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THE PLACE OF THE BRAHMAN

While the class structure is immensely complicated, and varies in character from region to region, everywhere the highest role is assigned to the priestly class, the Brahmans. That the four classes - the priests (Brahman), warrior (kshatriya), peasant (vaishya), and serf (shudra) - were regarded as the basic form of the special order is shown in the Hymn of Man in the Rig Veda. In social terms, the highest and lowest classes were probably the most important, since the Brahmans controlled the religious institutions and the shudras composed the bulk of the composition.

The selection given here indicates the extent of the claims made by the priests, and while the literature from which this type of statement comes was written by Brahmans who would presumably forward their own class interests, it represents the ideal generally accepted by all classes in the society. Over against the assertion of rights made by the Brahmans for themselves must be set the role they assigned the shudras. The general implication is that the lower orders have obligations which can be understood as rights only in a secondary way.

A number of possibilities ought to be kept in mind in reading passages from the ancient texts dealing with class structure. On the one hand, they may be statements of hard social fact, a description of the ways things were, and not the definition of an ideal society. On the other hand, the passages may be examples of rather fanatical pretensions by priests, who while anxious to define the boundaries of the classes, were never actually able to carry out their prescriptions. This would seem, for example, to be the only explanation possible for such statements as "a shudra is the servant of another, to be slain at will," Such a policy would have led to social anarchy, whereas the emphasis was always on social order.

......Those who spit, or throw filth upon a Brahman, sit eating hair in the midst of a stream of blood. So long as this Brahman's cow is cut up and cooked, she destroys the glory of the kingdom; no vigorous hero is born there. It is cruel to slaughter her; her ill-flavoured flesh is thrown away. When her milk is drunk, that is esteemed a sin among the Forefathers. Whenever a king, fancying himself mighty, seeks to devour a Brahman, that kingdom is broken up, in which a Brahman is oppressed. Becoming eight-footed, four-eyed, four-eared, four-jawed, two-faced, two-tongued, she (the cow) shatters the kingdom of the oppressor of Brahmans. (Ruin) overflows that kingdom, as water swamps a leaky boat: calamity smites that country in which a priest is wronged. Even trees, O Narada, repel, and refuse their shade to, the man who claims a right to the property of a Brahman. This (property), as king Varuna hath said, has been turned into a poison by the gods. No one who has eaten a Brahman's cow continues to watch (i.e. to rule) over a country.....

The gods have declared that the cloth wherewith a dead man's feet are bound shall be thy pall, thou oppressor of priests. The tears which flow from a persecuted man as he laments, - such is the portion of water which the gods have assigned to thee that portion of water wherewith men wash the dead, and moisten beards. The rain of Mitra and Varuna does not descend on the oppressor of priests. For him the battle has never a successful issue; nor does he bring his friend into subjection.

(from Atharva Veda, V:19)