The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I Part 10

86. The corn-sprit.

The totem-animal was regarded as a kinsman, and the domestic animal often as a G.o.d. [210] But in both these cases the life of the kinsman and G.o.d was sacrificed in order that the community might be bound together by eating the body and a.s.similating the life. Consequently, when grain came to be the sacrificial food, it was often held that an animal or human being must be sacrificed in the character of the corn-G.o.d or spirit, whether his own flesh was eaten or the sacred grain was imagined to be his flesh. Numerous instances of the sacrifice of the corn-spirit have been adduced by Sir J.G. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_, and it was he who brought this custom prominently to notice. One of the most important cases in India was the Meriah-sacrifice of the Khonds, which is described in the article on that tribe.

Two features of the Khond sacrifice of a human victim as a corn-spirit appear to indicate its derivation from the sacrifice of the domestic animal and the eating of the totem-animal, the ties uniting the clan and tribe: first, that the flesh was cut from the living victim, and, second, that the sacrifice was communal. When the Meriah-victim was bound the Khonds hacked at him with their knives while life remained, leaving only the head and bowels untouched, so that each man might secure a strip of flesh. This rite appears to recall the earliest period when the members of the primitive group or clan tore their prey to pieces and ate and drank the raw flesh and blood. The reason for its survival was apparently that it was the actual life of the divine victim, existing in concrete form in the flesh and blood which they desired to obtain, and they thought that this end was more certainly achieved by cutting the flesh off him while he was still alive. In the sacrifice of the camel in Arabia the same procedure was followed; the camel was bound on an altar and the tribesmen cut the flesh from the body with their knives and swallowed it raw and bleeding. [211]

M. Salomon Reinach shows how the memory of similar sacrifices in Greece has been preserved in legend: [212] "Actaeon was really a great stag sacrificed by women devotees, who called themselves the great hind and the little hinds; he became the rash hunter who surprised Artemis at her bath and was transformed into a stag and devoured by his own dogs. The dogs are a euphemism; in the early legend they were the human devotees of the sacred stag who tore him to pieces and devoured him with their bare teeth. These feasts of raw flesh survived in the secret religious cults of Greece long after uncooked food had ceased to be consumed in ordinary life. Orpheus (_ophreus,_ the haughty), who appears in art with the skin of a fox on his head, was originally a sacred fox devoured by the women of the fox totem-clan; these women call themselves Ba.s.sarides in the legend, and _ba.s.sareus_ is one of the old names of the fox. Hippolytus in the fable is the son of Theseus who repels the advances of Phaedra, his stepmother, and was killed by his runaway horses because Theseus, deceived by Phaedra, invoked the anger of a G.o.d upon him. But Hippolytus in Greek means 'one torn to pieces by horses.' Hippolytus is himself a horse whom the worshippers of the horse, calling themselves horses and disguised as such, tore to pieces and devoured." All such sacrifices in which the flesh was taken from the living victim may thus perhaps be derived from the common origin of totemism. The second point about the Khond sacrifice is that it was communal; every householder desired a piece of the flesh, and for those who could not be present at the sacrifice relays of messengers were posted to carry it to them while it was still fresh and might be supposed to retain the life. They did not eat the strips of flesh, but each householder buried his piece in his field, which they believed would thereby be fertilised and caused to produce the grain which they would eat. The death of the victim was considered essential to the life of the tribe, which would be renewed and strengthened by it as in the case of the sacrifice of the domestic animal. Lord Avebury gives in _The Origin of Civilisation_ [213] an almost exact parallel to the Khond sacrifice in which the flesh of the victim actually was eaten. This occurred among the Marimos, a tribe of South Africa much resembling the Bechuanas. The ceremony was called 'the boiling of the corn.' A young man, stout but of small stature, was usually selected and secured by violence or by intoxicating him with _yaala_. "They then lead him into the fields, and sacrifice him in the fields, according to their own expression, _for seed_. His blood, after having been coagulated by the rays of the sun, is burned along with the frontal bone, the flesh attached to it and the brain. The ashes are then scattered over the fields to fertilise them and the remainder of the body is eaten." In other cases quoted by the same author an image only was made of flour and eaten instead of a human being: [214] "In Mexico at a certain period of the year the priest of Quetzalcoatl made an image of the Deity, of meal mixed with infants'

blood, and then, after many impressive ceremonies, killed the image by shooting it with an arrow, and tore out the heart, which was eaten by the king, while the rest of the body was distributed among the people, every one of whom was anxious to procure a piece to eat, however small." Here the communal sacrificial meal, the remaining link necessary to connect the sacrifice of the corn-spirit with that of the domestic animal and clan totem, is present. Among cases of animals sacrificed as the corn-spirit in India that of the buffalo at the Dasahra festival is the most important. The rite extends over most of India, and a full and interesting account of it has recently been published by Mr. W. Crooke. [215] The buffalo is probably considered as the corn-spirit because it was the animal which mainly damaged the crops in past times. Where the sacrifice still survives the proprietor of the village usually makes the first cut in the buffalo and it is then killed and eaten by the inferior castes, as Hindus cannot now touch the flesh. In the Deccan after the buffalo is killed the Mahars rush on the carcase and each one secures a piece of the flesh. This done they go in procession round the walls, calling on the spirits and demons, and asking them to accept the pieces of meat as offerings, which are then thrown to them backwards over the wall. [216] The buffalo is now looked upon in the light of a scape-goat, but the procedure described above cannot be satisfactorily explained on the scape-goat theory, and would appear clearly to have been subst.i.tuted for the former eating of the flesh. In the Maratha Districts the lower castes have a periodical sacrifice of a pig to the sun; they eat the flesh of the pig together, and even the Panwar Rajputs of the Waringanga Valley join in the sacrifice and will allow the impure caste of Mahars to enter their houses and eat of this sacrifice with them, though at other times the entry of a Mahar would defile a Panwar's house. [217] The pig is sacrificed either as the animal which now mainly injures the crops or because it was the princ.i.p.al sacrificial animal of the non-Aryan tribes, or from a combination of both reasons. Probably it may be regarded as the corn-spirit because pigs are sacrificed to Bhanisasur or the buffalo demon for the protection of the crops.

