Chapter XIV: Part I: Introductory Essay on Caste (9)

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 constituted a Roman citizen was participation 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 analogous constitution, 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 constitution, 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 participation in a common sacrifice, was the only one which existed in early times. Thus apparently the Aryans retained their tribal constitution 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 class, 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 class, which also could not properly participate in them. The priests and rulers, Brahmans and Kshatriyas, tended to form exclusive bodies, and in this manner a classification by occupation gradually grew up, the distinction being marked by participation 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 class 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 assumed 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 participation of the citizens in a common sacrifice, and this participation 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 participation 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 participation 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 participated 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 analogy 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 goddess 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 brass-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 gods 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 substitute for the previous sacrifice of the horse. [235] The Pola ceremony of the Kunbis resembles the Roman Suovetaurilia inasmuch as all the cultivators participate 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 assembly, 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 god before whom the parties pleaded their cause, and the god 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 assessors, and carried out the proceedings, perhaps after having united themselves to the god for the purpose by a sacrificial meal. The _panchayat_, having succeeded the god as the judge, is held to give its decisions by divine inspiration, according to the sayings: 'God is on high and the _panch_ on earth,' and 'The voice of the _panchayat_ is the voice of God.' [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 analogy 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 sexual 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 assumed 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 chastity 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 classics, and to some extent even in modern practice. It was perhaps based on the virtue assigned 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 constituted 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 assigned in the early patriarchal period. And the chastity 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 chastity 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 chastity 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 god. By their participation 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 god. And similarly their enemies were part of the substance of a hostile god, 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 gods dwelt, nor the persons of those who became part of the substance of the god by participation 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-goddess in her form of the goddess 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 goddess 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 assimilate by contact the life of a god 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 god. 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 god by partaking of the sacrificial feast, all the possessions of the enemy might be held to participate in the life of the hostile god, 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 gods, perhaps as a visible sign of the conquest and subjection of the enemy's gods; 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 assembly 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 sanctity 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 classed as Hindus; the very origin of their status is, as has been seen, the belief that they are the worshippers of gods hostile to Hinduism. But still they must now practically be accounted as Hindus. They worship the Hindu gods, 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 classes 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 nobility 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 gods 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 gods and sacrificial animals might be as a matter of fact the same. And the earth-goddess of each village was a separate form or part of the goddess, 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 passed 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 classes 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 sanctity 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 sanctity 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 principal 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 appetites and passions of the body before it can be reabsorbed into the god. 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 God,' 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 appetites and passions 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 classical 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 principal 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 hitherto subsisted, cannot apparently be indefinitely maintained. The great extension of education undertaken by Government and warmly advocated by the best Indian opinion exercises an analogous 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 classes 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-class 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 assuming 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 constitution of the society which will arise on its decay.

ARTICLES ON RELIGIONS AND SECTS

Arya Samaj

[_Bibliography_: Sir E.D. Maclagan's _Punjab Census Report of 1891_; Mr. R. Burn's _United Provinces Census Report of 1901_; Professor J. C. Oman's _Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India_.]

List of Paragraphs

1. _The founder of the sect, Dayanand Saraswati_.
2. _His methods and the scientific interpretation of the Vedas_.
3. _Tenets of the Samaj_.
4. _Modernising tendencies_.
5. _Aims and educational institutions_.
6. _Prospects of the sect_.

1. The founder of the sect, Dayanand Saraswati.

_Arya Samaj Religion_.--This important reforming sect of Hinduism numbered nearly 250,000 persons in India in 1911, as against 92,000 in 1901. Its adherents belong principally to the Punjab and the United Provinces. In the Central Provinces 974 members were returned. The sect was founded by Pandit Dayanand Saraswati, a Gujarati Brahman, born in 1824. According to his own narrative he had been carefully instructed in the Vedas, which means that he had been made to commit a great portion of them to memory, and had been initiated at an early age into the Saiva sect to which his family belonged; but while still a mere boy his mind had revolted against the practices of idolatry. He could not bring himself to acknowledge that the image of Siva seated on his bull, the helpless idol, which, as he himself observed in the watches of the night, allowed the mice to run over it with impunity, ought to be worshipped as the omnipotent deity. [240] He also conceived an intense aversion to marriage, and fled from home in order to avoid the match which had been arranged for him. He was attracted by the practice of Yoga, or ascetic philosophy, and studied it with great ardour, claiming to have been initiated into the highest secrets of _Yoga Vidya_. He tells in one of his books of his many and extensive travels, his profound researches in Sanskritic lore, his constant meditations and his ceaseless inquirings. He tells how, by dissecting in his own rough way a corpse which he found floating on a river, he finally discerned the egregious errors of the Hindu medical treatises, and, tearing up his books in disgust, flung them into the river with the mutilated corpse. By degrees he found reason to reject the authority of all the sacred books of the Hindus subsequent to the Vedas. Once convinced of this, he braced himself to a wonderful course of missionary effort, in which he formulated his new system and attacked the existing orthodox Hinduism. [241] He maintained that the Vedas gave no countenance to idolatry, but inculcated monotheism, and that their contents could be reconciled with all the results of modern science, which indeed he held to be indicated in them. The Arya Samaj was founded in Lahore in 1877, and during the remainder of his life Dayanand travelled over northern India continually preaching and disputing with the advocates of other religions, and founding branches of his sect. In 1883 he died at Ajmer, according to the story of his followers, from the effects of poison administered to him at the instigation of a prostitute against whose profession he had been lecturing. [242]

