Sudra

“ When we leave the higher circles of the twice-born, the difficulty of finding a uniform basis of classification becomes apparent. The ancient designation Sudra finds no great favour in modern times, and we can point to no group that is generally recognized as representing it. The term is used in Bombay, Madras and Bengal to denote a considerable number of castes of moderate respectability, the higher of whom are considered ‘clean’ Sudras, while the precise status of the lower is a question which lends itself to endless controversy. ”

“ The rule requiring the person adopted to be of the same caste and gotra or family as the adopter is also dispensed with in the case of Sudras. In fact, it is only a married person whom a Sudra may not adopt. As regards inheritance the Sudra does not come off so well in competition with the other castes. “The sons of a Brahamana in the several tribes have four shares or three or two or one; the children of a Kshatriya have three portions or two or one; and those of a Vaisya take two parts or one.” ”

“ The sudra is the servant of the race of men; he has no rights that others need respect; he may not hear the Vedas read, and it means death to him to look into the face of priest, or king, and naught but death can free him from his state of servitude. ”

“ It does not seem to have been the case that the Aryans had any regard for the preservation of the purity of their blood or colour. From an early period men of the three higher castes might take a Sūdra woman in marriage, and the ultimate result has been an almost complete fusion between the two races in the bulk of the population over the greater part of the country. Nevertheless the status of the Sūdra still remains attached to the large community of the impure castes formed from the indigenous tribes, who have settled in Hindu villages and entered the caste system. ”

“ In 1871 it was decided by the judicial committee of the privy council that a marriage between a zemindar (land-owner) of the Malavar class, a subdivision of the Sudra caste, with a woman of the Vellala class of Sudras is lawful. Generally also a woman may not marry beneath her own caste. The feeling is not so strong against a man marrying even in the lowest caste, for Manu permits the son of a Brahman and a Sudra mother to raise his family to the highest caste in the seventh generation. The illegitimacy resulting from an invalid marriage does not render incapable of caste ”

“ By birth I am pure, holy, and noble, a priest and guide of men, superior to all lords and kings. Twice born, and invested with the sacred thread, I am the repositary of the Vedas, (those divine books which, if a Sudra heard read, his head would cleave asunder.) I am the medium of blessings from heaven to men. Without me, the world would be a desert; for by me the infant is purified, the man married, and the dead buried. ”

“ In books the Sudras are described as the fourth, the low, servile caste; but in fact a vast number in Northern India, who are loosely reckoned Hindus, are far below the Sudras, and thus the Sudras acquire a relatively high place. [Pg 344] These low-caste people, on whom the people above them look down with contempt, are in their own fashion as tenacious of caste as their superiors, and they, too, multiply their divisions, one class maintaining its superiority to others. ”

“ Of the four great castes that we read so much about, three only were fixed—Brahmans, Kshatryas, and the Vaisyas. This last was the common Aryan people, and they were not separated from their superiors by any harsh distinctions. But the Sudras, "the threefold black men," among whom the Aryan population established themselves, all the non-Aryan races and tribes of the peninsula [Pg 157] of Hindostan, were kept off by a wide gulf and the most galling marks of inferiority. The Sudra could not read the Vèdas nor join in their religious meetings. ”

“ Such sons have no cleansing rites laid down for them. [299] If a Sudra unites with a woman belonging to the foremost of the four orders, the son that is begotten is called a Chandala. Endued with a fierce disposition, he must live in the outskirts of cities and towns and the duty assigned to him is that of the public executioner. Such sons are always regarded as wretches of their race. These, O foremost of intelligent persons, are the offspring of intermixed orders. The son begotten by a Vaisya upon a Kshatriya woman becomes a Vandi or Magadha. ”

