CHAPTER III. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCIENT HINDUS
The first complete picture of the state of Hindu society is afforded by the code of laws which bears the name of Manu, and which was probably drawn up in the ninth century before Christ. But to gain accurate notions even of the people contemporary with the supposed Manu we must remember that a code is never the work of a single age, some of the earliest and rudest laws being preserved and incorporated with the improvements of the most enlightened times. To take a familiar example, there are many of the laws in Blackstone, the existence of which proves a high state of refinement in the nation; but those relating to witchcraft, and the wager of battle, afford no correspondent proof of the continuance of barbarism down to the age in which the commentaries were written.
Even if the whole code referred to one period, it would not show the real state of manners. Its injunctions are drawn from the model to which it is wished to raise the community, and its prohibitions from the worst state of crime which it was possible to apprehend. It is to the general spirit of the code, therefore, that we must look for that of the age; and even then, we must soften the features before we reach the actual condition of the people. We have adhered to the usual phraseology in speaking of this compilation; but, though early adopted as an unquestionable authority for the law, we should scarcely venture to regard it as a code drawn up for the regulation of a particular state under the sanction of a government. It seems rather to be the work of a learned man, designed to set forth his idea of a perfect commonwealth under Hindu institutions. On this supposition it would show the state of society as correctly as a legal code; since it is evident that it incorporates the existing laws, and any alterations it may have introduced, with a view to bring them up to its preconceived standard of perfection, must still have been drawn from the opinions which prevailed when it was written. These considerations being premised, we shall now give an outline of the information contained in Manu.
DIVISION AND EMPLOYMENT OF CLASSES
The first feature that strikes us in the society described by Manu is the division into four classes or castes (the sacerdotal, the military, the industrial, and the servile). In these we are struck with the prodigious elevation and sanctity of the Brahmans, and the studied degradation of the lowest class.
The three first classes, though by no means equal, are yet admitted into one pale: they all partake in certain sacred rites, to which peculiar importance is attached throughout the code; and they appear to form the whole community for whose government the laws are framed. The fourth class and the outcasts are no further considered than as they contribute to the advantage of the superior castes.
A Brahman is the chief of all created beings; the world and all in it are his: through him, indeed, other mortals enjoy life; by his imprecations he could destroy a king, with his troops, elephants, horses, and cars; could frame other worlds and regents of worlds, and could give being to new gods and new mortals. A Brahman is to be treated with more respect than a king. His life and person are protected by the severest laws in this world, and the most tremendous denunciations for the next. He is exempt from capital punishment, even for the most enormous crimes. His offences against other classes are treated with remarkable lenity, while all offences against him are punished with tenfold severity.
Yet it would seem, at first sight, as if the Brahmans, content with gratifying their spiritual pride, had no design to profit by worldly wealth or power. The life prescribed to them is one of laborious study, as well as of austerity and retirement.
The first quarter of a Brahman’s life he must spend as a student; during which time he leads a life of abstinence and humiliation. His attention should be unremittingly directed to the Vedas, and should on no account be wasted on worldly studies. He should treat his preceptor with implicit obedience, and with humble respect and attachment, which ought to be extended to his family. He must perform various servile offices for his preceptor, and must labour for himself in bringing logs and other materials for sacrifice, and water for oblations. He must subsist entirely by begging from door to door.
For the second quarter of his life, he lives with his wife and family, and discharges the ordinary duties of a Brahman. These are briefly stated to be, reading and teaching the Vedas; sacrificing and assisting others to sacrifice; bestowing alms, and accepting gifts.
The most honourable of these employments is teaching. It is remarkable that, unlike other religions, where the dignity of the priesthood is derived from their service at the temples, a Brahman is considered as degraded by performing acts of worship or assisting at sacrifices, as a profession. All Brahmans are strongly and repeatedly prohibited from receiving gifts from low-born, wicked, or unworthy persons. They are not even to take many presents from unexceptionable givers, and are carefully to avoid making it a habit to accept of unnecessary presents. When the regular sources fail, a Brahman may, for a mere subsistence, glean, or beg, or cultivate, or even (in case of extreme necessity) he may trade; but he must in no extremity enter into service; he must not have recourse to popular conversation, must abstain from music, singing, dancing, gaming, and generally from everything inconsistent with gravity and composure.
He should, indeed, refrain from all sensual enjoyments, should avoid all wealth that may impede his reading the Vedas, and should shun all worldly honour as he would shun poison. Yet he is not to subject himself to fasts, or other needless severities. All that is required is, that his life should be decorous and occupied in the prescribed studies and observances. Even his dress is laid down with minuteness; and he may easily be figured (much as learned Brahmans are still), quiet and demure, clean and decent, “his hair and beard clipped, his passions subdued, his mantle white, and his body pure”; with a staff and a copy of the Vedas in his hands, and bright golden rings in his ears. When he has paid the three debts, by reading the scriptures, begetting a son, and performing the regular sacrifices, he may (even in the second portion of his life) make over all to his son, and remain in his family house, with no employment but that of an umpire.
The third portion of a Brahman’s life he must spend as an anchorite in the woods. Clad in bark or in the skin of a black antelope, with his hair and nails uncut, sleeping on the bare earth, he must live “without fire, without a mansion, wholly silent, feeding on roots and fruit.” He must also submit to many and harsh mortifications, expose himself, naked, to the heaviest rains, wear humid garments in winter, and in summer stand in the midst of five fires under the burning sun. He must carefully perform all sacrifices and oblations, and consider it his special duty to fulfil the prescribed forms and ceremonies of religion.
