A man of Colebrooke’s power, however, was too useful to the Indian Government to be passed over altogether, and though his career was neither rapid nor brilliant, it was nevertheless most successful. Just at the time when Sir W. Jones had died suddenly, Colebrooke was removed from the revenue to the judicial branch of the Indian service, and there was no man in India, except Colebrooke, who could carry on the work which Sir W. Jones had left unfinished, viz.: “The Digest of Hindu and Mohammedan Laws.” At the instance of Warren Hastings, a clause had been inserted in the Act of 1772, providing that “Maulavies and Pundits should attend the Courts, to expound the law and assist in passing the decrees.” In all suits regarding inheritance, marriage, caste, and religious usages and institutions, the ancient laws of the Hindus were to be followed, and for that purpose a body of laws from their own books had to be compiled. Under the direction of Warren Hastings, nine Brahmans had been commissioned to draw up a code, which appeared in 1776, under the title of “Code of Gentoo Laws.”[2] It had been originally compiled in Sanskrit, then translated into Persian, and from that into English. As that code, however, was very imperfect, Sir W. Jones had urged on the Government the necessity of a more complete and authentic compilation. Texts were to be collected, after the model of Justinian’s Pandects, from law-books of approved authority, and to be digested according to a scientific analysis, with references to original authors. The task of arranging the text-books and compiling the new code fell chiefly to a learned Pandit, Jagannâtha, and the task of translating it was now, after the death of Sir W. Jones, undertaken by Colebrooke. This task was no easy one, and could hardly be carried out without the help of really learned pandits. Fortunately Colebrooke was removed at the time when he undertook this work, to Mirzapur, close to Benares, the seat of Brahmanical learning, in the north of India, and the seat of a Hindu College. Here Colebrooke found not only rich collections of Sanskrit MSS, but likewise a number of law pandits, who could solve many of the difficulties which he had to encounter in the translation of Jagannâtha’s Digest. After two years of incessant labor, we find Colebrooke on January 3, 1797, announcing the completion of his task, which at once established his position as the best Sanskrit scholar of the day. Oriental studies were at that time in the ascendant in India. A dictionary was being compiled, and several grammars were in preparation. Types also had been cut, and for the first time Sanskrit texts issued from the press in Devanâgarî letters. Native scholars, too, began to feel a pride in the revival of their ancient literature. The Brahmans, as Colebrooke writes, were by no means averse to instruct strangers; they did not even conceal from him the most sacred texts of the Veda. Colebrooke’s “Essays on the Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus,” which appeared in the fifth volume of the “Asiatic Researches” in the same year as his translation of the “Digest,” show very clearly that he had found excellent instructors, and had been initiated in the most sacred literature of the Brahmans. An important paper on the Hindu schools of law seems to date from the same period, and shows a familiarity, not only with the legal authorities of India, but with the whole structure of the traditional and sacred literature of the Brahmans, which but few Sanskrit scholars could lay claim to even at the present day. In the fifth volume of the “Asiatic Researches” appeared also his essay “On Indian Weights and Measures,” and his “Enumeration of Indian Classes.” A short, but thoughtful memorandum on the origin of caste, written during that period, and printed for the first time in his “Life,” will be read with interest by all who are acquainted with the different views of living scholars on this important subject.
Colebrooke’s idea was that the institution of caste was not artificial or conventional, but that it began with the simple division of freemen and slaves, which we find among all ancient nations. This division, as he supposes, existed among the Hindus before they settled in India. It became positive law after their emigration from the northern mountains into India, and was there adapted to the new state of the Hindus, settled among the aborigines. The class of slaves or Śûdras consisted of those who came into India in that degraded state, and those of the aborigines who submitted and were spared. Menial offices and mechanical labor were deemed unworthy of freemen in other countries besides India, and it cannot therefore appear strange that the class of the Śûdras comprehended in India both servants and mechanics, both Hindus and emancipated aborigines. The class of freemen included originally the priest, the soldier, the merchant, and the husbandman. It was divided into three orders, the Brâhmaṇas, Kshatriyas, and Vaiśyas, the last comprehending merchants and husbandmen indiscriminately, being the yeomen of the country and the citizens of the town. According to Colebrooke’s opinion, the Kshatriyas consisted originally of kings and their descendants. It was the order of princes, rather than of mere soldiers. The Brâhmaṇas comprehended no more than the descendants of a few religious men who, by superior knowledge and the austerity of their lives, had gained an ascendency over the people. Neither of these orders was originally very numerous, and their prominence gave no offense to the far more powerful body of the citizens and yeomen.
