Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/47

 Chap. I.] THE BRAHMIN CASTE. 11

are the usual means adopted. Often, from another cause, where no marriage has a.d. —

taken place, similar atrocities prevail.

The Kulina is permitted by the rules of his order to give his son in marriage Pernicious

. . . p I regulation

to the daughter of a Shrotriya, and often has little difficulty in finding fathers- regarding in-law, who value the honour so highly as to be willing to pay largely for it. teraofthe By a strange perversion he can marry his daughter only to a person of his own ^'^^'^'^■ rank, and hence, as in many cases such husbands cannot be found, daughters are too often regarded as an incumbrance, and if not prematurely cut off by the crimes akeady referred to, are in thousands of instances left to seek a maintenance by the most infamous means. According to Mr. Ward, "the houses of ill-fame at Calcutta, and other large places, contain multitudes of the daughters of Kooleenu Bramhuns, so entirely degraded are these favourites of Bullalsanu ! "

We have dwelt at some length on the Brahminical caste, not merely because The Cshat- it is the most important, but because it furnishes, both m theory and practice, vaisya a general model of the whole system. In treating of the other regular classes a few remarks will suffice. Indeed, if we are to believe the Brahmins, the Cshatriyas and Vaisyas, the only classes which, from the privileges possessed by them, could have been regarded as their rivals, have entirely disappeared. In the Institutes of Menu they hold a place which is distinctly marked, and are fully instructed in the peculiar duties and privileges belonging to them. The one was the representative of power, the other of wealth ; and, though the Brahmin only could expound the Veda, both of them were entitled to read it, and to offer sacrifice. In regard to initiatory rites, too, the discipline to which they were subjected, if inferior to that of the Brahmins, bore a marked resem- l)lance to it in its leading features. The ceremonies performed before birth were common to all the three classes ; in due time, after birth, they all received the tonsure, and at a later period they had all the privilege of becoming divija, or twice born, by being invested with the poita, or sacrificial thread. This thread, or rather triple cord, worn over the left shoulder, and, after crossing the back, tied into a knot under the right arm, is now regarded by Brahmins as their dis- tinguishing badge, but was anciently common to them with the other two twice- born classes, the only difierence being, that while that of a Brahmin was of cotton, that of a Cshatriya was of sana thread only, that of a Vaisya of woollen thread. The Brahmins, perhaps galled by the approach thus made to them by the two immediately inferior classes, have taken the most eff'ectual means of suppressing them. The key of knowledge being exclusively in their hands, they have made it subservient to their own aggrandizement, by carefully preserving evidence sufficient to establish the purity of their own descent, while they have allowed that which would have been available for the same purpose to the Cshatriyas and Vaisyas to perish. A great gap has thus been made in the social edifice. The intervening gradations having been destroyed, the Brahmin seated on the