In the last period of his life, the Brahman is nearly as solitary and abstracted as during the third. But he is now released from all forms and external observances: his business is contemplation; his mortifications cease. His dress more nearly resembles that of ordinary Brahmans; and his abstinence, though still great, is not so rigid as before. He is no longer to invite suffering, but is to cultivate equanimity and to enjoy delight in meditation on the Divinity; till, at last, he quits the body “as a bird leaves the branch of a tree at its pleasure.”
Thus it appears that during three-fourths of a Brahman’s life, he was entirely secluded from the world, and during the remaining fourth, besides having his time completely occupied by ceremonies and in reading the Vedas, he was expressly debarred from the enjoyment of wealth or pleasure and from the pursuit of ambition. But a little further acquaintance with the code makes it evident that these rules are founded on a former condition of the Brahmans; and that, although still regarded as the model for their conduct, they had already been encroached on by the temptations of power and riches.
The king must have a Brahman for his most confidential counsellor; and by Brahmans is he to be instructed in policy as well as in justice and all learning. The whole judicial authority (except that exercised by the king in person) is in the hands of Brahmans; and, although the perusal of the sacred writings is not withheld from the two nearest classes, yet the sense of them is only to be obtained through the exposition of a Brahman.
The interpretation of the laws is expressly confined to the Brahmans; and we can perceive, from the code itself, how large a share of the work of legislation was in the hands of that order.
THE PROPERTY OF THE BRAHMAN
The property of the sacred class is as well protected by the law as its power. Liberality to Brahmans is made incumbent on every virtuous man, and is the especial duty of a king. Sacrifices and oblations, and all the ceremonies of religion, involve feasts and presents to the Brahmans, and those gifts must always be liberal: “the organs of sense and action, reputation in this life, happiness in the next, life itself, children, and cattle, are all destroyed by a sacrifice offered with trifling gifts to the priests.” Many penances may be commuted for large fines, which all go to the sacred class. If a Brahman finds a treasure, he keeps it all; if it is found by another person, the king takes it, but must give one-half to the Brahmans. On failure of heirs, the property of others escheats to the king, but that of Brahmans is divided among their class. A learned Brahman is exempt from all taxation, and ought, if in want, to be maintained by the king.
Stealing the gold of Brahmans incurs an extraordinary punishment, which is to be inflicted by the king in person, and is likely, in most cases, to be capital. Their property is protected by many other denunciations: and for injuring their cattle, a man is to suffer amputation of half his foot.
The military class, though far from being placed on an equality with the Brahmans, is still treated with honour. It is indeed acknowledged that the sacerdotal order cannot prosper without the military, or the military without the sacerdotal; and that the prosperity of both in this world and the next depends on their cordial union.
Costume of an Indian Warrior
(Based on Soluzen and Dreger)
The military class enjoys, in a less degree, with respect to the Vaisyas, the same inequality in criminal law that the Brahman possesses in respect to all the other classes. The king belongs to this class, as probably do all his ordinary ministers. The command of armies and of military divisions, in short, the whole military profession, and in strictness all situations of command, are also their birthright. It is indeed very observable, that even in the code drawn up by themselves, with the exception of interpreting the law, no interference in the executive government is ever allowed to Brahmans.
The duties of the military class are stated to be, to defend the people, to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the Vedas, and to shun the allurements of sensual gratification.
The rank of Vaisyas is not high; for where a Brahman is enjoined to show hospitality to strangers, he is directed to show benevolence even to a merchant and to give him food at the same time with his domestics. Besides largesses, sacrifice, and reading the Vedas, the duties of a Vaisya are to keep herds of cattle, to carry on trade, to lend at interest, and to cultivate the land.
The practical knowledge required from a Vaisya is more general than that of the other classes; for in addition to a knowledge of the means of breeding cattle, and a thorough acquaintance with all commodities and all soils, he must understand the productions and wants of other countries, the wages of servants, the various dialects of men, and whatever else belongs to purchase and sale.
THE DESPISED SUDRA
The duty of a Sudra is briefly stated to be to serve the other classes, but it is more particularly explained in different places that his chief duty is to serve the Brahmans; and it is specially permitted to him, in case of want of subsistence and inability to procure service from that class, to serve a Kshattriya; or if even that service cannot be obtained, to attend on an opulent Vaisya. It is a general rule that, in times of distress, each of the classes may subsist by the occupations allotted to those beneath it, but must never encroach on the employments of those above it. A Sudra has no class beneath him; but, if other employments fail, he may subsist by handicrafts, especially joinery and masonry, painting, and writing.
A Sudra may perform sacrifices with the omission of the holy texts; yet it is an offence requiring expiation for a Brahman to assist him in sacrificing. A Brahman must not read the Veda, even to himself, in the presence of a Sudra. To teach him the law, or to instruct him in the mode of expiating sin, sinks a Brahman into the hell called Asamvrita.
It is even forbidden to give him temporal advice. No offence is more repeatedly or more strongly inveighed against than that of a Brahman receiving a gift from a Sudra: it cannot even be expiated by penance, until the gift has been restored. A Brahman, starving, may take dry grain from a Sudra, but must never eat meat cooked by him. A Sudra is to be fed by the leavings of his master, or by his refuse grain, and clad in his worn-out garments.