2. His methods and the scientific interpretation of the Vedas.

Dayanand's attempt to found a sect which, while not going entirely outside Hinduism, should prove acceptable to educated Hindus desiring a purer faith, appears to have been distinctly successful. The leaders of the Brahmo Samaj were men of higher intelligence and ability than he, and after scrupulously fair and impartial inquiry were led to deny the infallibility of the Vedas, while they also declined to recognise caste. But by so doing they rendered it impossible for a man to become a Brahmo and remain a Hindu, and their movement has made little headway. By retaining the tenet of the divine authority of the Vedas, Dayanand made it possible for educated Hindus to join his sect without absolutely cutting themselves adrift from their old faith. But Dayanand's contention that the Vedas should be figuratively interpreted, and are so found to foreshadow the discoveries of modern science, will naturally not bear examination. The following instances of the method are given by Professor Oman: "At one of the anniversary meetings of the society a member gravely stated that the Vedas mentioned _pure_ fire, and as pure fire was nothing but electricity, it was evident that the Indians of the Vedic period were acquainted with electricity. A leading member of the sect, who had studied science in the Government college, discovered in two Vedic texts, made up of _only eighteen words in all_, that oxygen and hydrogen with their characteristic properties were known to the writers of the Rig Veda, who were also acquainted with the composition of water, the constitution of the atmosphere, and had anticipated the modern kinetic theory of gases." [243] Mr. Burn gives the following parallel versions of a verse of the Rig Veda by Professor Max Müller and the late Pandit Guru Datt, M.A., of the Arya Samaj:

_Professor Max Müller_.--"May Mitra, Varuna, Aryaman, Ayu, Indra, the Lord of the Ribhus, and the Maruts not rebuke us because we shall proclaim at the sacrifice the virtues of the swift horse sprung from the Gods."

_Pandit Guru Datt_.--"We shall describe the power-generating virtues of the energetic horses endowed with brilliant properties (or the virtues of the vigorous force of heat) which learned or scientific men can evoke to work for purposes of appliances. Let not philanthropists, noble men, judges, learned men, rulers, wise men and practical mechanics ever disregard these properties." In fact, the learned Pandit has interpreted horse as horse-power.

3. Tenets of the Samaj.

Nevertheless the Arya Samaj does furnish a haven for educated Hindus who can no longer credit Hindu mythology, but do not wish entirely to break away from their religion; a step which, involving also the abandonment of caste, would in their case mean the cessation to a considerable extent of social and family intercourse. The present tenets and position of the Arya Samaj as given to Professor Oman by Lala Lajpat Rai [244] indicate that, while tending towards the complete removal of the over-swollen body of Hindu ritual and the obstacles to social progress involved in the narrow restrictions of the caste system, the sect at present permits a compromise and does not require of its proselytes a full abjuration. In theory members of any religion may be admitted to the Samaj, and a few Muhammadans have been initiated, but unless they renounce Islam do not usually participate in social intercourse. Sikhs are freely admitted, and converts from any religion who accept the purified Hinduism of the Samaj are welcome. Such converts go through a simple ceremony of purification, for which a Brahman is usually engaged, though not required by rule. Those who, as Hindus, wore the sacred thread are again invested with it, and it has also been conferred on converts, but this has excited opposition. A few marriages between members of different subcastes have been carried out, and in the case of orphan girls adopted into the Samaj caste, rules have been set aside and they have been married to members of other castes. Lavish expenditure on weddings is discouraged. Vishnu and Siva are accepted as alternative names of the one God; but their reputed consorts Kali, Durga, Devi, and so on, are not regarded as deities. Brahmans are usually employed for ceremonies, but these may also, especially birth and funeral ceremonies, be performed by non-Brahmans. In the Punjab members of the Samaj of different castes will take food together, but rarely in the United Provinces. Dissension has arisen on the question of the consumption of flesh, and the Samaj is split into two parties, vegetarians and meat-eaters. In the United Provinces, Mr. Burn states, the vegetarian party would not object to employ men of low caste as cooks, excepting such impure castes as Chamars, Doms and sweepers, so long as they were also vegetarians. The Aryas still hold the doctrine of the transmigration of souls and venerate the cow, but they do not regard the cow as divine. In this respect their position has been somewhat modified from that of Dayanand, who was a vigorous supporter of the Gaoraksha or cow-protection movement.

