Part 32

7. Houses and dress.

Of their method of living Malcolm wrote: "I visited several of the houses of this tribe at Shahjahanpur, where a colony of them are settled, and was gratified to find not only in their apartments, but in the spaciousness and cleanliness of their kitchens, in the well-constructed chimney, the neatly arranged pantries, and the polished dishes and plates as much of real comfort in domestic arrangements as could be found anywhere. We took the parties we visited by surprise and there could have been no preparation." The Bohras do not charge interest on loans, and they combine to support indigent members of the community, never allowing one of their caste to beg. The caste may easily be known from other Muhammadans by their small, tightly wound turbans and little skull-caps, and their long flowing robes, and loose trousers widening from the ankle upwards and gathered in at the waist with a string. The women dress in a coloured cotton or silk petticoat, a short-sleeved bodice and a coloured cotton head-scarf. When they go out of doors they throw a dark cloak over the head which covers the body to the ankles, with gauze openings for the eyes.

Brahman

List of Paragraphs

1. Origin and development of the caste. 2. Their monopoly of literature. 3. Absence of central authority. 4. Mixed elements in the caste. 5. Caste subdivisions. 6. Miscellaneous groups. 7. Sectarian divisions. 8. Exogamy. 9. Restrictions on marriage. 10. Hypergamy. 11. Marriage customs. 12. Polygamy, divorce and treatment of widows. 13. Sati or burning of widows. 14. Funeral rites and mourning. 15. Religion. 16. Daily ritual. 17. The sacred thread. 18. Social position. 19. Titles. 20. Caste panchayat and offences. 21. Rules about food. 22. Dress. 23. Tattooing. 24. Occupation. 25. Character of Brahmans.

List of Subordinate Articles on Subcastes

1. Ahivasi. 2. Jijhotia. 3. Kanaujia, Kanyakubja. 4. Khedawal. 5. Maharashtra, Maratha. 6. Maithil. 7. Malwi. 8. Nagar. 9. Naramdeo. 10. Sanadhya, Sanaurhia. 11. Sarwaria. 12. Utkal.

1. Origin and development of the caste.

Brahman, Baman.--The well-known priestly caste of India and the first of the four traditional castes of the Hindu scriptures. In 1911 the Brahmans numbered about 450,000 persons in the Central Provinces and Berar, or nearly 3 per cent of the population. This is less than the average strength for India as a whole, which is about 4 1/2 per cent. The caste is spread over the whole Province, but is in greatest numbers in proportion to the population in Saugor and Jubbulpore, and weakest in the Feudatory States.

The name Brahman or Brahma is said to be from the root brih or vrih, to increase. The god Brahma is considered as the spirit and soul of the universe, the divine essence and source of all being. Brahmana, the masculine numerative singular, originally denoted one who prays, a worshipper or the composer or reciter of a hymn. It is the common term used in the Vedas for the officiating priest. Sir H. Risley remarks on the origin of the caste: "The best modern opinion seems disposed to find the germ of the Brahman caste in the bards, ministers and family priests who were attached to the king's household in Vedic times. Different stages of this institution may be observed. In the earliest ages the head of every Aryan household was his own priest, and even a king would himself perform the sacrifices which were appropriate to his rank. By degrees families or guilds of priestly singers arose, who sought service under the kings, and were rewarded by rich presents for the hymns or praise and prayer recited and sacrifices offered by them on behalf of their masters. As time went on the sacrifices became more numerous and more elaborate, and the mass of ritual grew to such an extent that the king could no longer cope with it unaided. The employment of purohits or family priests, formerly optional, now became a sacred duty if the sacrifices were not to fall into disuse. The Brahman obtained a monopoly of priestly functions, and a race of sacerdotal specialists arose which tended continually to close its ranks against the intrusion of outsiders." Gradually then from the household priests and those who made it their business to commit to memory and recite the sacred hymns and verses handed down orally from generation to generation through this agency, an occupational caste emerged, which arrogated to itself the monopoly of these functions, and the doctrine developed that nobody could perform them who was not qualified by birth, that is, nobody could be a Brahman who was not the son of a Brahman. When religious ritual became more important, as apparently it did, a desire would naturally arise among the priests to make their revered and lucrative profession a hereditary monopoly; and this they were easily and naturally able to do by only teaching the sacred songs and the sacrificial rules and procedure to their own descendants. The process indeed would be to a considerable extent automatic, because the priests would always take their own sons for their pupils in the first place, and in the circumstances of early Indian society a married priesthood would thus naturally evolve into a hereditary caste. The Levites among the Jews and the priests of the Parsis formed similar hereditary orders, and the reason why they did not arise in other great religions would appear to have been the prescription or encouragement of the rule of celibacy for the clergy and the foundation of monasteries, to which admission was free. But the military landed aristocracies of Europe practically formed hereditary castes which were analogous to the Brahman and Rajput castes, though of a less stereotyped and primitive character. The rise of the Brahman caste was thus perhaps a comparatively simple and natural product of religious and social evolution, and might have occurred independently of the development of the caste system as a whole. The former might be accounted for by reasons which would be inadequate to explain the latter, even though as a matter of fact the same factors were at work in both cases.