He must amass no wealth, even if he has the power, lest he become proud, and give pain to Brahmans.
If a Sudra use abusive language to one of a superior class, his tongue is to be slit. If he sit on the same seat with a Brahman, he is to have a gash made on the part offending. If he advise him about his religious duties, hot oil is to be dropped into his mouth and ears.
These are specimens of the laws, equally ludicrous and inhuman, which are made in favour of the other classes against the Sudras.
The proper name of a Sudra is directed to be expressive of contempt, and the religious penance for killing him is the same as for killing a cat, a frog, a dog, a lizard, and various other animals.
Yet, though the degraded state of a Sudra be sufficiently evident, his precise civil condition is by no means so clear. Sudras are universally termed the servile class; and, in one place, it is declared that a Sudra, though emancipated by his master, is not released from a state of servitude, “for,” it is added, “of a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested?”
Yet every Sudra is not necessarily the slave of an individual; for it has been seen that they are allowed to offer their services to whom they please, and even to exercise trades on their own account: there is nothing to lead to a belief that they are the slaves of the state; and, indeed, the exemption of Sudras from the laws against emigration shows that no perfect right to their services was deemed to exist anywhere.
Their right to property (which was denied to slaves) is admitted in many places. Their persons are protected, even against their masters, who can only correct them in a manner fixed by law, and equally applicable to wives, children, pupils, and younger brothers.
That there were some Sudra slaves is indisputable; but there is every reason to believe that men of the other classes were also liable to fall into servitude.
The condition of Sudras, therefore, was very much better than that of the public slaves under some ancient republics, and, indeed, than that of the villeins of the Middle Ages, or any other servile class with which we are acquainted.
MIXTURE OF CLASSES
Though the line between the different classes was so strongly marked, the means taken to prevent their mixture do not seem to have been nearly so much attended to as in after times. The law in this respect seems rather dictated by jealousy of the honour of the women of the higher classes than by regard for the purity of descents.
Men of the first three classes are freely indulged in the choice of women from any inferior caste, provided they do not give them the first place in their family. But no marriage is permitted with women of a higher class; criminal intercourse with them is checked by the severest penalties, and their offspring is degraded far below either of its parents. The son of a Brahman, by a woman of the class next below him, takes a station intermediate between his father and mother; and the daughters of such connections, if they go on marrying Brahmans for seven generations, restore their progeny to the original purity of the sacerdotal class; but the son of a Sudra by a Brahman woman is a Chandala, “the lowest of mortals,” and his intercourse with women of the higher classes produces “a race more foul than their begetter.”
The classes do not seem to have associated at their meals even in the time of Manu; and there is a striking contrast between the cordial festivity recommended to Brahmans with their own class, and the constrained hospitality with which they are directed to prepare food after the Brahmans for a military man coming as a guest.
But there is no prohibition in the code against eating with other classes, or partaking of food cooked by them (which is now the great occasion for loss of caste), except in the case of Sudras; and even then the offence is expiated by living on water gruel for seven days.
Loss of caste seems, in general, to have been incurred by crimes, or by omitting the prescribed expiations for offences.
It is remarkable that, in the four classes, no place is assigned to artisans: Sudras, indeed, are permitted to practise mechanic trades during a scarcity of other employment, but it is not said to whom the employment regularly belongs.
From some of the allotments, it would appear that the artisans were supplied, as they are now, from the mixed classes: a circumstance which affords ground for surmise that the division into castes took place while arts were in too simple a state to require separate workmen for each; and also that many generations had elapsed between that division and the code, to allow so important a portion of the employments of the community to be filled by classes formed subsequently to the original distribution of the people.[c]
This distribution of the whole people into four classes only, and the appropriation of them to four species of employment,—an arrangement which, in the very simple state of society in which it must have been introduced, was a great step in improvement,—must have become productive of innumerable inconveniences, as the wants of society multiplied. The bare necessaries of life, with a small number of its rudest accommodations, are all it prepares to meet the desires of man. As those desires speedily extend beyond such narrow limits, a struggle must have early ensued between the first principles of human nature and those of the political establishment. The different castes were strictly commanded to marry with those only of their own class and profession; and the mixture of the classes from the union of the sexes was guarded against by the severest laws.[19] This was an occurrence, however, which laws could not prevent. Irregularities took place; children were born, who belonged to no caste, and for whom there was no occupation. No event could befall society more calamitous than this. Unholy and infamous, on account of that violation of the sacred law to which they owed their unwelcome birth, those wretched outcasts had no resource for subsistence, excepting either the bounty of the established classes, to whom they were objects of execration and abhorrence; or the plunder of those same classes, a course to which they would betake themselves with all the ingenuity of necessitous, and all the atrocity of much injured, men. When a class of this description became numerous, they must have filled society with the greatest disorders. In the preface of that compilation of the Hindu Laws, which was translated by Mr. Halhed, it is stated that, after a succession of good kings, who secured obedience to the laws, and under whom the people enjoyed felicity, came a monarch evil and corrupt, under whom the laws were violated, the mixture of the classes was perpetrated, and a new and impious race were produced. The Brahmans put this wicked king to death, and, by an effort of miraculous power, created a successor endowed with the most excellent qualities. But the kingdom did not prosper, by reason of the Burren Sunker, so were this impure brood denominated; and it required the wisdom of this virtuous king to devise a remedy. He resolved upon a classification of the mixed race, and to assign them occupations. This, accordingly, was the commencement of arts and manufactures. The Burren Sunker became all manner of artisans and handicrafts; one tribe of them weavers of cloth, another artificers in iron, and so on in other cases, till the subdivisions of the class were exhausted, or the exigencies of the community supplied.
