applied to nations which, though notoriously of Arian origin, or forming independent states, led a life unsuited to the Brahmanic law; these the law allows to be of a pure stock, but considers that they are corrupted by neglect of their sacred duties. Among the degraded families of the Kshatriyas the law-book reckons the Cambojas, the Daradas, and the Khacas.[313] The Cambojas were settled in the west, the Daradas to the north of Cashmere; the Khacas must be sought to the east of Cashmere in the Himalayas.[314]

With these views and fictions, with the actual and legal consequences a.s.signed to them, the system of castes was consistently developed and extended over the whole population. All modes of life, cla.s.ses, and occupations were brought into its sphere; the remnant of the natives, the refractory tribes of the Aryas, received their position in the Brahman state; and the cudras were followed by a long list of orders in a yet more degraded position.

From the contradictory views of the book on the connubium of the orders it follows clearly that the castes were not completely closed at the time when the book was finished; but they were closed, and, it would seem, not long after. When the advantage of blood has been once brought into such striking significance it must go on making further divisions; new circles, distinguished by descent or vocation, must be marked off from others as superior, and form an order; similar vocations, when the occupation has once been connected with the caste, and the vocation with descent, combine within the castes into new hereditary corporations.

This tendency to make new separations is supported by the law when it arranges those tribes as new castes beside the four orders, and allots to them on a certain system the descendants of mixed marriages, thus creating a number of new castes by origin and descent. This was further increased by a division of vocations within the chief orders. The Brahmans, who also clung to the Veda and the worship, naturally regarded themselves as in a better and higher position than those who descended to the occupations of the Kshatriyas and Vaicyas, and kept themselves apart. The opposition between the schools which inevitably grew up among the priestly Brahmans in course of time, gradually caused the adherents of one school to close their ranks against the adherents of another.

The Kshatriyas, who remained warriors, stood apart from those who became husbandmen; among the Vaicyas, the merchants, the handicraftsmen, and the husbandmen formed separate cla.s.ses. Hence the different professions and schools of the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas: the merchants, smiths, carpenters, weavers, potters, etc. separated themselves each from the other as hereditary societies, and as they only married within the society, they became in turn subordinate castes, in reference to each other. And as in spite of all commands marriages took place outside the castes, those who were rejected in consequence of such marriages, and the children of them, could only rank with others in a similar position, and must form a new caste. If the marriage took place outside the main caste the descendants of the person thus excluded from his old caste must join the impure castes, which were, or were supposed to be, of similar origin. The hereditary professional societies within the four castes remained members of them in so far as they carried on occupations approved by the book of the law; but such members as pursued forbidden and impure trades and transmitted them to their descendants, stood outside and far below the main castes, like the castes arising out of mixtures, partly real and partly fict.i.tious. At present the Brahmans are divided into twenty-five different societies, which do not intermarry, and in part refuse to eat with each other; the Kshatriyas are divided into thirty-six societies similarly closed; the pure and impure Vaicyas, the better and worse cudras, are divided into some hundred groups.[315]

On a rough calculation it is a.s.sumed that now only about a tenth of the Brahmanic population of India carries on the occupation a.s.signed in the law to the four great orders; the great majority in these castes has descended to the permitted vocations, and the greater part of the whole population belongs to the cla.s.ses below the four chief orders.

We have already stated how closely the clans held together. The weight given by the caste system to pure blood did not suppress even among the Brahmans the pride in ancient and distinguished family descent. In the fourth century B.C. the Brahmans who continued to be occupied with the Veda and the sacred worship fell into forty-nine clans, which claimed to be derived from the saints of old time: Jamadagni, Gautama, Bharadvaja, Vicvamitra, Vasishtha, Kacyapa, Atri, and Agastya. They were arranged in eight large tribes (_gotra_) named after these progenitors. At the consecration of the sacrificial fire the members of these clans invoked the series of their ancestors.[316] We may a.s.sume the same pride in descent among the Kshatriyas. We shall see how definitely the book of the law and the forms of ritual require that the ancestors should be mentioned up to the great-great-grandfather in the suit for any maiden, and at this day the wealthy families in all the castes are desirous to conclude alliances with houses of ancient origin for their children.