87. The king.

When the community reached the national or agricultural stage some central executive authority became necessary for its preservation. This authority usually fell into the hands of the priest who performed the sacrifice, and he became a king. Since the priest killed the sacrificial animal in which the common life of the community was held to be centred, it was thought that the life pa.s.sed to him and centred in his person. For the idea of the extinction of life was not properly understood, and the life of a human being or animal might pa.s.s by contact, according to primitive ideas, to the person or even the weapon which killed it, just as it could pa.s.s by a.s.similation to those who ate the flesh. In most of the city-states of Greece and Italy the primary function of the kings was the performance of the communal or national sacrifices. Through this act they obtained political power as representing the common life of the people, and its performance was sometimes left to them after their political power had been taken away. [218] After the expulsion of the kings from Rome the duty of performing the city sacrifices devolved on the consuls. In India also the kings performed sacrifices. When a king desired to be paramount over his neighbours he sent a horse to march through their territories. If it pa.s.sed through them without being captured they became subordinate to the king who owned the horse. Finally the horse was sacrificed at the Ashva-medha, the king paramount making the sacrifice, while the other kings performed subordinate parts at it. [219] Similarly the Raja of Nagpur killed the sacrificial buffalo at the Dasahra festival. But the common life of the people was sometimes conveyed from the domestic animal to the king by other methods than the performance of a sacrifice. The king of Unyoro in Africa might never eat vegetable food but must subsist on milk and beef. Mutton he might not touch, though he could drink beer after partaking of meat. A sacred herd was kept for the king's use, and nine cows, neither more nor less, were daily brought to the royal enclosure to be milked for his majesty. The boy who brought the cows from the pasture to the royal enclosure must be a member of a particular clan and under the age of p.u.b.erty, and was subject to other restrictions. The milk for the king was drawn into a sacred pot which neither the milkman nor anybody else might touch. The king drank the milk, sitting on a sacred stool, three times a day, and any which was left over must be drunk by the boy who brought the cows from pasture. Numerous other rules and restrictions are detailed by Sir J.G. Frazer, and it may be suggested that their object was to ensure that the life of the domestic animal and with it the life of the people should be conveyed pure and undefiled to the king through the milk. The kings of Unyoro had to take their own lives while their bodily vigour was still unimpaired. When the period for his death arrived the king asked his wife for a cup of poison and drank it. "The public announcement of the death was made by the chief milkman. Taking a pot of the sacred milk in his hands he mounted the house-top and cried, 'Who will drink the milk?' With these words he dashed the pot on the roof; it rolled off and falling to the ground was broken in pieces. That was the signal for war to the death between the princes who aspired to the throne. They fought till only one was left alive. He was the king." [220] After completing the above account, of which only the princ.i.p.al points have been stated, Sir J.G. Frazer remarks: "The rule which obliged the kings of Unyoro to kill themselves or be killed before their strength of mind and body began to fail through disease or age is only a particular example of a custom which appears to have prevailed widely among barbarous tribes in Africa and to some extent elsewhere. Apparently this curious practice rests on a belief that the welfare of the people is sympathetically bound up with the welfare of their king, and that to suffer him to fall into bodily or mental decay would be to involve the whole kingdom in ruin." [221]

Other instances connecting the life of the king with the ox or other domestic animal are given in _Totemism and Exogamy_ and _The Golden Bough_ [222] Among the Hereros the body of a dead chief was wrapped up in the hide of an ox before being buried. [223] In the Vedic horse-sacrifice in India the horse was stifled in robes. The chief queen approached him; a cloak having been thrown over them both, she performed a repulsively obscene act symbolising the transmission to her of his fructifying powers. [224] In other cases the king was identified with the corn-spirit, and in this manner he also, it may be suggested, represented the common life of the people.

The belief that the king was the incarnation of the common life of the people led to the most absurd restrictions on his liberty and conduct, a few instances of which from the large collection in _The Golden Bough_ have been quoted in the article on Nai. Thus in an old account of the daily life of the Mikado it is stated: "In ancient times he was obliged to sit on the throne for some hours every morning, with the imperial crown on his head, but to sit altogether like a statue, without stirring either hands or feet, head or eyes, nor indeed any part of his body, because, by this means, it was thought that he could preserve peace and tranquillity in his empire; for if, unfortunately, he turned himself on one side or the other, or if he looked a good while towards any part of his dominions, it was apprehended that war, famine, fire or some great misfortune was near at hand to desolate the country." [225] Here it would appear that by sitting absolutely immobile the king conferred the quality of tranquillity on the common life of his people incarnate in his person; but by looking too long in any one direction he would cause a severe disturbance of the common life in the part to which he looked. And when the Israelites were fighting with the Amalekites, so long as Moses held up his hands the Israelites prevailed; but when his hands hung down they gave way before the enemy. Here apparently the common life was held to be centred in Moses, and when he held his arms up it was vigorous, but declined as he let them down. Similarly it was often thought that the king should be killed as soon as his bodily strength showed signs of waning, so that the common life might be renewed and saved from a similar decay. Even the appearance of grey hair or the loss of a tooth were sometimes considered sufficient reasons for putting the king to death in Africa. [226] Another view was that any one who killed the king was ent.i.tled to succeed him, because the life of the king, and with it the common life of the people, pa.s.sed to the slayer, just as it had previously pa.s.sed from the domestic animal to the priest-king who sacrificed it. One or two instances of succession by killing the king are given in the article on Bhil. Sometimes the view was that the king should be sacrificed annually, or at other intervals, like the corn-spirit or domestic animal, for the renewal of the common life. And this practice, as shown by Sir J.G. Frazer, tended to result in the subst.i.tution of a victim, usually a criminal or slave, who was identified with the king by being given royal honours for a short time before his death. Sometimes the king's son or daughter was offered as a subst.i.tute for him, and such a sacrifice was occasionally made in time of peril, apparently as a means of strengthening or preserving the common life. When Chitor, the home of the Sesodia clan of Rajputs, was besieged by the Muhammadans, the tradition is that the G.o.ddess of their house appeared and demanded the sacrifice of twelve chiefs as a condition of its preservation. Eleven of the chiefs sons were in turn crowned as king, and each ruled for three days, while on the fourth he sallied out and fell in battle. Lastly, the Rana offered himself in order that his favourite son, Ajeysi, might be spared and might perpetuate the clan. In reality the chief and his sons seem to have devoted themselves in the hope that the sacrifice of the king might bring strength and victory to the clan. The sacrifice of Iphigenia and possibly of Jephthah's daughter appear to be parallel instances. The story of Alcestis may be an instance of the subst.i.tution of the king's wife. The position of the king in early society and the peculiar practices and beliefs attaching to it were brought to notice and fully ill.u.s.trated by Sir J.G. Frazer. The argument as to the clan and the veneration of the domestic animal follows that outlined by the late Professor Robertson Smith in _The Religion of the Semites_.