Thus were remedied two evils at once. The increasing wants of an improving society were provided for; and a class of men, the pest of the community, were converted to its service. This is another important era in the history of Hindu society; and having reached this stage, it does not appear that it has made, or that it is capable of making, much further progress. Thirty-six branches of the impure class are specified in the sacred books, of whom and of their employments it would be tedious and useless to present the description. The highest is that sprung from the conjunction of a Brahman with a woman of the Kshattriya class whose duty is the teaching of military exercises. The lowest of all is the offspring of a Sudra with a woman of the sacred class. This tribe are denominated Chandalas, and are regarded with great abhorrence. Their profession is to carry out corpses, to execute criminals, and perform other offices, reckoned to the last degree unclean and degrading. If, by the laws of Hindustan, the Sudras are placed in a low and vile situation, the impure and mixed classes are placed in one still more odious and degrading. Nothing can equal the contempt and insolence to which it is the lot of the lowest among them to see themselves exposed. They are condemned to live in a sequestered spot by themselves, that they may not pollute the very town in which they reside. If they meet a man of the higher castes, they must turn out of the way, lest he should be contaminated by their presence.
“Avoid,” says the Tantra, “the touch of the Chandala, and other abject classes. Whoever associates with them undoubtedly falls from his class; whoever bathes or drinks in wells or pools which they have caused to be made, must be purified by the five productions of kine.”[20] From this outline of the classification and distribution of the people, as extracted from the books of the Hindus, some of the most intelligent of our British observers appeal to the present practice of the people, which they affirm is much more conformable to the laws of human welfare, than the institutions described in the ancient books. Of this, the author is aware; so inconsistent with the laws of human welfare are the institutions described in the Hindu ancient books, that they never could have been observed with any accuracy; it is, at the same time, very evident, that the institutions described in the ancient books are the model upon which the present frame of Hindu society has been formed; and when we consider the powerful causes which have operated so long to draw, or rather to force, the Hindus from their inconvenient institutions and customs, the only source of wonder is, that the state of society which they now exhibit should hold so great a resemblance to that which is depicted in their books. The President de Goguet is of opinion, that a division of the people into tribes and hereditary professions similar to that of the Hindus existed in the ancient Assyrian empire, and that it prevailed from the highest antiquity over almost all Asia. Cecrops distributed into four tribes all the inhabitants of Attica. Theseus afterwards made them three by uniting, as it should seem, the sacerdotal class with that of the nobles, or magistrates. They consisted then of nobles and priests, labourers or husbandmen, and artificers; and there is no doubt that, like the Egyptians and Indians, they were hereditary. Aristotle expressly informs us that in Crete the people were divided by the laws of Minos into classes after the manner of the Egyptians. We have most remarkable proof of a division, the same as that of the Hindus, anciently established among the Persians. In the Zendavesta, translated by Anquetil Duperron, is the following passage: “Ormuzd said: There are three measures (literally weights, that is, tests, rules) of conduct, four states, and five places of dignity.—The states are: that of the priests; that of the soldier; that of the husbandman, the source of riches; and that of the artisan or labourer.” There are sufficient vestiges to prove an ancient establishment of the same sort among the Buddhists of Ceylon, and by consequence to infer it among the other Buddhists over so large a portion of Asia.[d]
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
As Manu’s code mapped out Hindu life in fine detail, it gives especially definite rules for the laws and the courts. Justice is to be administered by the king in person, assisted by Brahmans and other counsellors; or that function may be deputed to one Brahman, aided by three assessors of the same class.
The king is entitled to five per cent. on all debts admitted by the defendant on trial, and to ten per cent. on all denied and proved. This fee probably went direct to the judges, who would thus be remunerated without infringing the law against Brahmans serving for hire. A king or judge in trying causes is carefully to observe the countenances, gestures, and mode of speech of the parties and witnesses. He is to attend to local usages of districts, the peculiar laws of classes and rules of families, and the customs of traders: when not inconsistent with the above, he is to observe the principles established by former judges. Neither he nor his officers are to encourage litigation, though they must show no slackness in taking up any suit regularly instituted.
A king is reckoned among the worst of criminals who receives his revenue from his subjects without affording them due protection in return. The king is enjoined to bear with rough language from irritated litigants, as well as from old or sick people, who come before him. He is also cautioned against deciding causes on his own judgment, without consulting persons learned in the law; and is positively forbidden to disturb any transaction that has once been settled conformably to law. In trials he is to adhere to established practice.
Criminal Law
The criminal law is very rude, and this portion of the code, together with the religious penances, leaves a more unfavourable impression of the early Hindus than any other part of the institutes.
It is not, however, sanguinary, unless when influenced by superstition or by the prejudice of caste; and if punishments are, in some cases, too severe, in others they are far too lenient. Mutilation (chiefly of the hand) is among the punishments, as in all Asiatic codes. Burning alive is one of the inflictions on offenders against the sacerdotal order; but it is an honourable distinction from most ancient codes that torture is never employed either against witnesses or criminals.