According to the law every man ought to marry; he must have a son who may one day pour for him the libations for the dead. Without sacrifice for the dead performed by a son, the soul of the father can never be liberated from a certain place in h.e.l.l--from _Put_. The law distinguishes various kinds of marriage, and promises greater or less blessings to the descendants according as the marriage celebrated is of a more or less holy kind. The son born of the better kinds of marriage can purify a larger number of the members of the family upwards and downwards, _i.e._ of those already dead and those still to be born. If a father gives his daughter, bathed and adorned, to a husband learned in writing whom he has honourably invited and received into his house, the marriage is a Brahman-marriage. The son born of such a wife purifies ten members upwards and downwards both on the father's and the mother's side. When the father gives his daughter to the priest at the sacrifice it is a divine marriage; the son purifies seven members upwards and downwards on either side. If the father gives the daughter to the bridegroom with the words: "Fulfil ye all duties which devolve on you;"

it is a _praj.a.pati_ marriage, and the son purifies six members upwards and downwards. If the bridegroom has given a pair of cattle (a bull and cow) for religious objects, the marriage of the Rishis is celebrated; the son purifies three members upwards and downwards. These are the good forms of marriage, the four which follow are bad. Marriage from mutual inclination on either side is the marriage of the heavenly musicians, the Gandharvas. If the father has sold his daughter or taken gifts for her, it is the marriage of the Asuras, or evil spirits. Still worse is the marriage by abduction--the marriage of the Rakshasas; and the worst form of all is when the bride is previously intoxicated by drugs. This is the marriage of the blood-suckers (Picacha). These kinds of marriages have no expiatory power for the ancestors or descendants; none but cruel, lying, and Veda-despising sons can spring from them.[317] To these rules on the form of marriage the law adds that the younger sister is not to be married before the elder--nor can the younger brother marry before the elder--and advises that a wife be not taken from families too nearly related, such as those belonging to the same tribe (_gotra_); or from those which neglect the sacred rites, or those in which diseases prevail. A girl of eight years old is suitable for a husband of twenty-four; a girl of twelve for a husband of thirty. The later collections of laws repeat the rule that marriages are not to be celebrated with families which invoke the same ancestors.[318]

The views lying at the base of these regulations of the law about the various forms of marriage were transparent. Here, as everywhere, the Brahmans are, above all, to be favoured. The learned Brahman is to receive the girl from her father "adorned," _i.e._, no doubt, well equipped. The Brahman, who officiates at the sacrifice, receives her as a gift; in this way the father and the daughter have the happy prospect of obtaining a blessing for ten or seven members of the family upwards and downwards. But other forms of marriage--by purchase, inclination, abduction--the law wishes to prevent, from which we may conclude that these forms of marriage were in existence, a fact sufficiently established by other evidence. The time, it is true, was long gone by when the Aryan brothers had only one wife; in the Epos only do we find traces of this custom. Draupadi is the wife of the five sons of Pandu; and in the Ramayana the brothers Rama and Lakshmana are attacked with the reproach--fict.i.tious, it is true--that they have only one wife between them. The abduction of maidens and wives is more frequent in the Epos. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma carries off the three daughters of the king of the Kacis and marries the two younger to his step-brother Vijatravirya; Jayadaratha, the prince of the Indus, lifts Draupadi into his chariot and drives away with her, though her guardian cries out to him, that according to the custom of the Kshatriyas he cannot carry her off till he has conquered her husband in battle. It is skill in arms and strength which gains their wives for the heroes of the Epos. Arjuna wins Draupadi because he can bend the bow of her father, the king of the Panchalas (p. 87). Rama wins Sita by mastering the bow of civa. We also see in the Epos that princes allow their daughters the free choice of a husband, and the suitors appear on a definite day. Thus Kunti chooses Pandu for her husband; Damayanti, in her father's hall, places the garland of flowers on Nala's neck, and declares that he is her husband.

