These three terms are usually used interchangeably. Basically
they refer to a common phenomenon. However, there are some
differences. Historically they refer to three phases in the
history of those who have been classified as the lowest castes of
India.
The Shudras.
This category comes from the Vedas, the sacred texts of the
Hindus. This word "Hindu" also needs an explanation.
"The name Hindu is itself a foreign name. It was given by
the Mohammedans to the natives for the purpose of distinguishing
themselves. It does not occur in any Sanskrit work prior to the
Mohammedan invasion. They did not feel the necessity of a common
name because they had no conception of their having constituted a
community. Hindu society as such does not exist. [42]
It is only a collection of castes. Each caste is conscious of its
existence. Its survival is the be all and end all of its
existence. Castes do not even form a federation. A caste has no
feeling that it is affiliated to other castes except when there
is a Hindu-Muslim riot. On all other occasions each caste
endeavours to segregate itself and to distinguish itself from
other castes. Each caste not only dines among itself and marries
among itself but each caste prescribes its own distinctive
dress." [
43]
The Vedas classified every one into four castes. Ambedkar
explained this thus;
- According to the Brahmins, the Vedas have defined what is
an ideal society and the Vedas being infallible, that is
the only ideal society which man can accept.
- The ideal society prescribed by the Vedas is known by the
name Chaturvarna.
- Such a society, according to the Vedas, must
satisfy three conditions.
- It must be composed of four classes, Brahmins,
Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras.
- The interrelations of these classes must be
regulated by the principle of graded inequality. In other
words, all these classes are not to be on equal level but
to be one above the other, in point of status, rights and
privileges.
- The Brahmins were placed at the top; the
Kshatriyas were placed below the Brahmins but above the
Vaishyas; the Vaishyas were placed below the Kshatriyas
but above the Shudras and the Shudras were placed the
lowest of all
- The third feature of Chaturvarna was that each
class must engage itself in an occupation assigned to it.
The Brahmins' occupation was to learn, teach and
officiate at religious ceremonies. The Kshatriyas'
occupation was to bear arms and to fight. The occupation
of the Vaishyas was trade and business. The Shudras'
occupation was to do menial service for all the three
superior classes.
- No class is to transgress and trench upon the
occupation of the other classes. [
44]
At this stage Shudras still enjoyed some rights. The right to
collect food from villagers, the right to collect corn from each
villager at the harvest seasons and the right to appropriate the
dead animals belonging to the villagers. [45]
The Buddha’s Challenge to Caste
This period of Shudras came to a serious crisis, when Buddha
began to reject the entire doctrine of the Veda’s and
preached equality as against caste. It is one of the great events
of human history when the people of most parts of India were
converted to the preaching of Buddha, in his own lifetime. Later
his teaching spread to most other neighbouring countries.
Ambedkar gives the following as a summary of Buddha’s
teachings on caste:
"The Buddha opposed it root and branch. He was strongest
opponent of caste and the earliest and staunchest upholder of
equality. There is no argument in favour of caste and inequality
which he did not refute. There were many Brahmins who challenged
Buddha on this issue. But he silenced them completely. The story
is told in the Assalayana-Sutta that once the Brahmins persuaded
one of them, by name Assalayana, to go to the Buddha and
controvert his views against caste and inequality. Assalayana
went to the Buddha and placed before him the case in favour of
the superiority of the Brahmins. He said, "Brahmins
maintain, Gautama, that only Brahmins form the superior class,
all other classes being inferior; that only Brahmins form the
white class, all other classes being black fellows; that purity
resides in Brahmins alone and not in non Brahmins; and that only
Brahmins are Brahma's legitimate sons, born from his mouth,
offspring of his, creations of his, and his heirs. What does
Gautama say hereon?" The Buddha's answer simply pulverised
Assalayana. The Buddha said: "Assalayana, are not the
Brahmin wives of Brahmins known to have their periods, and to
conceive, and to lie and give birth? Notwithstanding this do
Brahmins really maintain all what you have said though they are
themselves born of women like everybody else?" Assalayangave
no answer. The Buddha went further and asked Assalayana another
question. "Suppose, Assalayana, a young noble consorts with
a Brahmin maiden, what would be the issue? Will it be an animal