The punishments, though not always in themselves severe, are often disproportioned to the offence; and are frequently so indistinctly or contradictorily declared as to leave the fate of an offender quite uncertain; such are the punishments for adultery and what are called overt acts of adulterous inclination. Among these last are included, talking to the wife of another man at a place of pilgrimage, or in a forest, or at the confluence of rivers; sending her flowers or perfumes; touching her apparel or her ornaments, and sitting on the same couch with her; yet the penalty is banishment, with such bodily marks as may excite aversion.
For adultery itself, it is first declared, without reserve, that the woman is to be devoured by dogs, and the man burned on an iron bed; yet, in the verses next following, it appears that the punishment of adultery without aggravation is a fine of from 500 to 1000 panas.
The punishment, indeed, increases in proportion to the dignity of the party offended against. Even a soldier committing adultery with a Brahman woman, if she be of eminently good qualities, and properly guarded, is to be burned alive in a fire of dry grass or reeds. These flat contradictions can only be accounted for by supposing that the compiler put down the laws of different periods, or those supported by different authorities, without considering how they bore on each other.
There is no express punishment for murder. From one passage it would appear that it (as well as arson and robbery attended with violence) is capital, and that the slighter punishments mentioned in other places were in cases where there was no premeditation; but, as the murder of particular descriptions of persons is afterwards declared capital, it remains doubtful what is the punishment for the offence in simple cases.
Theft is punished, if small, with fine; if of greater amount, with cutting off the hand; but if the thief be taken with the stolen goods upon him, it is capital. Receivers of stolen goods, and persons who harbour thieves, are liable to the same punishment as the thief. It is remarkable that, in cases of small theft, the fine of a Brahman offender is at least eight times as great as that of a Sudra, and the scale varies in a similar manner and proportion between all the classes. A king committing an offence is to pay a thousand times as great a fine as would be exacted from an ordinary person. Robbery seems to incur amputation of the limb principally employed. If accompanied with violence it is capital; and all who shelter robbers, or supply them with food or implements, are to be punished with death.
Abusive language is still more distinguished for the inequality of punishments among the castes, but even in this branch of the law are traces of a civilised spirit. Men reproaching their neighbours with lameness, blindness, or any other natural infirmity, are liable to a small fine, even if they speak the truth. Assaults, if among equals, are punished by a fine of 100 panas for blood drawn, a larger sum for a wound, and banishment for breaking a bone. The prodigious inequalities into which the penalty runs between men of different classes have already been noticed.
The offences of physicians or surgeons who injure their patients for want of skill; breaking hedges, palisades, and earthen idols; mixing pure with impure commodities, and other impositions on purchasers, are all lumped up under a penalty of from 250 to 500 panas. Selling bad grain for good, however, incurs severe corporal punishment; and, what far more passes the limits of just distinction, a goldsmith guilty of fraud is ordered to be cut to pieces with razors.
Some offences not noticed by other codes are punished in this one with whimsical disregard to their relative importance; forsaking one’s parents, son, or wife, for instance, is punished by a fine of 600 panas; and not inviting one’s next neighbour to entertainments on certain occasions by a fine of one masha of silver.
Gamesters, public dancers, and singers, revilers of scripture, open heretics, men who perform not the duties of their several classes, and sellers of spirituous liquors, are to be instantly banished the town.
Civil Law
The laws for civil judicature are very superior to the penal code, and, indeed, are much more rational and matured than could well be expected of so early an age.
The law of evidence in many particulars resembles that of England: persons having a pecuniary interest in the cause, infamous persons, menial servants, familiar friends, with others disqualified on slighter grounds, are in the first instance excluded from giving testimony; but, in default of other evidence, almost every description of persons may be examined, the judge making due allowances for the disqualifying causes.
Two exceptions which disgrace these otherwise well-intentioned rules have attracted more attention in Europe than the rules themselves. One is the declaration that a giver of false evidence, for the purpose of saving the life of a man of whatever class, who may have exposed himself to capital punishment, shall not lose a seat in heaven; and, though bound to perform an expiation, has, on the whole, performed a meritorious action.
The other does not relate to judicial evidence, but pronounces that, in courting a woman, in an affair where grass or fruit has been eaten by a cow, and in case of a promise made for the preservation of a Brahman, it is no deadly sin to take a light oath. From these passages it has been assumed that the Hindu law gives a direct sanction to perjury; and to this has been ascribed the prevalence of false evidence, which is common to men of all religions in India: yet there is more space devoted in this code to the prohibition of false evidence than to that of any other crime, and the offence is denounced in terms as awful as have ever been applied to it in any European treatise either of religion or of law.
“Naked and shorn, tormented with hunger and thirst, and deprived of sight, shall the man who gives false evidence go with a potsherd to beg food at the door of his enemy.”—“Headlong, in utter darkness, shall the impious wretch tumble into hell, who, being interrogated on a judicial inquiry answers one question falsely.”
A creditor is authorised, before complaining to the court, to recover his property by any means in his power, resorting even to force within certain bounds. This law still operates so strongly in some Hindu states, that a creditor imprisons his debtor in his private house, and even keeps him for a period without food and exposed to the sun, to compel him to produce the money he owes. Interest varies from two per cent. per mensem for a Brahman to five per cent. for a Sudra.