2. Their monopoly of literature.

The hereditary monopoly of the sacred scriptures would be strengthened and made absolute when the Sanskrit language, in which they had been composed and handed down, ceased to be the ordinary spoken language of the people. Nobody then could learn them unless he was taught by a Brahman priest. And by keeping the sacred literature in an unknown language the priesthood made their own position absolutely secure and got into their own hands the allocation of the penalties and rewards promised by religion, for which these books were the authority, that is to say, the disposal of the souls of Hindus in the afterlife. They, in fact, held the keys of heaven and hell. The jealousy with which they guarded them is well shown by the Abbe Dubois: "To the Brahmans alone belongs the right of reading the Vedas, and they are so jealous of this, or rather it is so much to their interest to prevent other castes obtaining any insight into their contents, that the Brahmans have inculcated the absurd theory, which is implicitly believed, that should anybody of any other caste be so highly imprudent as even to read the title-page his head would immediately split in two. The very few Brahmans who are able to read those sacred books in the original, only do so in secret and in a whisper. Expulsion from caste, without the smallest hope of re-entering it, would be the lightest punishment of a Brahman who exposed those books to the eyes of the profane." It would probably be unfair, however, to suppose that the Vedas were kept in the original Sanskrit simply from motives of policy. It was probably thought that the actual words of the sacred text had themselves a concrete force and potency which would be lost in a translation. This is the idea underlying the whole class of beliefs in the virtue of charms and spells.

But the Brahmans had the monopoly not only of the sacred Sanskrit literature, but practically of any kind of literacy or education. They were for long the only literate section of the people. Subsequently two other castes learnt to read and write in response to an economic demand, the Kayasths and the Banias. The Kayasths, it has been suggested in the article on that caste, were to a large extent the offspring and inmates of the households of Brahmans, and were no doubt taught by them, but only to read and write the vernacular for the purpose of keeping the village records and accounts of rent. They were excluded from any knowledge of Sanskrit, and the Kayasths subsequently became an educated caste in spite of their Brahman preceptors, by learning Persian under their Muhammadan, and English under their European employers. The Banias never desired nor were encouraged to attain to any higher degree of literacy than that necessary for keeping accounts of sale and loan transactions. The Brahmans thus remained the only class with any real education, and acquired a monopoly not only of intellectual and religious leadership, but largely of public administration under the Hindu kings. No literature existed outside their own, which was mainly of a sacerdotal character; and India had no heritage such as that bequeathed by Greece and Rome to mediaeval Europe which could produce a Renaissance or revival of literacy, leading to the Reformation of religion and the breaking of the fetters in which the Roman priesthood had bound the human mind. The Brahmans thus established, not only a complete religious, but also a social ascendancy which is only now beginning to break down since the British Government has made education available to all.

3. Absence of central authority.

The Brahman body, however, lacked one very important element of strength. They were apparently never organised nor controlled by any central authority such as that which made the Roman church so powerful and cohesive. Colleges and seats of learning existed at Benares and other places, at which their youth were trained in the knowledge of religion and of the measure of their own pretensions, and the means by which these were to be sustained. But probably only a small minority can have attended them, and even these when they returned home must have been left practically to themselves, spread as the Brahmans were over the whole of India with no means of postal communication or rapid transit. And by this fact the chaotic character of the Hindu religion, its freedom of belief and worship, its innumerable deities, and the almost complete absence of dogmas may probably be to a great extent explained. And further the Brahman caste itself cannot have been so strictly organised that outsiders and the priests of the lower alien religions never obtained entrance to it. As shown by Mr. Crooke, many foreign elements, both individuals and groups, have at various times been admitted into the caste.