4. Modernising tendencies.

Again Dayanand enunciated a very peculiar doctrine on Niyoga or the custom of childless women, either married or widows, resorting to men other than their husbands for obtaining an heir. This is permitted under certain circumstances by the Hindu lawbooks. Dayanand laid down that a Hindu widow might resort in succession to five men until she had borne each of them two children, and a married woman might do the same with the consent of her husband, or without his consent if he had been absent from home for a certain number of years, varying according to the purpose for which he was absent. [245] Dayanand held that this rule would have beneficial results. Those who could restrain their impulses would still be considered as following the best way; but for the majority who could not do so, the authorised method and degree of intimacy laid down by him would prevent such evils as prostitution, connubial unfaithfulness, and the secret _liaisons_ of widows, resulting in practices like abortion. The prevalence of such a custom would, however, certainly do more to injure social and family life than all the evils which it was designed to prevent, and it is not surprising to find that the Samaj does not now consider Niyoga an essential doctrine; instead of this they are trying in face of much opposition to introduce the natural and proper custom of the remarriage of widows. The principal rite of the Samaj is the old Hom sacrifice of burning clarified butter, grain, and various fragrant gums and spices on the sacred fire, with the repetition of Sanskrit texts. They now explain this by saying that it is a sanitary measure, designed to purify the air.

The Samaj does not believe in any literal heaven and hell, but considers these as figurative expressions of the state of the soul, whether in this life or the life to come. The Aryas therefore do not perform the _shradhh_ ceremony nor offer oblations to the dead, and in abolishing these they reduce enormously the power and influence of the priesthood.

5. Aims and educational institutions.

The above account indicates that the Arya Samaj is tending to become a vaguely theistic sect. Its religious observances will probably fall more and more into the background, and its members will aspire to observe in their conduct the code of social morality obtaining in Europe, and to regulate their habit of life by similar considerations of comfort and convenience. Already the principal aims of the Samaj tend mainly to the social improvement of its members and their fellow-Indians. It sets its face against child-marriage, and encourages the remarriage of widows. It busies itself with female education, with orphanages and schools, dispensaries and public libraries, and philanthropic institutions of all sorts. [246] Its avowed aim is to unite and regenerate the peoples of Aryavarrta or India.

As one of its own poets has said: [247]

Ah! long have ye slept, Sons of India, too long!
Your country degenerate, your morals all wrong.

Its principal educational institutions are the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College at Lahore and the Anglo-Vedic School at Meerut, a large orphanage at Bareilly, smaller ones at Allahabad and Cawnpore, and a number of primary schools. It employs a body of travelling teachers or Upadeshaks to make converts, and in the famine of 1900 took charge of as many famine orphans as the Local Governments would entrust to it, in order to prevent them from being handed over to Christian missionaries. All members of the Samaj are expected to contribute one per cent of their incomes to the society, and a large number of them do this. The Arya Samaj has been accused of cherishing political aims and of anti-British propaganda, but the writers quoted in this article unite in acquitting it of such a charge as an institution, though some of its members have been more or less identified with the Extremist party. From the beginning, however, and apparently up to the present time, its religious teaching has been directed to social and not to political reform, and so long as it adheres to this course its work must be considered to be useful and praiseworthy. Nevertheless some danger may perhaps exist lest the boys educated in its institutions may with youthful intemperance read into the instruction of their teachers more than it is meant to convey, and divert exhortations for social improvement and progress to political ends.

6. Prospects of the sect.

The census of 1911 showed the Arya Samaj to be in a flourishing and progressive condition. There seems good reason to suppose that its success may continue, as it meets a distinct religious and social requirement of educated Hindus. Narsinghpur is the principal centre of the sect in the Central Provinces, and here an orphanage is maintained with about thirty inmates; the local members have an _ata_ fund, to which they daily contribute a handful of flour, and this accumulates and is periodically made over to the orphanage. There is also a Vedic school at Narsinghpur, and a Sanskrit school has been started at Drug. [248]

Brahmo Samaj

[_Bibliography:_ Professor J. C. Oman's _Brahmans, Theists and Muslims of India_ (1907); _Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India_ (1908); Rev. F. Lillingston's _Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj_ (1901). The following brief account is simply compiled from the above works and makes no pretence to be critical.]