88. Other instances of the common meal as a sacrificial rite.

Some other instances of the communal eating of grain or other food as a sacramental rite and bond of union have been given in the articles. Thus at a Kabirpanthi Chauka or religious service the priest breaks a cocoanut on a stone, and the flesh is cut up and distributed to the worshippers with betel-leaf and sugar. Each receives it on his knees, taking the greatest care that none falls on the ground. The cocoanut is commonly regarded by the Hindus as a subst.i.tuted offering for a human head. The betel-leaves which are distributed have been specially consecrated by the head priest of the sect, and are held to represent the body of Kabir. [227]

Similarly, Guru Govind Singh inst.i.tuted a _prasad_ or communion among the Sikhs, in which cakes of flour, b.u.t.ter and sugar are made and consecrated with certain ceremonies while the communicants sit round in prayer, and are then distributed equally to all the faithful present, to whatever caste they may belong. At a Guru-Mata or great council of the Sikhs, which was held at any great crisis in the affairs of the state, these cakes were laid before the Sikh scriptures and then eaten by all present, who swore on the scriptures to forget their internal dissensions and be united. Among the Rajputs the test of legitimacy of a member of the chief's family was held to depend on whether he had eaten of the chief's food. The rice cooked at the temple of Jagannath in Orissa may be eaten there by all castes together, and, when partaken of by two men together, is held to establish a bond of indissoluble friendship between them.

Members of several low castes of mixed origin will only take food with their relatives, and not with other families of the caste with whom they intermarry. [228] The Chaukhutia Bhunjias will not eat food cooked by other members of the same community, and will not take it from their own daughters after the latter are married. At a feast among the Dewars uncooked food is distributed to the guests, who cook it for themselves; parents will not accept cooked food either from married sons or daughters, and each family with its children forms a separate commensal group. Thus the taking of food together is a more important and sacred tie than intermarriage. In most Hindu castes a man is not put out of caste for committing adultery with a woman of low caste, but for taking cooked food from her hands; though it is a.s.sumed that if he lives with her openly he must necessarily have accepted cooked food from her. Opium and alcoholic liquor or wine, being venerated on account of their intoxicating qualities, were sometimes regarded as subst.i.tutes for the sacrificial food and partaken of sacramentally. [229]

89. Funeral feasts.

An important cla.s.s of communal meals remaining for discussion consists in the funeral feasts. The funeral feast seems a peculiar and unseasonable observance, but several circ.u.mstances point to the conclusion that it was originally held in the dead man's own interest. He or his spirit was indeed held to partic.i.p.ate in the feast, and it seems to have been further thought that unless he did so and ate the sacred food, his soul would not proceed to the heaven or G.o.d, but would wander about as an unquiet spirit or meet with some other fate. Many of the lower Hindu castes, such as the Kohlis and Bishnois, take food after a funeral, seated by the side of the grave. This custom is now considered somewhat derogatory, perhaps in consequence of a truer realisation of the fact of death. At a Baiga funeral the mourners take one white and one black fowl to a stream and kill and eat them there, setting aside a portion for the dead man. The Gonds also take their food and drink liquor at the grave. The Lohars think that the spirit of the dead man returns to join in the funeral feast. Among the Telugu Koshtis the funeral party go to the grave on the fifth day, and after the priest has worshipped the image of Vishnu on the grave, the whole party take their food there. After a Panka funeral the mourners bathe and then break a cocoanut over the grave and distribute it among themselves. On the tenth day they go again and break a cocoanut, and each man buries a little piece of it in the earth over the grave. Among the Tameras, at the feast with which mourning is concluded, a leaf-plate containing a portion for the deceased is placed outside the house with a pot of water and a burning lamp to guide his spirit to the food. On the third day after death the Kolhatis sometimes bring back the skull of a corpse and, placing it on the bed, offer to it powder, dates and betel-leaves, and after a feast lasting for three days it is again buried. It is said that the members of the Lingayat sect formerly set up the corpse in their midst at the funeral feast and sat round it, taking their food, but the custom is not known to exist at present. Among the Bangalas, an African negro tribe, at a great funeral feast lasting for three days in honour of the chief's son, the corpse was present at the festivities tied in a chair. [230]

90. The Hindu deities and the sacrificial meal.

Thus there seems reason to suppose that the caste-tie of the Hindus is the same as that which united the members of the city-states of Greece and Italy, that is the eating of a sacramental food together. Among the Vedic Aryans that country only was considered pure and fit for sacrifice in which the Aryan G.o.ds had taken up their residence. [231]