or human being?" Again Assalayana gave no answer. "As
to the possibility of moral development, is it only a Brahmin and
not a man of the other three classes, who in this country, can
develop in his heart the love that knows no hate or
ill-will?" "No. All four classes can do it,"
replied Assalayana. "Assalayana! Have you ever heard,"
asked the Buddha, "that in the Yona and Kamboja countries
and in other adjacent countries, there are only two classes,
namely, masters and slaves, and that a master can become a slave
and vice versa?" "Yes, I have heard so," replied
Assalayana. "If your Chaturvarna is an ideal society, why is
it not universal?" On none of these points was Assalayana
able to defend his theory of caste and inequality. He was
completely silenced. He ended by becoming a disciple of the
Buddha. A Brahmin by name Vasettha had embraced the religion of
the Blessed Lord. The Brahmins used to abuse him for his
conversion. One day he went to Buddha and disclosed to him what
the Brahmins said of him. Then Vasettha said: "The Brahmins,
Lord, say thus: 'Only a Brahmin is of the best social grade;
other grades are low. Only a Brahmin is of a clear complexion;
other complexions are swarthy. Only Brahmins are of pure breed;
not they that are not of the Brahmins. Only Brahmins are genuine
children of Brahma, born of his mouth, offspring of Brahma,
created by Brahma, heirs of Brahma. As for you, you have
renounced the best rank and have gone over to that low class, to
the shaven recluses, to vulgar rich, to them of swarthy skins, to
the foot-born descendants. Such a course is not good, such a
course is not proper, even this, that you, having forsaken that
upper class, should associate with an inferior class, to wit,
with shaveling, fair folks, menials, swarthy of skin, the
offspring of our kinsmen's heels. In these terms, Lord, do the
Brahmins blame and revile me with characteristic abuse, copious,
not at all stinted." "Surely, Vasettha," said the
Buddha, "the Brahmins have quite forgotten the ancient lore
when they say so. On the contrary, the wives of Brahmins, like
all women of other classes, are seen to be with child, bringing
forth and nursing children. And yet it is these very womb-born
Brahmins who say that Brahmins are genuine children of Brahma,
born from his mouth; his offspring; his creation; and his heirs!
By this they make a travesty of the nature of Brahma." Once
the Brahmin Esukari went to the Buddha to argue with him three
questions. The first question he raised related to the permanent
division of occupations. In defense of the system he began by
saying: "I have come to ask you a question. The Brahmins say
they shall serve nobody because they stand above all. Everyone
else is born to serve them. "Service, Gautama, is divided
into four - service of Brahmin, service of noble, service of a
middle-class man, or by a peasant; while a peasant may be served
only by a peasant, - for who else could?" What does the
reverend Gautama say hereon?" The Buddha answered him by
asking a question: "Is the whole world in accord with
Brahmins in their fourfold division of service?" asked the
Lord. "For myself, I neither assert that all service is to
be rendered nor that all service is to be refused. If the service
makes a man bad and not good, it should not be rendered; but if
it makes him better and not bad, then it should be rendered. This
is the guiding consideration which should decide the conduct
alike of nobles, of Brahmins, of middle-class men and of
peasants; each individual should refuse service which makes him
bad and should accept only the service which makes him a better
man." The next question raised was by Esukari. "Why
should ancestry and lineage not have a place in determining the
status of a man?" To this question the Buddha replied thus:
"As against pride of ancestry, the station into which a man
happens to be born determines only his designation be it noble or
Brahmin or middle-class or peasant. Even as a fire is called
after the material out of which it is kindled, and may thus be
called either a wood-fire, or a chip-fire, or a bracken-fire, or
a cow dung fire, just in the same way the noble, transcendent
doctrine, I aver, is the source of true wealth for every man,
birth merely determining his designation in one of the four
classes. Lineage does not enter into a man's being either good or
bad: nor do good looks or wealth. For, you will find a man of
noble birth who is a murderer, a thief, a fornicator, a liar, a
slanderer, a man of bitter tongue, a tattler, a covetous person,
a man of rancour or of wrong views, and therefore I assert that
noble birth does not make a good man. Or again you will find a
man of noble birth who is innocent of all these vices; and,
therefore, I assert that it is not lineage which makes a man
bad." The third question which Esukari raised was with
regard to the ways of earning a living assigned to each class.
