Article by Markandey Katju- Brahmins In my article The Caste system in India which is on my blog justicekatju.blogspot.in I have explained about the caste system.in India. I have explained there that at one time the caste system played a progressive role, by introducing a rudimentary form of division of labour in society, and, as explained by Adam Smith in his famous book The Wealth of Nations , division of labour leads to great progress. However, what may be good at one stage of social development, may become bad later. Today there is no doubt that the caste system is a curse on our country, and the sooner it is destroyed the better, because it is dividing us at a time when we must be united if we are to progress. In that article I have mentioned that though the caste system probably had a racial origin, it later developed into the feudal occupational division of labour in society. In other words, every vocation e.g. potter ( kumbhar ), carpenter ( badhai ), ironsmith ( lohar ), etc became a caste. This happened in Europe too. Even today many Englishmen have surnames like Taylor, Gardener, Potter, Smith, Goldsmith, Baker,Mason, Barber, Butcher, etc which indicates that their ancestors belonged to these occupations. In medeival times there were no engineering colleges or technical institutes, and so the only way to learn a craft or vocation was to learn it from ones father. The Brahmins were the priestly and intellectual class in ancient and feudal society in India. It was not possible to have universal education in those days, firstly because feudal society with its relatively primitive methods of production did not generate the wealth required for this purpose, and secondly because feudal agricultural society did not need many literate people, as agriculture is ( relative to modern industry ) a simple operation, which did not require one to be a literate (In England universal education was only introduced as late as in 1870 by the Elementary Education Act ). So broadly the main educated class in India upto feudal times were the Brahmins, though there were also some other castes like the kayasthas, who formed the lower bureaucracy ( patwaris, lekhpals, etc ) and some banias ( vaishyas ) who had to have some degree of education to keep accounts of their business. The Brahmins were the priestly class and their language was Sanskrit, just as the language of the priests in Europe was Latin. Though originally doing only religious work of officiating as priests in temples and in religious ceremonies, subsequently, because of their education in Sanskrit the Brahmins also started doing intellectual work such as in the fields of philosophy, science ( mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc ), literature, law, etc All their works were in Sanskrit, which broadly they alone knew. This led to great progress. Being the intellectual class, Brahmins had a lead over most of the other sections of society in various spheres requiring education. Consequently, though constituting only a small percentage of the total population, they occupied a predominant position in society even in modern times as professors, lawyers, judges, bureaucrats etc This situation obviously could not last long, as in modern times other sections of society also got educated, and so a reaction set in. For instance, In Tamilnadu Brahmins are only about 3% of the total population of the state, but a proportionately much larger number of Judges, professors, bureucrats etc were Brahmins ( Aiyyers or Ayangars ). This led to the creation of the Justice Party under the leader Periyar ( E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker ),which started an anti-Brahmin movement demanding inter alia a greater representation of non Brahmins on various posts. However, this also subsequently led to many excesses against Brahmins. The migration of Brahmins to various parts of india is an interesting phenomenon. This happened because they were the priestly class. Suppose a King of Tanjore or Madurai built a temple. He would send his representatives to Varanasi or Mathura or Kannaauj, which were the great seats of learning in those days. The kings representatives would request the Brahmin sabha there that their king had built a temple, and wanted a learned Brahmin well versed in the Vedas to come to his kingdom and look after the temple and pray for the prosperity of his dynasty and kingdom and requested the sabha to send such a Brahmin with his family to his kingdom. The financial needs of the Brahmin and his family would be assured by fixing the revenue of some adjacent villages for their upkeep, or some land would be given to them. In this way a large number of North Indian Brahmins migrated to the south, and that is why many Tamilian Brahmins even today look like North Indians ( because their ancestors came from the north ). Similarly, many kulin Brahmins in Bengal ( Mukherjees, Chatterjees, Bannerjees, and Gangulis ) came from Kannauj, which is presently a district in U.P. as is evident from the fact that these Bengali Brahmins call themselves Kannaujia Brahmins. In most of the temples in India the priests even today are Brahmins, though in a few they are non Brahmins e.g. in the famous Banke Bihari temple in Vrindavan, where the priests belong to a caste called Gosains. I am myself a Kashmiri Brahmin. All Kashmiri Brahmins are Saraswat Brahmins, probably because our ancestors lived on the banks of a river called Saraswati, which has dried up and no longer exists. Kashmiri Brahmins belong broadly to two groups, the Kashmiri speaking, and the non Kashmiri speaking. I am non Kashmiri speaking, while my wife is Kashmiri speaking. The Kashmiri language is very different fom Hindi, and even after 44 years of marriage when my wife speaks to her relatives I cannot understand. The non Kashmiri speaking Kashmiri Pandits are those whose ancestors migrated from the Kashmir Valley to the plains of India in small groups or individually 200 years ago or so. They all came in exactly the same way, by getting jobs as bureaucrats in the princely states, ruled by Maharajas or Nawabs, in Northern, Western and Central Indis, ( Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, U.P. etc ). This was because Kashmiri Pandits were highly proficient in Urdu and Persian,which were the Court languages of these princely states. They did not migrate due to persecution, but because of job opportunities. Later, many branched off into the field of law, like Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Pt. Motilal Nehru ( father of Jawaharlal Nehru ), and my own grandfather Dr. K.N. Katju. These non Kashmiri speaking Kashmiri Brahmins married only among themselves, and not with the local Brahmins or in other castes ( though things have changed now ). They would today be numerically between 1 and 2 lacs. The Kashmiri speaking Kashmiri Brahmins, numbering between 2 to 3 lacs, are those who remained in Kashmir. Most of them had to leave Kashmir because of persecution from 1989 onwards ( see my article Kashmiri Pandits on my blog ). Kashmiri Brahmins have produced great scholars and artists. The first Hindu historians ( Hindus had mythology, not history )were Kashmiri Pandits, e.g. Kshemendra, Kalhan, Jona Raj, etc. Kashmiri Pandits created a branch of philosophy called Kashmir Shaivism, whose founder was Abhinav Gupta They have produced great mystic poets like Lal Ded in the sufi tradition. Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma and Bhajan Sopory are renowned players of the santoor, which is a typically Kashmiri musical instrument. Kashmiri Pandits have made a significant contribution to Urdu literature e.g.Chakbast, Sarshar, etc. There are many other kinds of Brahmins, e.g. saryuparis and kanyakubjas in U.P., Chitpawans and Deshasthas in Maharashtra and Karnataka, Namboodaris in Kerala, etc but it will take too long to write about all of them
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 01:41:50 +0000
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