4. Mixed elements in the caste.

The early texts indicate that Brahmans were in the habit of forming connections with the widows of Rajanyas and Vaishyas, even if they did not take possession of the wives of such men while they were still alive. The sons of Angiras, one of the great ancestral sages, were Brahmans as well as Kshatriyas. The descendants of Garga, another well-known eponymous ancestor, were Kshatriyas by birth but became Brahmans. Visvamitra was a Kshatriya, who, by the force of his austerities, compelled Brahma to admit him into the Brahmanical order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha with whom he had quarrelled. According to a passage in the Mahabharata all castes become Brahmans when once they have crossed the Gomti on a pilgrimage to the hermitage of Vasishtha. In more recent times there are legends of persons created Brahmans by Hindu Rajas. Sir J. Malcolm in Central India found many low-caste female slaves in Brahman houses, the owners of which had treated them as belonging to their own caste.

It would appear also that in some cases the caste priests of different castes have become Brahmans. Thus the Saraswat Brahmans of the Punjab are the priests of the Khatri caste. They have the same complicated arrangement of exogamy and hypergamy as the Khatris, and will take food from that caste. It seems not improbable that they are really descendants of Khatri priests who have become Brahmans.

Similarly such groups as the Oswal, Srimal and Palliwal Brahmans of Rajputana, who are priests of the subcastes of Banias of the same name, may originally have been caste priests and become Brahmans. The Naramdeo Brahmans, or those living on the Nerbudda River, are said to be descendants of a Brahman father by a woman of the Naoda or Dhimar caste; and the Golapurab Brahmans similarly of a Brahman father and Ahir mother. In many cases, such as the island of Onkar Mandhata in the Nerbudda in Nimar, and the Mahadeo caves at Pachmarhi, the places of worship of the non-Aryan tribes have been adopted by Hinduism and the old mountain or river gods transformed into Hindu deities. At the same time it is not improbable that the tribal priests of the old shrines have been admitted into the Brahman caste.

5. Caste subdivisions.

The Brahman caste has ten main territorial divisions, forming two groups, the Panch-Gaur or five northern, and the Panch-Dravida or five southern. The boundary line between the two groups is supposed to be the Nerbudda River, which is also the boundary between Hindustan and the Deccan. But the Gujarati Brahmans belong to the southern group, though Gujarat is north of the Nerbudda. The five northern divisions are:

(a) Saraswat.--These belong to the Punjab and are named after the Saraswati river of the classical period, on whose banks they are supposed to have lived.

(b) Gaur.--The home of these is the country round Delhi, but they say that the name is from the old Gaur or Lakhnauti kingdom of Bengal. If this is correct, it is difficult to understand how they came from Bengal to Delhi contrary to the usual tendency of migration. General Cunningham has suggested that Gaura was also the name of the modern Gonda District, and it is possible that the term was once used for a considerable tract in northern India as well as Bengal, since it has come to be applied to all the northern Brahmans.

(c) Kankubja or Kanaujia.--These are named after the old town of Kanauj on the Ganges near Cawnpore, once the capital of India. The Kanaujia are the most important of the northern groups and extend from the west of Oudh to beyond Benares and into the northern Districts of the Central Provinces. Here they are subdivided into four principal groups--the Kanaujia, Jijhotia, Sarwaria and Sanadhya, which are treated in annexed subordinate articles.

(d) Maithil.--They take their name from Mithila, the old term for Bihar or Tirhut, and belong to this tract.

(e) Utkal.--These are the Brahmans of Orissa.

The five groups of the Panch-Dravida are as follows:

(a) Maharashtra.--These belong to the Maratha country or Bombay. They are subdivided into three main territorial groups--the Deshasth, or those of the home country, that is the Poona tract above the Western Ghats; the Konkonasth, who belong to the Bombay Konkan or littoral; and the Karhara, named after a place in the Satara District.