The Greeks tell us that among the Cathaeans, a tribe of the Panjab, young men and maidens chose each other for marriage. The purchase of brides is also mentioned in the Epos. Bhishma purchases the daughter of the prince of the Madras for Pandu with gold and precious stones. In ancient times, we can hardly doubt, purchase of the bride was the rule, except in the case of princes, and those who carried off their wives or gained them in battle.[319] The children, according to the conceptions peculiar to primitive conditions, belong to the father; he must be recompensed for the loss, and receive some return for the services which his daughter can no longer render him. If the law declares that form of marriage to be permissible in which a pair of cattle (a bull and a cow) are given--it is true with the addition, "for religious objects"--we may conclude that this was the customary price, and the law attempts to embody the custom into its system by the additional proviso, that the price is to be given "for religious objects." But the turn thus given in the law to the purchase of the bride was slow in being carried out, and was never carried out thoroughly. The Greeks at one time maintain that among the Indians the bridegroom gave the father a yoke of oxen; at another, that in contracting a marriage nothing was given or taken.[320]

The custom of giving a pair of oxen for the bride follows from the rites of marriage still in existence,[321] and even now it is found in some regions of India. Marriage from inclination is also not regarded with favour in the law; such marriages might easily endanger the order of the castes, and introduce mixed connections. Still as the law allows the purchase of the bride under a very slight cover, so it allows the girl the free choice of a husband in exceptional cases. It is a father's duty to have his daughter married, for in the order of things she is intended to be a mother. If in three years after the daughter is of age for marriage the father makes no provision for giving her to a proper husband, she may choose a husband for herself out of the men of her caste; neither she nor the husband thus chosen are guilty in this matter. But the ornaments which she has received from her father, mother, and brothers she may not, in this case, carry into her new home; in doing so she would commit a theft. On the other hand, the husband whom she chooses has not to make any presents; the father has lost his right over his daughter by keeping her back beyond the time at which she could be a mother.[322]

It was precisely in this sphere that the old customs and poetry, the worship of the old G.o.ds, the old delight in life, were retained under the law and the Brahmanic system, or even in spite of it. Not the least proof of this is found in the prayers, formulas, and blessings in use at marriages. These occur for the most part in the Atharvaveda. The Grihya-sutras of Acvalayana from the middle of the fourth century B.C.

give the ritual which must be observed on these occasions.[323] The playmates of a girl, who desire a husband for her, must, according to the Atharvaveda, speak thus: "O Agni, may the suitor come to this maid to our delight; may happiness come to her quickly by a husband; may Savitar bring to you the man who answers to your wishes! There comes the bridegroom, with hair-knot loosed in front. She was weary, O bridegroom, of going to the marriage of other maidens."[324] According to the sutras the man who desired a woman in marriage sent two of his friends to her father to ask for her. Then the family a.s.sembles and sits down opposite the two envoys, with their faces to the east. The envoys extol the family of the suitor, enumerate his forefathers, and ask for the bride.

If the request is granted, "a bowl filled with fruits and gold is placed on the head of the bride, and the envoys say: 'We honour Aryaman, the kind friend, who brings the husband. I set thee (the bride) free from this place (the house of her father) as the gourd from the stem, not from thence.'" Then the bride is prepared for the arrival of the bridegroom by consecration and the bath. Marriage ought to take place in the autumn or the winter, but never when the moon is waning. At the bathing of the bride, the water is drawn with blessings; after it she is clad in the bridal garments with the following words: "May the G.o.ddesses, who spun and wove it, stretched it and folded the ends round about, clothe thee even to old age. Put on this garment, and long be thy years. Whatever charm there is in dice or wine, whatever charm in oxen, whatever charm in beauty--with this, ye Acvins, adorn her. So do we deck this wife for her husband; Indra, Agni, Varuna, Bhaga, Soma, may they enrich her with children." Then the bridegroom, accompanied by his friends, comes to the house of the bride, where he is courteously received by the father, and entertained with a draught of milk and honey. The bridegroom hands over the bridal gift (at this day garments and mantles are indispensable for this purpose), and when the family of the bride have placed a dark-red neck-band adorned with three precious stones on her, the Brahman unlooses two locks of hair and says: "I loose thee now from the bands of Varuna, with which the sublime Savitar bound thee. I loose thee from this place (the house of her father), not from thence, that she may, O Indra, giver of blessings, be rich in sons and prosperity." When the bands, which connect the bride with the house of her father, have thus been loosed, the father with his face turned to the north, with kuca-gra.s.s, water, and grain in his hand, hands over the maid to the bridegroom with these words: "To thee, the son, grandson, and great-grandson, of such and such a man, I give this maiden of this family and this race," and then he places her hand on the right hand of the bridegroom. The bridegroom has previously placed a stone on the ground, not far from the sacrificial fire; when receiving the hand of the bride he says: "For health and prosperity I take thy hand here.