Hindustan was made a pure country in which Aryans could offer sacrifices by the fact that Agni, the sacrificial G.o.d of fire, spread himself over it. But the G.o.ds have changed. The old Vedic deities Indra, the rain-G.o.d, Varuna, the heaven-G.o.d, the Maruts or winds, and Soma, the divine liquor, have fallen into neglect. These were the princ.i.p.al forces which controlled the existence of a nomad pastoral people, dependent on rain to make the gra.s.s grow for their herds, and guiding their course by the sun and stars. The Soma or liquor apparently had a warming, exhilarating effect in the cold climate of the Central Asian steppes, and was therefore venerated. Since in the hot plains of India abstinence from alcoholic liquor has become a princ.i.p.al religious tenet of high-caste Hindus, Soma is naturally no more heard of. Agni, the fire-G.o.d, was also one of the greatest deities to the nomads of the cold uplands, as the preserver of life against cold. But in India, except as represented by the hearth, for cooking, little regard is paid to him, since fires are not required for warmth. New G.o.ds have arisen in Hinduism. The sun was an important Vedic deity, both as Mitra and under other names. Vishnu as the sun, or the spirit of whom the sun is the visible embodiment, has become the most important deity in his capacity of the universal giver and preserver of life. He is also widely venerated in his anthropomorphic forms of Rama, the hero-prince of Ajodhia and leader of the Aryan expedition to Ceylon, and Krishna, the divine cowherd, perhaps some fabled hero sprung from the indigenous tribes. Siva is the mountain-G.o.d of the Himalayas and a moon-deity, and in his character of G.o.d of destruction the lightning and cobra are a.s.sociated with him. But he is really worshipped in his beneficent form of the phallic emblem as the agent of life, and the bull, the fertiliser of the soil and provider of food. Devi, the earth, is the great mother G.o.ddess. Sprung from her are Hanuman, the monkey-G.o.d, and Ganpati, the elephant-G.o.d, and in one of her forms, as the terrible G.o.ddess Kali, she is perhaps the deified tiger. [232] Lachmi, the G.o.ddess of wealth, and held to have been evolved from the cow, is the consort of Vishnu. It was thus not the G.o.d to whom the sacrifice was offered, but the sacrifice itself that was the essential thing, and partic.i.p.ation in the common eating of the sacrifice const.i.tuted the bond of union. In early times a sacrifice was the occasion for every important gathering or festivity, as is shown both in Indian history and legend. And the caste feasts above described seem to be the continuation and modern form of the ancient sacrifice.

91. Development of the occupational caste from the tribe.

The Roman population, as already seen, consisted of a set of clans or _gentes_. The clans were collected in tribal groups such as the _curia_, but it does not appear that these latter were endogamous. The rite which const.i.tuted a Roman citizen was partic.i.p.ation in the Suovetaurilia, the communal sacrifice of the domestic animals, the pig, the ram, and the bull. Since all the Roman citizens at first lived in a comparatively small area, they were all able to be present at the sacrifice. The other states of Greece and Italy had an a.n.a.logous const.i.tution, as stated by M. Fustel de Coulanges. It may be supposed that the Aryans were similarly divided into clans and tribes. The word _visha,_ the substantive root of Vaishya, originally meant a clan. [233] But as pointed out by M. Senart, they did not form city-states in India, but settled in villages over a large area of country. Their method of government was by small states under kings, and probably they had a kind of national const.i.tution, of which the king was the centre and embodiment. But these states gradually lost their individuality, and were merged in large empires, where the king could no longer be the centre of the state or of the common life of his people, nor perform a sacrifice at which they could all be present, as the Roman kings did. This religious idea of nationality, based on partic.i.p.ation in a common sacrifice, was the only one which existed in early times. Thus apparently the Aryans retained their tribal const.i.tution instead of expanding it into a national one, and the members of clans within a certain local area gathered for a communal sacrifice. But there was a great cla.s.s, that of the Sudras or indigenous inhabitants, who could not join in the sacrifices at all. And between the Sudras and the Vaishyas or main body of the Aryans there gradually grew up another mixed cla.s.s, which also could not properly partic.i.p.ate in them. The priests and rulers, Brahmans and Kshatriyas, tended to form exclusive bodies, and in this manner a cla.s.sification by occupation gradually grew up, the distinction being marked by partic.i.p.ation in separate sacrificial feasts. The cause which ultimately broke down the religious distinctions of the Roman and Greek states was the development of a feeling of nationality. In the common struggle for the preservation of the city the prejudices of the patricians weakened, and after a long internal conflict, the plebeians were admitted to full rights of citizenship. The plebeians were employed as infantry in the Roman armies, while the patricians rode, and the increased importance of infantry in war was one great cause of the improvement in the position of the plebeians. [234] In India, in the absence of any national feeling, and with the growth of a large and powerful priestly order, religious barriers and prejudices became accentuated rather than weakened. The cla.s.s distinctions grew more rigid, and gradually, as the original racial line of cleavage was fused by intermarriage and the production of groups of varying status, these came to arrange themselves on a basis of occupation. This is the inevitable and necessary rule in all societies whose activities and mode of life are at all complicated. Racial distinctions cannot be preserved unless in the most exceptional cases, where they are accentuated by the difference of colour, and such a moral and social gulf as that which exists between the whites and negroes in North America. In primitive society there is no such mental cleavage to render the idea of fusion abhorrent to the superior race; the bar is religious, and while it places the inferior race in a despised and abject position, there is no prohibition of illicit unions nor any such moral feeling or principle as would tend to restrict them. The ideas of the responsibilities and duties of parentage in connection with heredity, or the science of eugenics, are entirely modern, and have no place at all in ancient society. As racial and religious distinctions fade away, and social progress takes place, a fresh set of divisions by wealth and occupation grows up. But though this happened also in the Greek and Italian cities, the old religious divisions were not transferred to the new occupational groups, but fell slowly into abeyance, and the latter a.s.sumed the simply social character which they have in modern communities. The main reason for the obliteration of religious barriers, as already stated, was the growth of the idea of nationality and the public interest. But in India the feeling of nationality never arose. The Hindu states and empires had no national basis, since at the period in question the only way in which the idea of nationality could be conceived, was by partic.i.p.ation of the citizens in a common sacrifice, and this partic.i.p.ation is only possible to persons living in a small local area. Hence Hindu society developed on its own lines independently of the form of government to which it was subject, and in the new grouping by occupation the old communal sacrifices were preserved and adapted to the fresh divisions. The result was the growth of the system of occupational castes which still exists. But since the basis of society was the partic.i.p.ation of each social group in a communal meal, the group could not be extended to take in persons of the same occupation over a large area, and as a result the widely ramified system of subcastes came into existence. The subcaste or commensal group was the direct evolutionary product of the pre-existing tribe. Its size was limited by the fact that its members had to meet at the periodical sacrificial feasts, by which their unity and the tie which bound them together was cemented and renewed. As already seen, when members of a subcaste migrated to a fresh local area, and were cut off from communication with those remaining behind, they tended as a rule to form a fresh endogamous and commensal group. Since the tie between the members of the subcaste was partic.i.p.ation in a sacrificial meal of grain cooked with water, and as this food was held to be sacred, the members of the subcaste came to refuse to eat it except with those who could join in the communal feast; and as the idea gradually gained acceptance, that a legitimate child must be the offspring of a father and mother both belonging to the commensal group, the practice of endogamy within the subcaste became a rule.

