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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
We have seen how the Panjab and the Valley of the Middle Ganges were organized before the sixth century b.c. We have still to answer the question, wherein did this organization consist? It consisted in three things: it established a differentiation in physical type; it created caste; and it brought about a novel intellectual and religious outlook upon life. Of the physical types we need say nothing more; and the intellectual and religious evolution was -in part a concomitant, in part a consequence of the social evolution. Our primary concern, therefore, is to inquire into the origin and development of caste, and as caste was the creation of the Aryo-Dravidians of the middle land, Madhyadēśa, it is among them that we must seek its origin.
page 36 note 1 Macdonell, & Keith, , Vedic Index, i, 230.Google Scholar “In the Ṛig Veda we find 110 prohibition of marriage between relatives. On the contrary, it would seem rather, as e.g. from Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, 1. 8. 3, 6, that marriages between members of the same family were of common occurrence in the ancient period. The union of men and women descended from the same ancestor and of blood relations in the third and fourth degrees is represented as being a general practice.”—Fick, , Encyclopœdia of Religion and Ethics, vol. viGoogle Scholar, s. s.v. Gotra.
page 37 note 1 The warrior caste may have become hereditary before the Ṛig Veda was closed.
page 38 note 1 Vedic Index, ii, 259.Google Scholar
page 40 note 1 On caste and its origin v. Macdonell, & Keith, , Vedic Index, ii, 247 ff.Google Scholar; Risley, , The People of India, pp. 257 ff. (2nd ed.)Google Scholar; Gait, in Hastings, ' Dictionary of Philosophy and Ethics, vol. iiiGoogle Scholar, s.v. Caste; Crooke, W., Tribes and Castes of the North- West Provinces and Oudh, vol. i.Google Scholar Regarding the gotras, which play such a considerable part in the marriage laws of the Brahmans, and the curious parallelism between them and the totemistic rules of the wild tribes, c Fick, , Encyclopœdia of Religion and Ethics, vol. vi, s.v. Gotra.Google Scholar
page 40 note 2 The Laws of Mann, ix, 317.Google Scholar
page 42 note 1 “A feature emphasized by Dr. Oldenberg is the atmosphere of magic in which from the Vedic period religion moves. The priests arc entirely magicians. The idea of Brahman grew up on the basis of a world-concept of the all permeated with powers localized here and there, or moving about freely, and producing their effects by magic.”— Thomas, JRAS. 1918, p. 321; cf. Chanda, R., The Indo-Aryun Race, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar
page 43 note 1 Fick has some excellent remarks on the relations of the BraVimans with the nobles, and the rivalry between the various Brahman families for the highest offices. “The deep-seated antagonism between the Vasiṣṭha and Viśvāmitra septs … was in reality an expression of the struggle for supremacy between the nobility and the priesthood.” “The struggle for the influential and lucrative office of purōhita, the all-powerful adviser of the monarch avid the ruler of the national fortunes, seems to have intensified the mutual antagonism of the gotras; while the Vasisṭhas, by their knowledge of the stomabhāga, maxims, seemed to the Bharatas the most eligible candidates for the office, other gotras also made the same claim on the ground of their distinctive scholarship. To each gotra pertained a particular deity and a particular Veda. It is obvious that the followers of the Atharva Veda, the magic songs of which are in very many cases designed to meet the needs of kings, had the best chances in the competition for the office of purōhita.” —Encyclopœdia of Religion and Ethics, vol. vi, s.v. Gotra.Google Scholar
page 44 note 1 Mr. Pargiter's admirable summaries of the Epic and Puranic traditions enable us to judge somewhat of their merits. The most notable thing about them is their utter oblivion of the pastoral stage, the memories of which linger in the laws of Manu. The Dravidians were naturally ignorant of it, and the Aryan adventurers who had become their chiefs were warriors, not herdsmen. I therefore take these traditions to be the traditions of the Southern Doāb. Thus interpreted they yield a fairly credible story. In Buddhist times Kosambhī, near the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna, was the most important state in the Doāb. It may have been preceded by another nearer the junction of the rivers, a state in which the Dravidians were strong and the hybrid Āryas were chiefs. This state would find the easiest outlet for expansion in the open Doāb north of it; and this is what the legends tell us. I may also note that these semi-Aryan chiefs did remember that they had originally come from the north, i.e. from the Kuru-Panchala country. But of course Brahman invention and fabrication have enveloped the whole in so dense an atmosphere that it is impossible to feel assurance about any details.
page 45 note 1 Barth, , The Religions of India, p. 58.Google Scholar