Bhaga, Aryaman, Pushan, Savitar, the G.o.ds give thee to me to govern my house." When the father has sprinkled the bride with melted b.u.t.ter, the bridegroom leads her to the stone, causes her to place the tip of her right foot on it, and says: "This sure and faithful stone I lay down for thy children on the lap of the divine earth; step on it with joy and looks of gladness. As Agni has taken the right hand of this earth, so did I take thy right hand. Fail not, united with me, in prosperity and progeny. Bhaga took thy right hand here, and Savitar. Thou art now my lawful wife; I am thy lord. Rich in children, live with me as thy husband for the s.p.a.ce of a hundred autumns."[325] When the bride has thrown corn into the fire, the marriage contract is sealed by the "seven steps" which she makes, led by the bridegroom, towards the right, round the fire. At each step he recites the proper sentence. With the seventh the marriage is completed; and the Brahman sprinkles the youthful pair with l.u.s.tral water.[326] After a festival, at which young men and girls dance and sing for three days, the husband conducts his wife to the car yoked with a pair of oxen, which is to carry her to her new house.[327]

When ascending the chariot, the bride is thus addressed: "Ascend the gay, well-furnished car, the place of delight, and make the journey a glad one for thy husband. Vicvavasa (the spirit of virginity) depart from hence, for she has now a husband; let the husband and wife unite.

May Pushan (p. 47) lead thee hence by the hand; may the Acvins conduct thee with the chariot; go hence to the house, to be the lady therein.

Lift her up (upon the chariot); beat away the Rakshasas; let king Bhaga advance. Whatever diseases follow after the glad bridal procession, may the holy G.o.ds send them back whence they came; may the robbers who lie in wait for the wedded pair fail to find them; may they go on a secure path and escape danger. This wife is here beautifully adorned. Come all, and look on her. Give her your blessing, and then disperse to your homes."[328] In the house of the bridegroom his family awaited the youthful pair, and then prayed: "Kind to the brother, the cattle, and her husband, O Indra, bring her rich in sons to us here, O Savitar. Stay not the maid on her way, O divinely-planted pair of pillars (the posts of the door of the house). May this wife enter the house for good, for the good of all two-footed and four-footed creatures. Look with no evil eye, slay not the husband, be gracious, powerful, gentle with the people of the house and propitious. Harm not thy relations by marriage, nor thy husband. Be bright, and of cheerful spirit; bring forth sons that are heroes; love the G.o.ds, and with friendly spirit tend the fire of this house. Make her, Indra, rich in sons; place ten sons in her. May ye never separate; enjoy your whole lives playing with sons and grandsons, rejoicing in your house." When the young wife has entered the house, her husband leads her to the dung-heap in the court, then round the fire of the new hearth, which is either kindled by friction, or taken from a fire which has last been used for sacrifice, and there causes her to offer the first sacrifice, at which she receives the courteous greeting of the a.s.sembled family of her husband. When ascending the marriage bed, the bride is thus addressed: "Ascend the bridal bed with joy. Wise and prudent as Indrani (Indra's wife) and careful, wake with the first beams of morning." On the following morning the married pair give away their bridal garments; the bridegroom's friend puts on a woollen garment, saying: "Whatever evil deed, whatever thing requiring expiation, has been done at this marriage, or on the journey, we cast it on the robe of the bridegroom's friend." When dressing himself the young husband says: "Freshly clad, I rise up to the beaming day; as the bird leaves the egg, so I slip from all guilt of sin." Then both husband and wife are thus addressed: "Waking up from happy union, rich in cows, sons, and gear, may ye live through many beaming dawns."

The law impresses on wives the greatest devotion and subjection to their husbands. Never, we are told, is the woman independent. In her childhood she depends on her father, then on her husband, and if he dies, on her sons. The sister is in the tutelage and power of the brother. So long as the husband lives, the wife is in a condition of subjection to him day and night; neither in his life nor after his death must she do anything displeasing to him, even though he is not irreproachable in his life, and gives himself to other loves; she must be good-tempered, careful and thrifty for house and home. She must honour her husband as a G.o.d; if she honours him on earth, she will herself be honoured in heaven; if she has kept her body, thoughts, and life pure, she receives one abode with him in heaven. The Epos presents beautiful and touching pictures of Indian wives, who follow their husbands into the wilderness, and when in the power of the enemy keep their faith to their husbands, and without doubt possess the qualities of devotion and self-sacrifice, which, inherent in the disposition of the Aryas, were so greatly developed in the Brahmanic system, and found in India their most beautiful realisation in the character of women, to which indeed they chiefly belong. Though in the law the husband is beyond question the master in the house,--in case of resistance on the part of the wife, she may be punished even with blows of the bamboo,--he is nevertheless bound on his part to reverence and honour his wife; he must make her presents that she may adorn herself; and he must not vex her, for where the wife is vexed, the fire on the hearth soon goes out (it was quenched at the death of the wife), and when the wife curses a house it will soon fall to ruin.[329]