92. Veneration of the caste implements.

Since all the citizens of the Roman State partic.i.p.ated in a common sacrifice, they might be considered as a single caste, or even a subcaste or commensal group. The Hindu castes have a common ceremony which presents some a.n.a.logy to that of the Roman state. They worship or pay homage once or twice a year to the implements of their profession. The occasions for this rite are usually the Dasahra festival in September and the fast after the Holi festival in March. Both these are festivals of the G.o.ddess Devi or Mother Earth, when a fast is observed in her honour, first before sowing the spring crops and secondly before reaping them. On each occasion the fast lasts for nine days and the Jawaras or pots of wheat corresponding to the Gardens of Adonis are sown. The fasts and festivals thus belong primarily to the agricultural castes, and they worship the earth-mother, who provides them with subsistence. But the professional and artisan castes also take the occasion to venerate the implements of their profession. Thus among the Kasars or bra.s.s-workers, at the festival of Mando Amawas or the new moon of Chait (March), every Kasar must return to the community of which he is a member and celebrate the feast with them. And in default of this he will be expelled from the caste until the next Amawas of Chait comes round. They close their shops and worship the implements of their profession on this day. The rule is thus the same as that of the Roman Suovetaurilia. He who does not join in the sacrificial feast ceases to be a member of the community. And the object of veneration is the same; the Romans venerated and sacrificed the domestic animals which in the pastoral stage had been their means of subsistence. The Kasars and other occupational castes worship the implements of their profession which are also their means of livelihood, or that which gives them life. Formerly all these implements were held to be animate, and to produce their effect by their own power and volition. The Nats or acrobats of Bombay say that their favourite and only living G.o.ds are those which give them their bread: the drum, the rope and the balancing-pole. The Murha or earth-digger invokes the implements of his trade as follows: "O, my lord the basket, my lord the pickaxe shaped like a snake, and my lady the hod! Come and eat up those who do not pay me for my work!" Similarly the Dhimar venerates his fishing-net, and will not wear shoes of sewn leather, because he thinks that the sacred thread which makes his net is debased if used for shoes. The Chamar worships his currier's knife; the Ghasia or groom his horse and the peg to which the horse is secured in the stable; the Rajput his horse and sword and shield; the writer his inkpot, and so on. The Pola festival of the Kunbis has a feature resembling the Suovetaurilia. On this occasion all the plough-bullocks of the cultivators are mustered and go in procession to a _toran_ or arch constructed of branches and foliage. The bullock of the village proprietor leads the way, and has flaming torches tied to his horns. The bullocks of the other cultivators follow according to the status of each cultivator in the village, which depends upon hereditary right and antiquity of tenure, and not on mere wealth. A Kunbi feels bitterly insulted if his bullocks are not awarded the proper place in the procession. A string across the arch is broken by the leading bullock, and the cattle are then all driven helter-skelter through the arch and back to the village. The rite would appear to be a relic of the communal sacrifice of a bullock, the torches tied to the proprietor's bullock signifying that he was formerly killed and roasted. It is now said that this bullock is full of magic, and that he will die within three years. The rite may be compared to the needfire as practised in Russia when all the horses of the village were driven between two fires, or through fire, and their bridles thrown into the fire and burnt. The burning of the bridles would appear to be a subst.i.tute for the previous sacrifice of the horse. [235] The Pola ceremony of the Kunbis resembles the Roman Suovetaurilia inasmuch as all the cultivators partic.i.p.ate in it according to their status, just as the rank of Roman citizens was determined by their position at the ceremony. Formerly, if a bull was sacrificed and eaten sacramentally it would have been practically an exact parallel to the Roman rite.