“ Overpowered with grief for her husband and child, the mother also withdrew the twice-blooded weapon, and slew herself with it on the bodies of Vira-vara and Shaktidhar.
'All this was heard and seen by King Sudraka, and he stood aghast at the sad sight. 'Woe is me!' he exclaimed—
'Kings may come, and Kings may go;
What was I, to bring these low?
Souls so noble, slain for me,
Were not, and will never be!'
What reck I of my realm, having lost these?' and thereat he drew his scimitar to take his own life also. ”

“ When he eats the share of Vaisyas, his "offspring will be born with the characteristic of Vaisyas, paying taxes to another king"; "and in the second or third degree they are capable of entering the caste of Vaisyas." When he takes the share of Sudras, his progeny "will have the characteristics of Sudras; they are to serve the three higher castes, to be expelled and beaten according to the pleasure of their masters." ”

“ Perhaps, in the parts west from the river Kali, the Hindus from the south have not, in fact, been so bad as they pretend; and, although no one is willing to acknowledge a deficiency of zeal, or a descent from barbarians, yet, in fact, they may have permitted to remain such of the cultivators as chose to adopt the rules of purity, and to take the name of Sudras. ”

“ For the Sudras, who had come under the domination of the Aryan religion, there was no religious instruction, no religious observance, no social respect. Despised and degraded in the very community in which they were forced to live, they sighed for a change, and as they increased in number, pursued various useful industries, owned lands and villages, and gained in influence and power, they became more and more conscious of the unbearable conditions to which they were condemned. ”

“ The three first castes of priests, soldiers, and merchants, are distinguished from the fourth caste of Sudras by the thread, or paita, which is worn depending from the left shoulder and resting on the right side below the loins. The investiture usually takes place between the eighth and twelfth year, and is known as the second birth, and those who are invested are termed the 'twice born.' It is difficult to say whether the thread indicates a separation between the conquerors and the conquered ”

“ Fourth Caste of the Hindus. In South India, there being no claimants of the 2nd or 3rd classes, the highest castes among the (so-called) Śudras come next after the Brahmans in social rank, and śudra is a note of respect, not of the contrary as in Northern India.
1630.—"The third Tribe or Cast, called the Shudderies."—Lord, Display, &c., ch. xii. 1651.—"La quatrième lignée est celle des Soudraes; elle est composée du commun peuple: cette lignée a sous soy beaucoup et diverses familles, dont une chacune prétend surpasser l'autre...."—Abr. Roger, Fr. ed. ”

“ That fact works its usual consequence, and rich Sudras sometimes employ poor Brahmans in menial occupations.
There is another class lower even than the Sudras, for it is not one of the original pure classes, but springs from an unauthorized union of individuals of different castes. These are the Pariahs, who are employed in the lowest services and treated with the utmost severity. They are compelled to do what no one else can do without pollution. They are not only considered unclean themselves, but they render unclean everything they touch. ”

“ The Siidra castes of Southern India occupy a position in society much superior to that of the Sudras in the North. The castes called by that name in the North belong to the lower classes : the Sudras of the South answer closely to our "middle classes;" they form the staple of population in the towns and in the richer country districts; manufactures, commerce, the administration of justice and education, are mainly in their hands, and it is to them that the people of the lower castes generally look as their natural heads and guides. ”

“ Third, the Aryan agricultural settlers, who kept the old name of Vaisyas, from the root vis, which in the primitive Vedic period had included the whole Aryan people. Fourth, the Sudras, or conquered non-Aryan tribes, who became serfs. The three first castes were of Aryan descent, and were honored by the name of the Twice-born Castes. They could all be present at the sacrifices, and they worshipped the same Bright Gods. The Sudras were "the slave-bands of black descent" of the Veda. ”

“ They firmly believed that there were originally but four castes among men, Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras; but they actually found around them various other castes, formed by tribes of non-Aryans, who had gradually entered into the Hindu fold and formed low Hindu castes. Believing that all mankind was originally divided into only four castes, the Sutrakaras tried to evolve the new castes from the four parent castes. The fiction was then conceived that the new castes were formed by intermarriages among the parent castes. ”