The rules regarding man and wife are full of puerilities; the most important ones shall be stated after a short account of the laws relating to marriage. Six forms of marriage are recognised as lawful. Of these, four only are allowed to Brahmans, which (though differing in minute particulars) all agree in insisting that the father shall give away his daughter without receiving a price. The remaining two forms are permitted to the military class alone, and are abundantly liberal even with that limitation. One is, when a soldier carries off a woman after a victory, and espouses her against her will; and the other, when consummation takes place by mutual consent, without any formal ceremony whatever. Two sorts of marriage are forbidden: when the father receives a nuptial present; and when the woman, from intoxication, or other cause, has been incapable of giving a real consent to the union.
A girl may be married at eight, or even earlier; and, if her father fails to give her a husband for three years after she is marriageable (i.e., capable of being a parent), she is at liberty to choose one for herself. Men may marry women of the classes below them, but on no account of those superior to their own. A man must not marry within six known degrees of relationship on either side, nor with any woman whose family name, being the same, shows her to be of the same race as his own. The marriage of people of equal class is performed by joining hands; but a woman of the military class, marrying a Brahman, holds an arrow in her hand; a Vaisya woman a whip; and a Sudra, the skirt of a mantle. The marriage of equals is most recommended, for the first wife at least: that of a Brahman with a Sudra is discouraged; and, as a first wife, it is positively forbidden.
Marriage is indissoluble, and the parties are bound to observe mutual fidelity. From the few cases hereafter specified, in which the husband may take a second wife, it may be inferred that, with those exceptions, he must have but one wife. A man may marry again on the death of his wife; but the marriage of widows is discouraged, if not prohibited (except in the case of Sudras). A wife who is barren for eight years, or she who has produced no male children in eleven, may be superseded by another wife.
It appears, notwithstanding this expression, that the wife first married retains the highest rank in the family. Drunken and immoral wives, those who bear malice to their husbands, or are guilty of very great extravagance, may also be superseded. A wife who leaves her husband’s house, or neglects him for a twelvemonth, without a cause, may be deserted altogether.
A man going abroad must leave a provision for his wife. The wife is bound to wait for her absent husband for eight years, if he be gone on religious duty; six, if in pursuit of knowledge or fame; and three, if for pleasure only. The practice of allowing a man to raise up issue to his brother, if he died without children, or even if (though still alive) he have no hopes of progeny, is reprobated, except for Sudras, or in case of a widow who has lost her husband before consummation.
The natural heirs of a man are the sons of his body, and their sons, and the sons of his daughters, when appointed in default of heirs male to raise up issue to him. The son of his wife, begotten by a near kinsman, at some time when his own life had been despaired of, according to the practice formerly noticed (which, though disapproved of as heretical, would appear to be recognised when it has actually taken place), is also entitled to inherit as a son. On the failure of issue of the above description, an adopted son succeeds: such a son loses all claim on the inheritance of his original father; and is entitled to a sixth of the property of his adoptive one, even if, subsequently to his adoption, sons of the body should be born. On failure of the above heirs follow ten descriptions of sons, such as never could have been thought of but by Hindus, with whom the importance of a descendant for the purpose of performing obsequies is superior to most considerations. Among these are included the son of a man’s wife by an uncertain father, begotten when he himself has long been absent, and the son of his wife of whom she was pregnant, without his knowledge, at the time of the marriage. The illegitimate son of his daughter by a man whom she afterwards marries, the son of a man by a married woman who has forsaken her husband, or by a widow, are also admitted into this class; as are, last of all, his own sons by a Sudra wife. These and others (ten in all) are admitted, by a fiction of the law, to be sons, though the author of the code himself speaks contemptuously of the affiliation, even as affording the means of efficacious obsequies.[c]
HINDU COMMERCE
The Hindus in their most ancient works of poetry are represented as a commercial people. And it is one evidence of the prosperity and well-being of a country, that its merchants can travel from one place to another with perfect security to themselves and their merchandise. But further, the regulations of society appear to have awarded a high rank to persons who were employed in the business of commerce. In the Ramayana we are informed, that at the triumphal entry of Rama into his capital, “all the men of distinction, together with the merchants and chief men of the people,” went out to meet him; and the procession is closed by the warriors, tradesmen, and artisans.
The internal commerce of India could not have been inconsiderable, as it was in a certain degree prescribed by nature herself. For the sandy shores of the peninsula, not producing in sufficient quantity the first necessaries of life, and particularly rice, the importation of these articles from the country bordering on the Ganges became absolutely indispensable. In return for which the latter received chiefly spices; and among other valuables, precious stones, and the fine pearls only to be procured in the ocean which surrounds the former. Although cotton, one of the most important materials used for clothing, is common all over India, and manufactured with the same activity on the coasts of the peninsula as in the land of the Ganges, yet the fabric of the two countries differs so much in texture, that a commercial interchange of both kinds would naturally be introduced.
Precious Metals
The great quantity of the precious metals, particularly gold, possessed by India, may well excite our attention and surprise. Though it had neither gold nor silver mines, it has always been celebrated even in the earliest times for its riches. The Ramayana frequently mentions gold as in abundant circulation throughout the country. And the nuptial present made to Sita, we are told, consisted of a whole measure of gold pieces, and a vast quantity of the same precious metal in ingots. Golden chariots, golden trappings for elephants and horses, and golden bells, are also noticed as articles of luxury and magnificence; and it has been already shown, in the course of our inquiries into Phœnician commerce, that the Hindus were the only people subject to that empire who paid their tribute in gold and not in silver. The quantity of this metal then current in India will therefore enable us to infer, with reason, the existence of a considerable foreign commerce and trade with the gold countries.