The Brahmin Esukari said to the Lord: "Brahmins give a
fourfold assignment of income, from alms, for Brahmins; from his
bow and arrows, for the noble; from ploughing and tending cattle,
for the middle-class man; and for the peasant, by the carriage of
crops on the pole slung over his shoulder. If anyone of these
deserts his vocation for something else, he does what he should
not do, not less than a guardian who appropriates what is not
his. What does the reverend Gautama say on this?" "Is
the whole world in accord with this Brahmin classification?"
asked the Lord. "No," replied Esukari. To Vasettha he
said: "What is important is high ideals and not noble birth.
"No caste; no inequality; no superiority; no inferiority;
all are equal. This is what he stood for. "Identify yourself
with others. As they, so I. As I, so they," so said the
Buddha." [
46]
The Untouchables
This period of Buddhism in India, which was also one of the
richest in India and in world history, came to an end with the
collapse of Buddhism in India and the rebuilding of Hinduism. The
reason for the collapse Ambedkar says was the Mohammedan
invasions and the killing of Buddhist monks by the Mohammedans. [
47]
The period of revivalism of Hinduism was marked by great
tensions between the low castes and Bhrahmins. The Bhrahmins
tried to establish their hegemony as the superior caste and to
have their position accepted by all. The Low Castes rejected
this. This internal struggle had determined the characterisation
of untouchables even by the colonial officers of the British
Empire. The distinguishing features of untouchables, according to
a census circular issued by Census Commissioner in 1911, are
these: "they deny the supremacy of Bhramins, do not receive
Mantra from a Bhramin or otherwise recognise Hindu Guru, deny the
authority of Vedas, do not worship Hindu Gods, are not served by
good Bhrahmins as family priests, have no Bhrahmin priests at
all, are denied access to interior of Hindu temples, cause
pollution (a) by touch, or (b) within a certain distance, bury
their dead and eat beef and not reverence the cow."
Thus while the Shudras period was marked by the imposition of
Veda’s doctrine and at least considering Shudras as lower in
the ladder of Hindu caste structure, the untouchability resulted
in creating the total outcasts. Physically this meant ousting the
untouchables even from their habitats and pushing them into a
ghetto. Ambedkar called them, people of the Indian ghetto. All
forms of contact were forbidden by the use of rules of
untouchability.
The Dalits
The name Dalit means the oppressed. It is a term used by the
Dalits themselves to denote their protest. This was a quite a new
term as it has come into use only after the 1950's. The movements
that fought for the rights of the untouchables achieved much
during the twentieth century, though the fundamental place for
Dalits as a whole has not yet significantly changed. The struggle
however has intensified and has been contested severely. The
Dalits are today a formidable force. The resolving of this
problem by a final and complete abandonment of the caste ideal of
society is very much on the agenda. It can easily be said that
the greatest enduring achievement of India in the twentieth
century is the progress, though small, that has been made in
liberating the Dalits. The primary contributors to this process
are the Dalits themselves. The opposition to this change has been
strong and continues to be so. As many Dalits became more
confident and defiant, the violence used against them has become
more severe. Such use of violence is itself evidence of the upper
caste realisation that the contest is not going in their favour.
It is beyond dispute that Ambedkar had contributed more than any
other single individual to bring about this situation. It is
quite obvious that Dalits have selected him as their symbol.
[42]
This explanation of the word Hindu given by Ambedkar
differs from the usual explanations, which is sometimes found in
dictionaries; according to the usual explanation the word Hindu
comes from Sindhu a river today known as Indus [back to text]
[43]
B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, 1937 [back to text]
[44]
Buddha and His Dhamma -This book was published
1957 one year after Ambedkar’s death. It is a long
exposition in which Ambedkar attempted to give "a clear and
consistent statement of the life and teachings of the
Buddha"as he said in the introduction to the book. [back to text]
[45]
B.R. Ambedkar, The Untouchables, Bheem Patrika
Publications- India- Firstedition-1948
[back to text]
[46]
Buddha and
His Dhamma [back to
text]
[47]
B.R. Ambedkar, The Untouchables, Bheem Patrika
Publications- India- First edition-1948
[back to text]
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