Adultery is in some cases threatened with very heavy penalties by the law. But here also the Brahman, when guilty, escapes with the least punishment, and the severest threats are directed against the members of the lower castes who have seduced a Brahman wife. If a Brahman commits adultery of the kind, which in the members of other castes is punished with death, he is to be shaven as a mark of disgrace, and the king must banish him out of the land; but his property is not to be taken from him; he may depart unharmed beyond the borders. But if Kshatriyas and Vaicyas commit adultery with a Brahman woman of good family, they are to be burnt, and the woman is to be torn to pieces by dogs in a public place. As in these rules for punishment two views are intermixed, we can only ascertain that the later conception permits milder punishment in the case of wives who are not watched. If a Brahman has a criminal connection with a wife that is watched with her consent he must pay 500 panas, if against her consent, 1000 panas. If a Kshatriya has a similar connection with a Brahman woman who is watched, he is to be drenched with the urine of a.s.ses and pay 1000 panas. A Vaicya is to be imprisoned for a year, and lose his whole property. If the wife was not watched, the Kshatriya pays 1000 panas, the Vaicya 500 panas.[330] The cudra who is guilty of adultery with the wife of a Dvija must die, if she was watched; if not, he loses his s.e.xual organs.

Every approach to the wife of another man is looked on as equivalent to an adulterous inclination. Secret conversations in pleasure-gardens or in the forest, the sending of flowers and perfumes, and still more any touching of a married woman, or suffering oneself to be touched by her, or joking or playing with her, are proofs of adulterous love. Even the man who speaks with the wife of another, if a beggar, minstrel, sacrificer, cook, or artisan, is to be fined. The violation of a virgin, and the attempt on the part of a man of lower caste to seduce a virgin belonging to a higher caste are to be punished with death.

It has been already remarked that the hymns of the Rigveda speak of more than one wife among the princes of the Aryas. In one of these poems we find that Svanaya, who reigned on the bank of the Indus (p. 34), gave his ten daughters in marriage to the minstrel Kakshivat. But in the hymns of burial we hear of one wife only. In the Epos, Dacaratha, king of Ayodhya, has three wives, Pandu has two, and Vijitravirya has also two. In Manu's law also, as the rules already quoted show (p. 245), husbands are allowed to marry more than one wife. Still, not to mention the fact that this was only possible for men of fortune, the book states very distinctly that one only is the proper legitimate wife, that she alone can offer the sacrifice of the house with her husband; more plainly still does the law require that the king shall marry a wife from his own caste; his other wives are merely concubines.[331] The ritual observed at marriage recognises one wife only. If monogamy is not so strictly insisted on in the law, the reason is that the attempted removal of connubium between the three upper orders was made more possible by allowing several wives; for in this way it became more possible to insist that the first or legitimate wife, at any rate, should be taken from a similar caste, even by those whose obedience could not otherwise be gained. But the chief reason was that a son must necessarily be born to the father to offer libations for the dead to him. If the legitimate wife was barren, or brought forth daughters only, the defect must be remedied by a second wife. Even now, Hindoo wives, in a similar case, are urgent with their husbands to a.s.sociate a second wife with them, in order that they may not die without male issue. How strongly the necessity was felt in ancient times is shown by an indication of the Rigveda, where the childless widow summons her brother-in-law to her bed,[332] and by the narrative in the Epos of the widows of the king who died without a son, for whom children are raised up by a relation, and these children pa.s.s for the issue of the dead king (p. 85, 101). The law shows that such a custom did exist, and is not a poetic invention. It permits a son to be begotten by the brother of the husband, or the nearest of kin after him; in any case by a man of the same race (_gotra_), even in the lifetime of the husband with his consent. After the death of the husband this can be done by his younger brother, but at all times it must be without carnal desire and only in the sacred wish to raise up a male descendant for his relation. When a son is born any further commerce is forbidden under pain of losing caste. It is remarked, however, that learned Brahmans disapproved of this custom. It might be omitted when there was a daughter's son in existence, who could offer the funeral cakes for his maternal grandfather; the younger son of another father could also be adopted, but he must be entirely separated from his own family. At present the old custom only exists among the cudras and the cla.s.ses below these; among the Dvijas adoption takes place.[333]