93. The caste _panchayat_ and its code of offences.

The tribunal for the punishment of caste offences is known as the _panchayat_, because it usually consists of five persons (_panch_, five). As a rule a separate _panchayat_ exists for every subcaste over an area not too large for all the members of it to meet. In theory, however, the _panchayat_ is only the mouthpiece of the a.s.sembly, which should consist of all the members of the subcaste. Some castes fine a member who absents himself from the meeting. The _panchayat_ may perhaps be supposed to represent the hand acting on behalf of the subcaste, which is considered the body. The _panchayat_, however, was not the original judge. It was at first the G.o.d before whom the parties pleaded their cause, and the G.o.d who gave judgment by the method of trial by ordeal. This was probably the general character of primitive justice, and in some of the lower castes the ordeal is still resorted to for decisions. The tribe or subcaste attended as jurors or a.s.sessors, and carried out the proceedings, perhaps after having united themselves to the G.o.d for the purpose by a sacrificial meal. The _panchayat_, having succeeded the G.o.d as the judge, is held to give its decisions by divine inspiration, according to the sayings: 'G.o.d is on high and the _panch_ on earth,' and 'The voice of the _panchayat_ is the voice of G.o.d.' [236] The headship of the _panchayat_ and the subcaste commonly descends in one family, or did so till recently, and the utmost deference is shown to the person holding it, even though he may be only a boy for the above reason. The offences involving temporary or permanent excommunication from caste are of a somewhat peculiar kind. In the case of both a man and woman, to take food from a person of a caste from whom it is forbidden to do so, and especially from one of an impure caste, is a very serious offence, as is also that of being beaten by a member of an impure caste, especially with a shoe. It is also a serious offence to be sent to jail, because a man has to eat the impure jail food. To be handcuffed is a minor offence, perhaps by a.n.a.logy with the major one of being sent to jail, or else on account of the indignity involved by the touch of the police. As regards s.e.xual offences, there is no direct punishment for a man as a rule, but if he lives with a low-caste woman he is temporarily expelled because it is a.s.sumed that he has taken food from her hands. Sometimes a man and woman of the caste committing adultery together are both punished. A married woman who commits adultery should in the higher and middle castes, in theory at least, be permanently expelled, but if her husband does not put her away she is sometimes readmitted with a severe punishment. A girl going wrong with an outsider is as a rule expelled unless the matter can be hushed up, but if she becomes pregnant by a man of the caste, she can often be readmitted with a penalty and married to him or to some other man. There are also some religious crimes, such as killing a cow or a cat or other sacred domestic animal; and in the case of a woman it is a very serious offence to get the lobe of her ear torn apart at the large perforation usually made for earrings; [237] while for either a man or a woman to get vermin in a wound is an offence of the first magnitude, entailing several months' exclusion and large expenditure on readmission. Offences against ordinary morality are scarcely found in the category of those entailing punishment. Murder must sometimes be expiated by a pilgrimage to the Ganges, but other criminal offences against the person and property are not taken cognisance of by the caste committee unless the offender is sent to jail. Both in its negative and positive aspects the category of offences affords interesting deductions on the basis of the explanation of the caste system already given. The reason why there is scarcely any punishment for offences against ordinary morality is that the caste organisation has never developed any responsibility for the maintenance of social order and the protection of life and property. It has never exercised the function of government, because in the historical Hindu period India was divided into large military states, while since then it has been subject to foreign domination. The social organisation has thus maintained its pristine form, neither influenced by the government nor affording to it any co-operation or support. And the aims of the caste tribunal have been restricted to preserving its own corporate existence free from injury or pollution, which might arise mainly from two sources. If a member's body was rendered impure either by eating impure food or by contact with a person of impure caste it became an unfit receptacle for the sacred food eaten at the caste feast, which bound its members together in one body. This appears to be the object of the rules about food. And since the blood of the clan and of the caste is communicated by descent through the father under the patriarchal system, adultery on the part of a married woman would bring a stranger into the group and undermine its corporate existence and unity. Hence the severity of the punishment for the adultery of a married woman, which is a special feature of the patriarchal system. It has already been seen that under the rule of female descent, as shown by Mr. Hartland in _Primitive Paternity_, the chast.i.ty of women was as a rule scarcely regarded at all or even conceived of. After the change to the patriarchal system a similar laxity seems to have prevailed for some period, and it was thought that any child born to a man in his house or on his bed was his own, even though he might not be the father. This idea obtained among the Arabs, as pointed out by Professor Robertson Smith in _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, and is also found in the Hindu cla.s.sics, and to some extent even in modern practice. It was perhaps based on the virtue a.s.signed to concrete facts; just as the Hindus think that a girl is properly married by going through the ceremony with an arrow or a flower, and that the fact of two children being suckled by the same woman, though she is not their mother, establishes a tie akin to consanguinity between them, so they might have thought that the fact of a boy being born in a man's house const.i.tuted him the man's son. Subsequently, however, the view came to be held that the clan blood was communicated directly through the father, to whom the life of the child was solely a.s.signed in the early patriarchal period. And the chast.i.ty of married women then became of vital importance to the community, because the lack of it would cause strangers to be born into the clan, which now based its tie of kinship on descent from a common male ancestor. Thus the adultery of women became a crime which would undermine the foundations of society and the state, and as such was sometimes punished with death among communities in the early patriarchal stage. It is this view, and not simply moral principle, which has led to the severe caste penalties for the offence. Some of the primitive tribes care nothing about the chast.i.ty of unmarried girls, but punish unfaithful wives rigorously. Among the Maria Gonds a man will murder his wife for infidelity, but girls are commonly unchaste. Another rule sometimes found is that an unmarried girl becoming with child by an outsider is put out of caste for the time. When her child, which does not belong to the caste, has been born, she must make it over to some outside family, and she herself can then be readmitted to the community. Out of the view of adultery as a religious and social offence, a moral regard for chast.i.ty is however developing among the Hindus as it has in other societies.

