All these classes had been in existence for centuries before any such thing as caste was known on Indian soil; and the only thing that was needed to convert them into castes, such as they now are, was that the Brāhman, who possessed the highest of all functions—the priestly—should set the example. This he did by establishing for the first time the rule that no child, either male or female, could inherit the name and status of Brāhman, unless he or she was of Brāhman parentage on both sides. By the establishment of this rule the principle of marriage unionship was superadded to that of functional unionship; and it was only by the combination of these two principles that a caste in the strict sense of the term could or can be formed. The Brāhman, therefore, as the Hindu books inform us, was "the first-born of castes." When the example had thus been set by an arrogant and overbearing priesthood, whose pretensions it was impossible to put down, the other hereditary classes followed in regular order downward, partly in imitation and partly in self-defence. Immediately behind the Brāhman came the Kshatriya, the military chieftain or landlord. He therefore was the "second-born of castes." Then followed the bankers or upper trading classes (the Agārwal, Khattri, etc.); the scientific musician and singer (Kathak); the writing or literary class (Kāyasth); the bard or genealogist (Bhāt); and the class of inferior nobles (Taga and Bhuinhār) who paid no rent to the landed aristocracy. These, then, were the third-born of castes. Next in order came those artisan classes, who were coeval with the age and art of metallurgy; the metallurgic classes themselves; the middle trading classes; the middle agricultural classes, who placed themselves under the protection of the Kshatriya and paid him rent in return (Kurmi, Kāchhi, Māli, Tāmboli); and the middle serving classes, such as Napit and Baidya, who attended to the bodily wants of their equals and superiors. These, then, were the fourth-born of castes; and their rank in the social scale has been determined by the fact that their manners and notions are farther removed than those of the preceding castes from the Brāhmanical ideal. Next came the inferior artisan classes, those who preceded the age and art of metallurgy (Teli, Kumhār, Kalwār, etc.); the partly nomad and partly agricultural classes (Jāt, Gūjar, Ahir, etc.); the inferior serving classes, such as Kahār; and the inferior trading classes, such as Bhunja. These, then, were the fifth-born of castes, and their mode of life is still farther removed from the Brāhmanical ideal than that of the preceding. The last-born, and therefore the lowest, of all the classes are those semisavage communities, partly tribes and partly castes, whose function consists in hunting or fishing, or in acting as butcher for the general community, or in rearing swine and fowls, or in discharging the meanest domestic services, such as sweeping and washing, or in practicing the lowest of human arts, such as basket-making, hide-tanning, etc. Thus throughout the whole series of Indian castes a double test of social precedence has been in active force, the industrial and the Brāhmanical; and these two have kept pace together almost as evenly as a pair of horses harnessed to a single carriage. In proportion as the function practiced by any given caste stands high or low in the scale of industrial development, in the same proportion does the caste itself, impelled by the general tone of society by which it is surrounded, approximate more nearly or more remotely to the Brāhmanical idea of life. It is these two criteria combined which have determined the relative ranks of the various castes in the Hindu social scale.
5. Caste and the Sentiments of Caste Reflected in Popular Speech[228]
No one indeed can fail to be struck by the intensely popular character of Indian proverbial philosophy and by its freedom from the note of pedantry which is so conspicuous in Indian literature. These quaint sayings have dropped fresh from the lips of the Indian rustic; they convey a vivid impression of the anxieties, the troubles, the annoyances, and the humors of his daily life; and any sympathetic observer who has felt the fascination of an oriental village would have little difficulty in constructing from these materials a fairly accurate picture of rural society in India. The mise en scène is not altogether a cheerful one. It shows us the average peasant dependent upon the vicissitudes of the season and the vagaries of the monsoon, and watching from day to day to see what the year may bring forth. Should rain fall at the critical moment his wife will get golden earrings, but one short fortnight of drought may spell calamity when "God takes all at once." Then the forestalling Baniya flourishes by selling rotten grain, and the Jāt cultivator is ruined. First die the improvident Musalmān weavers, then the oil-pressers for whose wares there is no demand; the carts lie idle, for the bullocks are dead, and the bride goes to her husband without the accustomed rites. But be the season good or bad, the pious Hindu's life is ever overshadowed by the exactions of the Brāhman—"a thing with a string round its neck" (a profane hit at the sacred thread), a priest by appearance, a butcher at heart, the chief of a trio of tormentors gibbeted in the rhyming proverb:
Blood-suckers three on earth there be,
The bug, the Brāhman, and the flea.
Before the Brāhman starves the king's larder will be empty; cakes must be given to him while the children of the house may lick the grindstone for a meal; his stomach is a bottomless pit; he eats so immoderately that he dies from wind. He will beg with a lakh of rupees in his pocket, and a silver begging-bowl in his hand. In his greed for funeral fees he spies out corpses like a vulture, and rejoices in the misfortunes of his clients. A village with a Brāhman in it is like a tank full of crabs; to have him as a neighbor is worse than leprosy; if a snake has to be killed the Brāhman should be set to do it, for no one will miss him. If circumstances compel you to perjure yourself, why swear on the head of your son, when there is a Brāhman handy? Should he die (as is the popular belief) the world will be none the poorer. Like the devil in English proverbial philosophy, the Brāhman can cite scripture for his purpose; he demands worship himself but does not scruple to kick his low-caste brethren; he washes his sacred thread but does not cleanse his inner man; and so great is his avarice that a man of another caste is supposed to pray "O God, let me not be reborn as a Brāhman priest, who is always begging and is never satisfied." He defrauds even the gods; Vishnu gets the barren prayers while the Brāhman devours the offerings. So Pan complains in one of Lucian's dialogues that he is done out of the good things which men offer at his shrine.
