India, Its Life and Thought. John P. Jones
The Social Theory.—Some hold with Sir Denzil Ibbetson, in the Census Report of 1881, "that caste is far more a social than a religious institution; that it has no necessary connection whatever with the Hindu religion, further than that under that religion certain ideas and customs common to all primitive nations have been developed and perpetuated in an unusual degree." This is acknowledged to be an exaggerated statement. It may possibly be true that "caste has no necessary connection with Hinduism," but it is emphatically true that caste, as understood by all, does not exist apart from that faith.
It is, however, a fact that divisions have occurred within castes, owing to the development of slight social differences between the members. For instance, several castes have been created by the degradation of members of the existing castes on account of their marriage of widows. The Pandarams of South India are held in distinction among the begging castes because of their abstention from meat, alcohol, and widow marriage. Indeed, it is interesting to note that a former caste status has been more frequently lost by, and degradation to a new caste has been consequent upon, the adoption of widow marriage, than through almost any other act. And, at present, this prohibition of the marriage of widows, including child widows, is the most tenaciously and unrighteously enforced caste custom in India.
(d) The Occupational Theory.—All regard fellowship in the same trade, or occupation, as the most prolific source of caste alignment, in modern times at least. Ibbetson contends that "the whole basis of diversity of caste is diversity of occupation. The old division into Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, Sudra, and Mlechha, or outcast, who is below the Sudra, is but a division into the priest, the warrior, the husbandman, the artisan, and the menial. … William Priest, John King, Edward Farmer, and James Smith are but the survivals in England of the four varnas of Manu." (Census of 1881.) This statement needs serious qualification. Farming, which is followed to-day by a majority of the population of India, is an occupation which is subsidized by no caste and is followed practically by the members of all castes. The Brahmans are the only ones who are degraded by following the plough. And there is a growing number of trades, introduced by modern civilization, which have not yet been touched by the caste system, and which the enterprising youth of different grades of Hindu society are entering with eagerness. And yet, while this is a fact, it is equally true that the functional type of castes is developing and spreading much more rapidly than any other. In the town of Madura, a few of the families, from the weaver caste, opened a remunerative trade in the manufacture of fireworks. They at first began it as an extra, to add to their very meagre income. Gradually it encroached upon their time until it became their sole occupation. To-day they are prospering in their new trade. But to them and their castemen their change of trade involves the transfer of caste relations. No longer being weavers, they do not see how they can continue to be bound by ties to their former castemen or former fellow-tradesmen; hence the old connubial and convivial bonds of caste are relaxing, and the weavers decline to have fellowship with them as formerly on these lines. Thus, in all parts of the land, we have present-day illustrations of the creation of functional castes. And it is an interesting inquiry whether this mania for creating a new caste for every rising trade and occupation will finally overcome and absorb all occupations created by the demands of modern life and advancing civilization, or whether it will in time succumb to the spirit of modern progress until all occupations shall be emancipated from the tyranny of caste and shall be open to all men who desire to enter them.
(e) The Crossing Theory.—According to Manu's Dharma Sastra one might be led to believe, as Hindus do stoutly maintain, that nearly all modern castes have been created by interbreeding. Those caste laws of twenty-five centuries ago taught that the offspring of the union of a woman of higher with a man of lower caste could belong to the caste of neither parent, and therefore formed a new and a separate caste. The names of castes thus formed are given with much detail in Manu's works. But it does not require much wisdom for one to perceive the absurdity of the working out of such a system, and the impossibility connected with it as an adequate basis for the caste organization of the present day. Yet interbreeding has doubtless been an important element in the elaboration of the stupendous caste organization. We have abundant illustration of this very process and its results in modern times. Among the Dravidians, especially, there are many castes which trace their origin to miscegenation. Among the Munda tribe we find nine such divisions; also five among the Mahilis, who themselves claim their descent from the union of a Munda with a Santhal woman.
This will not be unexpected when it is remembered that endogamy is the prime law of most Hindu castes; and this, too, in a land where immorality and adultery are so prevalent. Other sources of Hindu castes are mentioned. Some, like the Mahrattas, have behind them national traditions, and a history to which they refer and of which they are proud. Others, still, have, by migrating from the home of the mother caste, severed their connection from the parent stock and have formed a separate and independent caste.
It is unnecessary to state that not one of the above theories is adequate to account for all the existing castes of the land. These forces have entered, with varying degrees of efficiency, into their structure—one being dominant as a causal power in one, and another in another. And yet it may be stated that of all these caste-producing forces religion and occupation have had marked preëminence; and they are more influential to-day than ever before.
II
We shall next consider the various Characteristics or Manifestations of Caste. The system is a very flexible one; and yet its characteristics are practically the same in all parts of the country. Perhaps the best way to clearly describe these to a western reader is to quote at length what we may call Mr. Risley's capital western paraphrase of the system in Blackwood's Magazine, a decade ago. "Let us," he writes, "imagine the great tribe of Smith … in which all the subtle nuances of social merit and demerit have been set and hardened into positive regulations affecting the intermarriage of families. The caste thus formed would trace its origin back to a mythical eponymous ancestor, the first Smith, who converted the rough stone hatchet into the bronze battle-axe and took his name from the 'smooth' weapons that he wrought for his tribe. Bound together by this tie of common descent they would recognize as the cardinal doctrine of their community the rule that a Smith must always marry a Smith, and could by no possibility marry a Brown or a Jones. But, over and above this general canon, two other modes or principles of grouping within the caste would be conspicuous. First of all, the entire caste of Smith would be split up into an indefinite number of in-marrying clans, based upon all sorts of trivial distinctions. Brewing Smiths and baking Smiths, hunting Smiths and shooting Smiths, temperance Smiths and licensed victualler Smiths, Smiths with double-barrelled names and hyphens, Smiths with double-barrelled names without hyphens, Conservative Smiths and Radical Smiths, tinker Smiths, tailor Smiths, Smiths of Mercia, Smiths of Wessex—all these and all other imaginable varieties of the tribe Smith would be, as it were, crystallized by an inexorable law forbidding the members of any of these groups to marry beyond the circle marked out by the clan name. … Thus a Hyphen-Smith could only marry a Hyphen-Smith, and so on. Secondly, and this is the point which I more especially wish to bring out here, running through this endless series of clans we should find another principle at work breaking up each clan into three or four smaller groups which form a sort of ascending scale of social distinction. Thus the clan of Hyphen-Smiths, which we take to be the cream of the caste—the Smiths who have attained the crowning glory of double names securely welded together by hyphens—would be again divided into, let us say, Anglican, Dissenting, and Salvationist Hyphen-Smiths, taking ordinary rank in that order. Now the rule of these groups would be that a man of the Anglican could marry a woman of any group, that a man of the Dissenting group could marry into his own or the lowest group, while the Salvationist Smith could only marry into his own group. A woman could, under no circumstance, marry down into a group below her. Other things being equal, it is clear that two-thirds of the Anglican girls would get no husbands, and two-thirds of the Salvationist men no wives. These are some of the restrictions which would control the process of match-making among the Smiths if they were organized in a caste of the Indian type. There would also be restrictions as to food. The different in-marrying clans would