When legislators began to give their sanction to this social system, their chief object seems to have been to guard against too great a confusion of the four orders—the two orders of nobility, the sacerdotal and the princely, and the two orders of the people, the citizens and the slaves, by either prohibiting intermarriage, or by degrading the offspring of alliances between members of different orders. If men of superior married women of inferior, but next adjoining, rank, the offspring of their marriage sank to the rank of their mothers, or obtained a position intermediate between the two. The children of such marriages were distinguished by separate titles. Thus, the son of a Brâhmaṇa by a Kshatriya woman was called Mûrdhâbhishikta, which implies royalty. They formed a distinct tribe of princes or military nobility, and were by some reckoned superior to the Kshatriya. The son of a Brâhmaṇa by a Vaiśya woman was a Vaidya or Ambashṭha; the offspring of a Kshatriya by a Vaisya was a Mahishya, forming two tribes of respectable citizens. But if a greater disproportion of rank existed between the parents—if, for instance, a Brâhmaṇa married a Śûdra, the offspring of their marriage, the Nishâda, suffered greater social penalties; he became impure, notwithstanding the nobility of his father. Marriages, again, between women of superior with men of inferior rank were considered more objectionable than marriages of men of superior with women of inferior rank, a sentiment which continues to the present day.
What is peculiar to the social system, as sanctioned by Hindu legislators, and gives it its artificial character, is their attempt to provide by minute regulations for the rank to be assigned to new tribes, and to point out professions suitable to that rank. The tribes had each an internal government, and professions naturally formed themselves into companies. From this source, while the corporations imitated the regulations of tribes, a multitude of new and arbitrary tribes sprang up, the origin of which, as assigned by Manu and other legislators, was probably, as Colebrooke admits, more or less fanciful.
In his “Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal,” the subject of caste in its bearing on the social improvement of the Indian nation was likewise treated by Colebrooke. In reply to the erroneous views then prevalent as to the supposed barriers which caste placed against the free development of the Hindus, he writes:—
“An erroneous doctrine has been started, as if the great population of these provinces could not avail to effect improvements, notwithstanding opportunities afforded by an increased demand for particular manufactures or for raw produce: because, ‘professions are hereditary among the Hindus; the offspring of men of one calling do not intrude into any other; professions are confined to hereditary descent; and the produce of any particular manufacture cannot be extended according to the increase of the demand, but must depend upon the population of the caste, or tribe, which works on that manufacture; or, in other words, if the demand for any article should exceed the ability of the number of workmen who produce it, the deficiency cannot be supplied by calling in assistance from other tribes.’
“In opposition to this unfounded opinion, it is necessary that we not only show, as has been already done, that the population is actually sufficient for great improvement, but we must also prove, that professions are not separated by an impassable line, and that the population affords a sufficient number whose religions prejudices permit, and whose inclination leads them to engage in, those occupations through which the desired improvement may be effected.
“The Muselmans, to whom the argument above quoted cannot in any manner be applied, bear no inconsiderable proportion to the whole population. Other descriptions of people, not governed by Hindu institutions, are found among the inhabitants of these provinces; in regard to these, also, the objection is irrelevant. The Hindus themselves, to whom the doctrine which we combat is meant to be applied, cannot exceed nine tenths of the population; probably, they do not bear so great a proportion to the other tribes. They are, as is well known, divided into four grand classes; but the three first of them are much less numerous than the Śûdra. The aggregate of Brâhmaṇa, Kshatriya, and Vaiśya may amount, at the most, to a fifth of the population; and even these are not absolutely restricted to their own appointed occupations. Commerce and agriculture are universally permitted; and, under the designation of servants of the other three tribes, the Śûdras seem to be allowed to prosecute any manufacture.
“In this tribe are included not only the true Śûdras, but also the several castes whose origin is ascribed to the promiscuous intercourse of the four classes. To these, also, their several occupations were assigned; but neither are they restricted, by rigorous injunctions, to their own appointed occupations. For any person unable to procure a subsistence by the exercise of his own profession may earn a livelihood in the calling of a subordinate caste, within certain limits in the scale of relative precedence assigned to each; and no forfeiture is now incurred by his intruding into a superior profession. It was, indeed, the duty of the Hindu magistrate to restrain the encroachments of inferior tribes on the occupations of superior castes; but, under a foreign government, this restraint has no existence.
“In practice, little attention is paid to the limitations to which we have here alluded: daily observation shows even Brâhmanas exercising the menial profession of a Sûdra. We are aware that every caste forms itself into clubs, or lodges, consisting of the several individuals of that caste residing within a small distance; and that these clubs, or lodges, govern themselves by particular rules and customs, or by laws. But, though some restrictions and limitations, not founded on religious prejudices, are found among their by-laws, it may be received, as a general maxim, that the occupation appointed for each tribe is entitled merely to a preference. Every profession, with few exceptions, is open to every description of persons, and the discouragement arising from religious prejudices is not greater than what exists in Great Britain from the effects of municipal and corporation laws. In Bengal, the numbers of people actually willing to apply to any particular occupation are sufficient for the unlimited extension of any manufacture.