Deconstructing the caste system

Like the Brahman who must go back to the original division in the Purusasukta, each caste has its own theory explaining its origins. Not a...

Like the Brahman who must go back to the original division in the Purusasukta, each caste has its own theory explaining its origins. Not always is the occupation aspect uppermost in these tales of genesis. But often in the origin tales of the so-called lower castes, the occupational aspect is mentioned, as in the tales of the Telis and the Kumhars, but without implying that such occupations are degrading in any manner. In occupational valuations, and in other aspects too, individual caste ideologies are markedly different from Brahmanical versions. We shall illustrate this difference by reproducing below the tales of origin of the lowly Chamars, the even lower Chandals, and of the upper caste Kayasthas, as related by members of these castes. Note how pervasive the difference is between the Brahmanical view of how these three castes and the views that these castes have of their own origins.

Caste 1 — The Chamars. The orthodox view regarding the origin of Chamars is as follows:

According to the Puranas, the Chamars are descended from a boatman and Chandal woman; but if we are to identify them with the Karavara, or leather worker, mentioned in the tenth chapter of Ma-nu, the father of the caste was a Nishada and the mother a Vaideha (Risley 1891: Vol1, 175).

The Chamars view their origin as follows:

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Chamars trace their pedigree to Ravi or Rui Das, the disciple of Ramanada at the end of the fourteenth century…Another tradition current among them alleges that their original ancestor was the youngest of four Brahman brethren who went to bathe in a river and found a cow struggling in quicksand. They sent the youngest brother in to rescue the animal, but before he could get it out the cow died. He was compelled therefore by his brothers to remove the carcass, and after he had done this they turned him out of their caste and gave him the name of Chamar. (Ibid:176.)

Caste II — The Chandals. The orthodox view is the following:

Manu brands them as the lowest of mankind; sprung from the illicit intercourse of a Sudra man with a Brahman woman, whose touch defiles the pure and who have no ancestral rites. (Ibid:184.)

The Chandals themselves, however, view their origins differently. Thus, according to a tradition of the Dacca Chandals, they were formerly Brahmans, who became degraded by eating with Sudras…(Ibid.) Whereas the orthodox view claims that the Chandals have no ancestral rites, `the Chandal celebrates the Sraddha on the eleventh day as Brahmans do, and the Gayawal priests conduct the obsequies ceremonies without compunction.’ (Ibid.)

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Caste III — The Kayasthas. `The Kayasthas themselves reject the theory which gives them for an ancestor Karan, the son of a Vaisya father by a Sudra mother’. (Ibid: 438.)

But the Kayasthas of Bengal go `so far as to argue that the five Kayasthas of the tradition were political officers in charge as Kshatriyas on a mission from Kannauj to the king of Bengal, and that the five Brahmans played quite a subordinate part in the transaction, if indeed they were anything more than the cooks of the five Kayasthas’. (Ibid:439)

These examples could indeed be multiplied ad nauseum, but they would all point to one single fact. The elaboration of the pure hierarchy from the Brahman’s point of view is not shared by other castes…Excerpted from `Interrogating Caste’, by Dipankar Gupta; Penguin; Rs 250

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