94. The status of impurity.

It has been seen that the Sudras as well as the plebeians were regarded as impure, and the reason was perhaps that they were considered to belong to a hostile G.o.d. By their partic.i.p.ation in the sacrifice and partaking of the sacrificial food, the Indian Aryans and other races considered that they were not only in fellowship with, but actually a part of the G.o.d. And similarly their enemies were part of the substance of a hostile G.o.d, whose very existence and contact were abhorrent to their own. Hence their enemies should as far as possible be completely exterminated, but when this was impossible they must dwell apart and not pollute by contact of their persons, or in any other way, the sacred soil on which the G.o.ds dwelt, nor the persons of those who became part of the substance of the G.o.d by partic.i.p.ation in the sacrificial meal. For this reason the plebeians had to live outside the Roman city, which was all sacred ground, and the Sudras and modern impure castes have to live outside the village, which is similarly sacred as the abode of the earth-G.o.ddess in her form of the G.o.ddess of the land of that village. For the same reason their contact had to be avoided by those who belonged to the village and were united to the G.o.ddess by partaking of the crops which she brought forth on her land. As already seen, the belief existed that the life and qualities could be communicated by contact, and in this case the worshippers would a.s.similate by contact the life of a G.o.d hostile to their own. In the same manner, as shown by M. Salomon Reinach in _Cults, Myths and Religions_, all the weapons, clothes and material possessions of the enemy were considered as impure, perhaps because they also contained part of the life of a hostile G.o.d. As already seen, [238] a man's clothing and weapons were considered to contain part of his life by contact, and since the man was united to the G.o.d by partaking of the sacrificial feast, all the possessions of the enemy might be held to partic.i.p.ate in the life of the hostile G.o.d, and hence they could not be preserved, nor taken by the victors into their own houses or dwellings. This was the offence which Achan committed when he hid in his tent part of the spoils of Jericho; and in consequence Jehovah ceased to be with the children of Israel when they went up against Ai, that is ceased to be in them, and they could not stand before the enemy. Achan and his family were stoned and his property destroyed by fire and the impurity was removed. For the same reason the ancient Gauls and Germans destroyed all the spoils of war or burned them, or buried them in lakes where they are still found. At a later stage the Romans, instead of destroying the spoils of war, dedicated them to their own G.o.ds, perhaps as a visible sign of the conquest and subjection of the enemy's G.o.ds; and they were hung in temples or on oak-trees, where they could not be touched except in the very direst need, as when Rome was left without arms after Cannae. Subsequently the spoils were permitted to decorate the houses of the victorious generals, where they remained sacred and inviolable heirlooms. [239]

95. Caste and Hinduism.

In _The Religions of India_ M. Barth defined a Hindu as a man who has a caste: 'The man who is a member of a caste is a Hindu; he who is not, is not a Hindu.' His definition remains perhaps the best. There is practically no dogma which is essential to Hinduism, nor is the veneration of any deity or sacred object either necessary or heretical. As has often been pointed out, there is no a.s.sembly more catholic or less exclusive than the Hindu pantheon. Another writer has said that the three essentials of a Hindu are to be a member of a caste, to venerate Brahmans, and to hold the cow sacred. Of the latter two, the veneration of Brahmans cannot be considered indispensable; for there are several sects, as the Lingayats, the Bishnois, the Manbhaos, the Kabirpanthis and others, who expressly disclaim any veneration for Brahmans, and, in theory at least, make no use of their services; and yet the members of these sects are by common consent acknowledged as Hindus. The sanct.i.ty of the bull and cow is a more nearly universal dogma, and extends practically to all Hindus, except the impure castes. These latter should not correctly be cla.s.sed as Hindus; the very origin of their status is, as has been seen, the belief that they are the worshippers of G.o.ds hostile to Hinduism. But still they must now practically be accounted as Hindus. They worship the Hindu G.o.ds, standing at a distance when they are not allowed to enter the temples, perform their ceremonies by Hindu rites, and employ Brahmans for fixing auspicious days, writing the marriage invitation and other business, which the Brahman is willing to do for a consideration, so long as he does not have to enter their houses. Some of the impure castes eat beef, while others have abandoned it in order to improve their social position. At the other end of the scale are many well-educated Hindu gentlemen who have no objection to eat beef and may often have done so in England, though in India they may abstain out of deference to the prejudices of their relatives, especially the women. And Hindus of all castes are beginning to sell worn-out cattle to the butchers for slaughter without scruple--an offence which fifty years ago would have entailed permanent expulsion from caste. The reverence for the cow is thus not an absolutely essential dogma of Hinduism, though it is the nearest approach to one. As a definition or test of Hinduism it is, however, obviously inadequate. Caste, on the other hand, regulates the whole of a Hindu's life, his social position and, usually, his occupation. It is the only tribunal which punishes religious and social offences, and when a man is out of caste he has, for so long as this condition continues, no place in Hinduism. Theoretically he cannot eat with any other Hindu nor marry his child to any Hindu. If he dies out of caste the caste-men will not bury or burn his body, which is regarded as impure. The binding tie of caste is, according to the argument given above, the communal meal or feast of grain cooked with water, and this, it would therefore seem, may correctly be termed the chief religious function of Hinduism. Caste also obtains among the Jains and Sikhs, but Sikhism is really little more than a Hindu sect, while the Jains, who are nearly all Banias, scarcely differ from Vaishnava Hindu Banias, and have accepted caste, though it is not in accordance with the real tenets of their religion. The lower industrial cla.s.ses of Muhammadans have also formed castes in imitation of the Hindus. Many of these are however the descendants of converted Hindus, and nearly all of them have a number of Hindu practices.