In the burial hymns in the Rigveda the marriage is declared to be at an end, when the widow has accompanied the corpse of her dead husband to the place of rest; after the funeral was over, the widow was required to "elevate herself to the world of life." The law ordains that the widow shall not marry again after the death of her husband, even though she has had no children by him. If she does marry, she falls into contempt in this world, and in the next will be excluded from the abode of her husband. The widow is to remain alone, and not to utter the name of another man. She is to starve herself, living only on flowers, roots, and fruits; if in addition to this she avoids all sensual pleasure to the end of her life, pardons every injustice, and performs pious works and expiations, she ascends after death to heaven, even though she has never borne a child.[334] These are the simple rules of the law concerning widowhood. The Dvija, whose wife dies before him, is to bury her, if she has lived virtuously according to rule, with sacred fire and suitable sacrifice. When the funeral is over he is permitted by the law to marry again and kindle the marriage fire.[335]

On children the law impresses the greatest reverence towards parents; and this respect is carried to a great extent in the Epos, where it appears in that exaggerated and caricatured form into which the good elements in the Indian character were driven by the victory of the Brahmans. Rama, "who conquers his parents by obedience, and turns them in the right way," greets his father and mother by falling down before them, and kissing their feet; he then places himself with folded hands at their side, in order to listen to what they have to say.[336] He practises obedience with the utmost punctiliousness, as well as the renunciation in which Brahmans saw the summit of all virtue. Even in the law the pupil kneels before the Brahman and his wife; and the Buddhist legends show us the sons lying at the feet of their fathers in order to greet them. The younger brother must kneel before the elder if he would give him a solemn salutation.[337]

The old legal customs of the Aryas knew only of the family property as undivided and in the possession of the father. Wife, sons, daughters, and slaves have no property; they are in fact themselves pieces of property.[338] If the father dies, his place is taken by the eldest son, at the head of the house; and if the mother is alive, she is in his tutelage. That the right of the person to share in the property was already felt against this old custom is shown in the book of the law by the regulation that the sons, after the death of the father, are not to share during the lifetime of the mother. Even when both parents are dead it is best for the sons not to divide the property, but to live together under the eldest as the head of the family. The doctrines of the law in favour of maintaining the old custom of a family property were not, as it seems, without results. In the sutras of the Buddhists the fathers urge their sons not to divide the property after their decease. That when a division did take place, custom gave a pre-eminence to the eldest son[339] is clear from the rule given in the law: the eldest son can only demand the best piece when he is more learned and virtuous than the rest; otherwise it must not be divided. Another view expressed in the law, which militated against the connubium of the three orders, attempts in this case also to bring in the division of castes: if the father has several wives of different castes, the sons of those who belong to the higher castes have the advantage. If, for instance, a Brahman has wives from all the four castes the inheritance is to be divided into ten parts: the son of the Brahman woman receives four parts, the son of the Kshatriya three, the son of the Vaicya two, of the cudra only one.[340]

Landed property in India is inherited and always has been by males only; but if there are no sons, a daughter may be put in as heir. In other cases women have only a claim to maintenance out of the family property. The distinction between inherited and acquired property is first recognised in the later law of India, but even now the father has only the right of disposal over the latter when he divides it in his own lifetime among his children. At present the unmarried daughters, and quite recently widows, have a right to a son's portion instead of maintenance out of the family property.[341]

In India, family life has in all essentials healthily developed and maintained itself on the basis which we can detect in the sentences of the marriage ceremony. The fortunate birth of a child, purification after child-bed, and naming of the child--according to the law the name of a boy ought to express among the Brahmans some helpful greeting, among the Kshatriyas power, among the Vaicyas wealth, among the cudras subjection[342]--the first cutting of the hair, the invest.i.ture of the sons with the sacred girdle, the birthdays, betrothals, and marriages are great festivals among the families, kept with considerable expense.