The next most prominent figure in our gallery of popular portraits is that of the Baniya, money-lender, grain-dealer, and monopolist, who dominates the material world as the Brāhman does the spiritual. His heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed; he has the jaws of an alligator and a stomach of wax; he is less to be trusted than a tiger, a scorpion, or a snake; he goes in like a needle and comes out like a sword; as a neighbor he is as bad as a boil in the armpit. If a Baniya is on the other side of a river you should leave your bundle on this side, for fear he should steal it. When four Baniyas meet they rob the whole world. If a Baniya is drowning you should not give him a hand: he is sure to have some base motive for drifting down stream. He uses light weights and swears that the scales tip themselves; he keeps his accounts in a character that no one but God can read; if you borrow from him, your debt mounts up like a refuse heap or gallops like a horse; if he talks to a customer he "draws a line" and debits the conversation; when his own credit is shaky he writes up his transactions on the wall so that they can easily be rubbed out. He is so stingy that the dogs starve at his feast, and he scolds his wife if she spends a farthing on betel-nut. A Jain Baniya drinks dirty water and shrinks from killing ants and flies, but will not stick at murder in pursuit of gain. As a druggist the Baniya is in league with the doctor; he buys weeds at a nominal price and sells them very dear. Finally, he is always a shocking coward: eighty-four Khatris will run away from four thieves.
Nor does the clerical caste fare better at the hands of the popular epigrammatist. Where three Kāyasths are gathered together a thunderbolt is sure to fall; when honest men fall out the Kāyasth gets his chance. When a Kāyasth takes to money-lending he is a merciless creditor. He is a man of figures; he lives by the point of his pen; in his house even the cat learns two letters and a half. He is a versatile creature, and where there are no tigers he will become a shikāri; but he is no more to be trusted than a crow or a snake without a tail. One of the failings sometimes imputed to the educated Indian is attacked in the saying, "Drinking comes to a Kāyasth with his mother's milk."
Considering the enormous strength of the agricultural population of India, one would have expected to find more proverbs directed against the great cultivating castes. Possibly the reason may be that they made most of the proverbs, and people can hardly be expected to sharpen their wit on their own shortcomings. In two provinces, however, the rural Pasquin has let out very freely at the morals and manners of the Jāt, the typical peasant of the eastern Punjab and the western districts of the United Provinces. You may as well, we are told, look for good in a Jāt as for weevils in a stone. He is your friend only so long as you have a stick in your hand. If he cannot harm you he will leave a bad smell as he goes by. To be civil to him is like giving treacle to a donkey. If he runs amuck it takes God to hold him. A Jāt's laugh would break an ordinary man's ribs. When he learns manners, he blows his nose with a mat, and there is a great run on the garlic. His baby has a plowtail for a plaything. The Jāt stood on his own corn heap and called out to the King's elephant-drivers, "Hi there, what will you take for those little donkeys?" He is credited with practicing fraternal polyandry, like the Venetian nobility of the early eighteenth century, as a measure of domestic economy, and a whole family are said to have one wife between them.
The Doms, among whom we find scavengers, vermin-eaters, executioners, basket-makers, musicians, and professional burglars, probably represent the remnants of a Dravidian tribe crushed out of recognition by the invading Aryans and condemned to menial and degrading occupations. Sir G. Grierson has thrown out the picturesque suggestion that they are the ancestors of the European gypsies and that Rom or Romany is nothing more than a variant of Dom. In the ironical language of the proverbs the Dom figures as "the lord of death" because he provides the wood for the Hindu funeral pyre. He is ranked with Brāhmans and goats as a creature useless in time of need. A common and peculiarly offensive form of abuse is to tell a man that he has eaten a Dom's leavings. A series of proverbs represents him as making friends with members of various castes and faring ill or well in the process. Thus the Kanjar steals his dog, and the Gūjar loots his house; on the other hand, the barber shaves him for nothing, and the silly Jolāhāa makes him a suit of clothes. His traditions associate him with donkeys, and it is said that if these animals could excrete sugar, Doms would no longer be beggars. "A Dom in a palanquin and a Brāhman on foot" is a type of society turned upside down. Nevertheless, outcast as he is, the Dom occupies a place of his own in the fabric of Indian society. At funerals he provides the wood and gets the corpse clothes as his perquisite; he makes the discordant music that accompanies a marriage procession; and baskets, winnowing-fans, and wicker articles in general are the work of his hands.
In the west of India, Mahārs and Dheds hold much the same place as the Dom. In the walled villages of the Marāthā country the Mahār is the scavenger, watchman, and gate-keeper. His presence pollutes; he is not allowed to live in the village; and his miserable shanty is huddled up against the wall outside. But he challenges the stranger who comes to the gate, and for this and other services he is allowed various perquisites, among them that of begging for broken victuals from house to house. He offers old blankets to his god, and his child's playthings are bones. The Dhed's status is equally low. If he looks at a water jar he pollutes its contents; if you run up against him by accident, you must go off and bathe. If you annoy a Dhed he sweeps up the dust in your face. When he dies, the world is so much the cleaner. If you go to the Dheds' quarter you find there nothing but a heap of bones.