List of Paragraphs

1. _Ram Mohan Roy, founder of the sect_.
2. _Much esteemed by the English_.
3. _Foundation of the Brahmo Samaj_.
4. _Debendra Nath Tagore_.
5. _Keshub Chandar Sen_.
6. _The Civil Marriage Act_.
7. _Keshub Chandar's relapse into mysticism_.
8. _Recent history of the Samaj_.
9. _Character of the movement_.

1. Ram Mohan Roy, founder of the sect.

_Brahmo Samaj Religion_.--This monotheistic sect of Bengal numbered only thirty-two adherents in the Central Provinces in 1911, of whom all or nearly all were probably Bengalis. Nevertheless its history is of great interest as representing an attempt at the reform and purification of Hinduism under the influence of Christianity. The founder of the sect, Ram Mohan Roy, a Brahman, was born in 1772 and died in England in 1833. He was sent to school at Patna, where under the influence of Muhammadan teachers he learnt to despise the extravagant stories of the Puranas. At the age of sixteen he composed a tract against idolatry, which stirred up such a feeling of animosity against him that he had to leave his home. He betook himself first to Benares, where he received instruction in the Vedas from the Brahmans. From there he went to Tibet, that he might learn the tenets of Buddhism from its adherents rather than its opponents; his genuine desire to form a fair judgment of the merits of every creed being further evidenced by his learning the language in which each of these finds its expression: thus he learnt Sanskrit that he might rightly understand the Vedas, Pali that he might read the Buddhist Tripitaka, Arabic as the key to the Koran, and Hebrew and Greek for the Old and New Testaments. [249] In 1819, after a diligent study of the Bible, he published a book entitled _The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness._ Although this work was eminently appreciative of the character and teaching of Christ, it gave rise to an attack from the missionaries of Serampore. Strange to say, Ram Mohan Roy so far converted his tutor Mr. Adam (himself a missionary) to his own way of thinking that that gentleman relinquished his spiritual office, became editor of the _Indian Gazette,_ and was generally known in Calcutta as 'The second fallen Adam.' [250]

2. Much esteemed by the English.

Ram Mohan Roy was held in great esteem by his English contemporaries in India. He dispensed in charities the bulk of his private means, living himself with the strictest economy in order that he might have the more to give away. It was to a considerable extent due to his efforts, and more especially to his demonstration that the practice of Sati found no sanction in the Vedas, that this abominable rite was declared illegal by Lord William Bentinck in 1829. The titular emperor of Delhi conferred the title of Raja upon him in 1830 and induced him to proceed to England on a mission to the Home Government. He was the first Brahman who had crossed the sea, and his distinguished appearance, agreeable manners, and undoubtedly great ability, coupled with his sympathy for Christianity, procured him a warm welcome in England, where he died in 1833. [251]

3. Foundation of the Brahmo Samaj.

Ram Mohan Roy, with the help of a few friends and disciples, founded, in 1830, the Brahmo Samaj or Society of God. In the trust deed of the meeting-house it was laid down that the society was founded for "the worship and adoration of the eternal, unsearchable and immutable Being who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe, but not by any other name, designation or title peculiarly used by any men or set of men; and that in conducting the said worship and adoration, no object, animate or inanimate, that has been or is or shall hereafter become ... an object of worship by any men or set of men, shall be reviled or slightingly or contemptuously spoken of or alluded to either in preaching, or in the hymns or other mode of worship that may be delivered or used in the said messuage or building." [252] This well exemplifies the broad toleration and liberality of the sect. The service in the new theistic church consisted in the recital of the Vedas by two Telugu Brahmans, the reading of texts from the Upanishads, and the expounding of the same in Bengali. The Samaj, thus constituted, based its teaching on the Vedas and was at this time, though unorthodox, still a Hindu sect, and made no attempt at the abolition of caste. "Indeed, in establishing this sect, Ram Mohan Roy professed to be leading his countrymen back to the pure, uncorrupted, monotheistic religion of their Vedic ancestors; but his monotheism, based, as it was, essentially upon the Vedanta philosophy, was in reality but a disguised Pantheism, enriched as regards its ethics by ideas derived from Muslim and Christian literature and theology." [253]

4. Debendra Nath Tagore.