96. The Hindu reformers.

There have not been wanting reformers in Hinduism, and the ultimate object of their preaching seems to have been the abolition of the caste system. The totem-clans, perhaps, supposed that each species of animals and plants which they distinguished had a different kind of life, the qualities of each species being considered as part of its life. This belief may have been the original basis of the idea of difference of blood arising from n.o.bility of lineage or descent, and it may also have been that from which the theory of caste distinctions was derived. Though the sacrificial food of each caste is the same, yet its members may have held themselves to be partaking of a different sacrificial feast and absorbing a different life; just as the sacrificial feasts and the G.o.ds of the different Greek and Latin city-states were held to be distinct and hostile, and a citizen of one state could not join in the sacrificial feast of another, though the G.o.ds and sacrificial animals might be as a matter of fact the same. And the earth-G.o.ddess of each village was a separate form or part of the G.o.ddess, so that her land should only be tilled by the descendants of the cultivators who were in communion with her. The severe caste penalties attached to getting vermin in a wound, involving a long period of complete ostracism and the most elaborate ceremonies of purification, may perhaps be explained by the idea that the man so afflicted has in his body an alien and hostile life which is incompatible with his forming part of the common life of the caste or subcaste. The leading feature of the doctrines of the Hindu reformers has been that there is only one kind of life, which extends through the whole of creation and is all equally precious. Everything that lives has a spark of the divine life and hence should not be destroyed. The belief did not extend to vegetable life, perhaps because the true nature of the latter was by then partly realised, while if the consumption of vegetable life had been prohibited the sect could not have existed. The above doctrine will be recognised as a comparatively simple and natural expansion of the beliefs that animals have self-conscious volitional life and that each species of animals consists of one common life distributed through its members. If the true nature of individual animals and plants had been recognised from the beginning, it is difficult to see how the idea of one universal life running through them all could have been conceived and have obtained so large a degree of acceptance. As the effect of such a doctrine was that all men were of the same blood and life, its necessary consequence was the negation of caste distinctions. The transmigration of souls followed as a moral rule apportioning reward and punishment for the actions of men. The soul pa.s.sed through a cycle of lives, and the location or body of its next life, whether an animal of varying importance or meanness, or a human being in different cla.s.ses of society, was determined by its good or evil actions in previous lives. Finally, those souls which had been purified of all the gross qualities appertaining to the body were released from the cycle of existence and reabsorbed into the divine centre or focus of life. In the case of the Buddhists and Jains the divine centre of life seems to have been conceived of impersonally. The leading authorities on Buddhism state that its founder's doctrine was pure atheism, but one may suggest that the view seems somewhat improbable in the case of a religion promulgated at so early a period. And on such a hypothesis it is difficult to understand either the stress laid on the escape from life as the highest aim or the sanct.i.ty held to attach to all kinds of animal life. But these doctrines follow naturally on the belief in a divine centre or focus of life from which all life emanates for a time, to be ultimately reabsorbed. The Vaishnava reformers, who arose subsequently, took the sun or the spirit of the sun as the divine source of all life. They also preached the sanct.i.ty of animal life, the transmigration of souls, and the final absorption of the purified soul into the divine centre of life. The abolition of caste was generally a leading feature of their doctrine and may have been its princ.i.p.al social aim. The survival of the individual soul was not a tenet of the earlier reformers, though the later ones adopted it, perhaps in response to the growing perception of individuality. But even now it is doubtful how far the separate existence of the individual soul after it has finally left the world is a religious dogma of the Hindus. The basis of Hindu asceticism is the necessity of completely freeing the soul or spirit from all the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions of the body before it can be reabsorbed into the G.o.d. Those who have so mortified the body that the life merely subsists in it, almost unwillingly as it were, and absolutely unaffected by human desires or affections or worldly events, have rendered their individual spark of life capable of being at once absorbed into the divine life and equal in merit to it, while still on earth. Thus Hindu ascetics in the last or perfect stage say, 'I am G.o.d,' or 'I am Siva,' and are revered by their disciples and the people as divine. Both the Buddhists and Jains lay the same stress on the value of asceticism as enabling the soul to attain perfection through complete detachment from the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions of the body and the cares of the world; and the deduction therefore seems warranted that the end of the perfect soul would be a similar reabsorption in the divine soul.

97. Decline of the caste system.

The caste system has maintained its vigour unimpaired either by the political vicissitudes and foreign invasions of India or by Muhammadan persecution. Except where it has been affected by European education and inventions, Hindu society preserved until recently a remarkably close resemblance to that of ancient Greece and Rome in the cla.s.sical period. But several signs point to the conclusion that the decay of caste as the governing factor of Indian society is in sight. The freedom in selection of occupation which now obtains appears to strike at the root of the caste system, because the relative social status and gradation of castes is based on their traditional occupations. When in a large number of the princ.i.p.al castes the majority of the members have abandoned their traditional occupation and taken freely to others, the relative status of castes becomes a fiction, which, though it has. .h.i.therto subsisted, cannot apparently be indefinitely maintained. The great extension of education undertaken by Government and warmly advocated by the best Indian opinion exercises an a.n.a.logous influence. Education is free to all, and, similarly, in the careers which it opens to the most successful boys there is no account of caste. Thus members of quite low castes obtain a good social position and, as regards them personally, the prejudices and contempt for their caste necessarily fall into abeyance. The process must, probably, in time extend to general social toleration. The educated cla.s.ses are also coming to regard the restrictions on food and drink, and on eating and drinking with others, as an irksome and unnecessary bar to social intercourse, and are gradually abandoning them. This tendency is greatly strengthened by the example and social contact of Europeans. Finally, the facilities for travelling and the democratic nature of modern travel have a very powerful effect. The great majority of Hindus of all castes are obliged by their comparative poverty to avail themselves of the cheap third-cla.s.s fares, and have to rub shoulders together in packed railway carriages. Soon they begin to realise that this does them no harm, and get accustomed to it, with the result that the prejudices about bodily contact tend to disappear. The opinion has been given that the decline of social exclusiveness in England was largely due to the introduction of railway travelling. Taking account of all these influences, and a.s.suming their continuance, the inference may safely be drawn that the life of the Indian caste system is limited, though no attempt can be made to estimate the degree of its vitality, nor to predict the form and const.i.tution of the society which will arise on its decay.