“ Though regarded as Sūdras, it is difficult to think them such, as they are black and filthy in their appearance, and disgusting in their habits. Happily their numbers are few. They wander about singing, or rather warbling, for they utter no articulate words, and, if money or grain be not given to them, they have recourse to compulsion. ”

“ The Kshatriya rulers compel these Sudras for their own good as well as the good of all other classes of people to take service under the three upper castes as domestic servants, so that by contact and association with their masters and by the examples of their purer ideas and habits of life they may be elevated in morals and conduct. ”

“ Beneath these classes was the aboriginal population, the Sudras, forming three quarters of the whole population.
Experience soon revealed the inconveniences which might rise from the mixture of the superior race with the inferior ones, and all the proscriptions of religion tended thereafter to prevent it. "Every country which gives birth to men of mixed races," said the ancient law-giver of the Hindus, the sage Manu, "is soon destroyed together with those who inhabit it." ”

“ The kings, he says, very guardedly, and not warriors, form the second caste, as if the three kings Chera, Chola and Pāndy could form a caste; all who live by trade belong to the third caste. He does not say that either the kings or the merchants wear the sacred thread. Then he singles out the Vellālas, and states that they have no other calling than the cultivation of the soil. Here he does not say that the Vellālas are Sudras, but indirectly implies that the ordinary Vellālas should be reckoned as Sudras, and that those Vellālas who were kings should be honoured as Kshatriyas. ”

“ A Rája required by the Chhattri comnunities which had overborne numerous lower costes. When the subject classes the Sudras, or even the conquered twice-born men of other castes were numerous, there was constant danger of a rebellion ; the Lodhs, Bhars, and Pasis repeatedly rose against and overwhelmed the Chhattri communities in Oudh ; the interests of the property were also so complex and troublesome that they required the und ed attention of one able and experienced man ”

“ Afterwards, when the wrath of the Kinnarī king, Druma, was assuaged, he said, “If the youth comes, I [72] will have you provided with all kinds of ornaments, and with many goods and treasures, and surrounded by Kinnarīs, and will give you to him as his wife.” Thereupon Manoharā, full of great delight, clothed the youth Sudhana in divine array, and showed him to the Kinnarī king, Druma. When the Kinnarī king, Druma, saw the young Sudhana’s stately form and pleasing aspect, his handsome face and brilliant complexion, he was greatly astonished. ”

“ The caste of the Suders was to be subservient to the Brahmins, the Tschechterias, and the Beis. These Suders, he goes on to say, are held in disdain, and they are considered infamous and unclean from their occupation, and they are abhorred because they eat flesh; the three other castes living entirely on vegetables. Baldeus says the Parias or Suders are a filthy people and wicked crew. It is related in the “Danish Mission Intelligencer,” nobody can deny that the Parias are the dregs and refuse of all the Indians; they are thievish, and have wicked dispositions. ”

“ Then shall they take wives and children into the midst of them, and, head high, with naked swords, descend straight through the Byzantian camp toward Naples, to buy a piece of bread. And I tell ye, with such fear shall they be gazed at, that not even once shall a dog of the Huns dare to bark at them.
Teja.
Wife and child! Wife and child! What have we to do with them? Athanaric. King, thou revilest the dearest of our possessions.
Teja.
Maybe!--I know only that there were too many mouths in the morning when the rations were divided. Otherwise we might have been able to support ourselves. ”

“ That a wife belongeth to her husband--above all, in the hour of distress; she taught her that, King.
Teja.
That may indeed be true and holy to ye wives.... If only the husband also belonged to his wife in the hour of distress. And yet one thing,
Amalaberga.
It hath been told me that in the morning, cocks crow near ye wives yonder in the Wagenburg. For weeks, the warriors have eaten no meat. I counsel ye, give them the cocks. (Amalaberga bows.)
Bishop.
My King!
Teja.
Heh! Thou hast but now spoken so beautifully at the field-altar,
Bishop. ”