Without doubt commercial transactions with India during the time of the Romans, and for some time afterwards, were principally carried on in ready money, which is more than once mentioned as an article of importation. And who does not recollect the complaints of the elder Pliny, of the vast sums annually absorbed by the commerce with India? How, indeed, could the case have been otherwise, when a country, which produced in superabundance every possible article, whether required for the necessaries of life or the refinements of luxury, would of course export a great deal, while it imported little or nothing in return; so that the commercial balance would always be in its favour. Hence it followed, that from the moment she possessed a foreign commerce, India would enrich herself with the precious metals by a necessary consequence from the very nature of things, and not by any fortuitous concourse of circumstances.
Coinage; Precious Stones; Weaving
This naturally brings us to the question, whether the Hindus possessed a regular coinage, and how far back the use of it extends. There is no doubt that the precious metals, gold and silver, particularly gold, were in very ancient times the established medium of exchange in India; but this, however, will not prove it to have been coined. If we can repose any confidence in the published translations of native works, the use of coined money would appear to have prevailed in very remote times; for it is expressly mentioned in the fable of Krishna.
Precious stones and pearls, both of them indigenous productions, may be comprised among the most ancient objects of Hindu luxury, and, therefore, of commerce; and they are even expressly recommended by Manu, together with coral and woven stuffs, as the most important articles on which the Vaisyas were carefully to inform themselves as to price, etc. It would be superfluous to adduce proofs on this head from native works; for even the oldest specimens of Hindu sculpture, found in the rock temples, sufficiently attest it. According to the Periplus, precious stones of every kind were brought from the interior to the port of Nelkynda; among these, diamonds and rubies are particularly noticed; and as the former is a native of India, we may reasonably conclude that some of the mines where they are found must have been worked at a very remote period.
The use and manufacture of ornamental works in ivory is equally ancient throughout India. Pendants for the ear, and necklaces, both of that material, form the ordinary decorations of the divinities of Elephanta, as was observed to be the case even in Alexander’s time. Above all, the art of working in ivory must have attained a high degree of perfection, from the circumstance, that the ornamental chains above noticed seem to have been carved out of a single piece.
According to the unanimous report both of history and tradition, weaving is reckoned among the most important manufactures of ancient India; a country which nature has abundantly furnished with all kinds of raw material for the purpose, and especially cotton. We are not informed, however, who was the inventor of the simple loom used by the Hindus, which from its first origin does not appear to have undergone any alteration. The variety of cloth fabrics mentioned even by the author of the Periplus, as articles of commerce, is so great, that we can hardly suppose the number to have increased afterwards. We there read of the finest Bengal muslins; of coarse, middle, and fine cloths, either plain or striped; of coarse and fine calicoes; of coloured shawls and sashes; of coarse and fine purple goods, as well as pieces of gold embroidery; of spun silk and furs from Serica. The cotton garments of the Hindus were the first to draw the attention of the Greeks, from the extraordinary whiteness of the cloth; and they are described as being made and worn in the same manner as at the present day. The accounts we find of this cloth in the prophet Ezekiel would lead us to similar conclusions. That the “coloured cloths and rich apparel” brought to Tyre and Babylon from distant countries were partly of Indian manufacture will scarcely be doubted, after what has been already said of the extent of the Phœnician and Babylonian commerce.
Intoxicants; Spices; Perfumery
Of strong and intoxicating liquors, ancient India was acquainted with more than one sort; the use of them, however, was by no means general. The Ramayana distinguishes the Surs, who indulged themselves in these liquors, from the Asurs, who abstained from them; two sects which even at that time must have been of pretty ancient standing, as they are noticed in the old fable about the descendants of Aditi (who are the Surs) and Diti (who are the Asurs).
Under the head of strong liquors, wine is more than once mentioned in the Ramayana. If we suppose this to mean wine made from grapes, it must, in that case, have been imported; because, to the best of our knowledge, they do not press the grape in India itself. It is very doubtful, however, whether this sort of wine is to be understood in the passages alluded to; and even admitting it to have been introduced into the country as early as the time of the Ramayana, it would scarcely be the usual drink of common soldiers, any more than it is at the present day. It appears, indeed, much more probable that palm-wine is intended by the expression; as this could be easily made in any part of India, and was, moreover, in the time of the Periplus, imported from Arabia, which is the reason of its being called Arabian wine.
The strong liquors, however, in most general use throughout India, appear to have been those obtained by distillation. The Ramayana mentions a beverage of this sort procured from fruits and the sugar-cane; and in Manu we find three principal kinds distinguished, according as the liquors in question were distilled from molasses, bruised rice, or the Madhuca-flower. Of the last we know nothing beyond the mere name; the two former are most likely equivalent to the arrack and rum of modern times. The Brahmans are forbidden the use of all three.
India is the mother country of spices; and we have already shown, in the course of our inquiries into Phœnician commerce, that, from the most ancient times, she supplied the whole Western world with that article. Although in the few native works at our present disposal there is no particular mention made of spices, yet we cannot possibly doubt of their consumption in the country itself. This silence, however, is merely the effect of accidental causes; for neither Manu or the Ramayana had any special occasion of alluding to the subject. But it is quite certain that pepper was very early known to the Western world as an article of commerce; for Theophrastus even distinguishes several varieties of it. Together with the spice itself, the name also of pepper seems to have migrated, probably through Persia, into the countries of the West. There is little doubt that it came originally from the southern parts of Malabar, from Cochin and the neighbourhood; which was noticed for its growth of pepper by Cosmas in the sixth century, and indeed is so at the present day.
With respect to articles of perfumery, we are enabled to speak more decisively. These are of various kinds, partly foreign, as frankincense, and partly indigenous, as the sandal-wood, which is frequently mentioned in the Ramayana and the Gitagovinda, and was in common use throughout India as well as China.
Perfumes in general, and particularly frankincense, were from the most ancient times not confined solely to the purposes of sacrifice; they were also indispensable requisites in Hindu private life, and above all on festal occasions; an example of which will be found in the Ramayana, where the poet describes the solemn entry of Bharata into his grandfather’s capital: “The inhabitants, after having watered the streets, had sprinkled them with sand, and garnished them with flower-pots, ranged in order, and containing fragrant plants in full blossom. The city was adorned with garlands, and exhaled the odours of frankincense and sweet-smelling perfumes.” The quantity of frankincense consumed in India deserves to be particularly remarked, as it is not an indigenous production, but imported from Arabia. Many other kinds of perfume are mentioned in the Periplus as being of native growth; we can scarcely, therefore, doubt their having been used in very remote antiquity.
This is not the place for enumerating in detail all the objects of commerce mentioned in the earliest accounts of India; such, for instance, as female slaves, destined for the replenishing of harems; different sorts of colours, as lac and indigo; together with base and precious metals; not forgetting the celebrated Indian steel, and many other valuable productions. But enough has been already said for the purpose of showing the extent of ancient Hindu commerce, considered with reference to its principal objects.
Commercial Routes
The nature of the country, however, rendered the internal commerce of India different from that of the rest of Asia, in respect of transportation; for it was not necessary, nor indeed was it always possible, to employ caravans, as in the extensive tracts of inner Asia. That this mode of conveyance was nevertheless occasionally resorted to, we learn from the beautiful episode of Nala, where Damayanti in her flight is represented to have joined a caravan of merchants. But the beasts of burden made use of, in this instance, are tame elephants, which were therefore attacked in the night and dispersed by their wild brethren of the forest; and besides, the caravan in question appears to have belonged to some royal personage, rather than to a company of private merchants. The greatest part of India, that is to say, the whole of the peninsula, being traversed with rocky mountains, would scarcely, if at all, admit of the employment of camels; and the moderate distances between one town and another, and the general spread of civilisation, would enable merchants to travel alone with perfect security, while river navigation and the coasting trade afforded unusual facilities for transporting merchandise.
The Ganges and its tributary streams were the grand commercial routes of northern India; and mention is also made of navigation on the rivers of the peninsula in the south. It is not improbable, indeed, that artificial routes between the Ganges and the Indus, as we find to have been the case in aftertimes, existed even at an earlier period. The great high-roads across the country are not only frequently mentioned in the Ramayana; but we also read of a particular class of men who were commissioned to keep them in repair. According to Arrian, the commercial intercourse between the eastern and western coasts was carried on in country-built vessels; and when we consider the high antiquity of the pearl-fisheries in the straits of Ceylon, together with the necessary requisites thereto, we can hardly doubt that such was also the case many hundred years before his time. It would appear, then, that conveyance of merchandise by means of a caravan, as in other countries of the East, continued always foreign to the practice of India, unless the multitudes of pilgrims and penitents, that were continually resorting to places of sanctity, may be said to have compensated for the want of it. The almost innumerable crowds that yearly flock to Benares, Jagannath, and elsewhere, amounting to many hundred thousands of souls, would obviously give rise to a species of commerce united with devotion; and markets and fairs would be a natural, and indeed an indispensable requisite to satisfy the wants of such throngs of people. And consequently, too, the establishments called choultries, the erection of which was considered a religious duty, and whose forms not unfrequently displayed all the magnificence of native architecture, might be said to have a similar destination with the caravanseries of other Eastern countries, without, however, the resemblance between the two being exactly perfect.
The nature of the country and its productions, together with the peculiar genius of the people themselves, both contributed to render Hindu commerce of a passive rather than an active character. For as the productions of India were always in high request with the Western world, the Hindus would clearly have no occasion to transport them to foreign countries themselves; they would of course expect the inhabitants of the latter to come and fetch what they wanted. And again, the Hindu national character has no pretensions to that hardy spirit of adventure, which is capable of achieving the most extraordinary undertakings. While their fables abound with prodigious enterprise, the people themselves are content to lead a quiet and peaceful life, with just so much activity as is requisite to guide the plough or direct the shuttle, without running the risk of hazardous and unnecessary adventure. Their India—their Jambu-dvipa, comprised in their estimation the limits of the known world. Separated from the rest of Asia by a chain of impassable mountains on the north; while on all other sides the ocean formed a barrier, which, if their laws are silent on the subject, yet at least their habits or their customs would not permit them to transgress; we can find no certain proof that the Hindus were ever mariners.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[19] The original system seems to have been very lax in this respect, and each caste might take wives from the caste or castes below them, as well as their own. “A Sudra woman only, must be the wife of a Sudra; she and a Vaisya of a Vaisya; they too and a Kshattriya of a Kshattriya; those too and a Brahmani of a Brahman.” Manu, iii. 13. And although it was a sin for a Brahman to marry a Sudra woman, yet such things did happen.
[20] Colebrooke on the Indian Classes, Asiat. Research., Vol. LIII.
The Indian Army on the March
Ancient Indian Bas-relief