СНАР. 2.

BOOK II. Brahmen," says the law of Menu, "give advice to a Sudra; nor what remains from his table; nor clarified butter, of which part has been offered; nor let him give spiritual counsel to such a man, nor inform him of the legal expiation for his sin: surely he who declares the law to a servile man, and he who instructs him in the mode of expiating sin, sinks with that very man into the hell named Asamvrita." 1

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Laws of Menu, ch. viii. 80, 81. "If," says the Gentoo code, a man of the Sooder reads the beids of the Shaster, or the Pooran, to a Brahmen, a Chehter, or a Bin, then the magistrate shall heat some bitter oil, and pour it into the aforesaid Sooder's mouth; and if a Sooder listens to the beids of the Shaster, then the oil, heated as before, shall be poured into his ears, and arzeez and wax shall be melted together, and the orifice of his ears shall be stopped up therewith. If a Sooder gets by heart the beids of the Shaster, the magistrate shall put him to death. If a Sooder always performs worship and the jugg, the magistrate shall put him to death. If a Sooder gives much and frequent molestation to a Brahmen, the magistrate shall put him to death." (Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws. ch. xxi. sect. 7.) It is among the most barbarous tribes, that we in general find the principle of subordination abused to the greatest excess. Perhaps no instance is equal to that which exhibits itself among the Hindus. "Among the Natchez," (says Robertson, Hist. Americ. ii. 139,) a powerful tribe now extinct, on the banks of the Mississippi, a difference of rank took place, with which the northern tribes were altogether unacquainted. Some families were reputed noble, and enjoyed hereditary dignity. The body of the people was considered as vile, and formed only for subjection. This distinction was marked by appellations which intimated the high elevation of the one state, and the ignominious depression of the other: the former were called Respectable; the latter, the Stinkards."-" To be a servant" (says Millar, Distinction of Ranks, ch. v. sect. 1.) "in these primitive times, was almost universally the same thing as to be a slave. The master assumed an unlimited jurisdiction over his servants, and the privilege of selling them at pleasure. He gave them no wages beside their maintenance; and he allowed them to have no property, but claimed to his own use whatever, by their labour, or by any other means, they happened to acquire. Thus the practice of domestic slavery appears to have been early established among the nations of antiquity; among the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Jews, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans.-The same practice obtains at present among all those tribes of barbarians, in different parts of the world, with which we have any correspondence."

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Although the adherence of each class to the ticular employment assigned to it was secured by the most rigid laws, and the severest penalties, there were extraordinary cases in which a limited departure was permitted. When a Brahmen cannot obtain subsistence by the proper business of his order, he may apply himself to that of the Cshatriya or the Vaisya, but must never become so far degraded as to engage in that of the Sudra. The Cshatriya and Vaisya, in like necessitous circumstances, may have recourse respectively to the business of the class or classes below them, even that of the Sudra, but are strictly interdicted from profaning the employment of any class above them. The Sudra having, originally, no inferior class, was probably abandoned to his necessities, though afterwards, in the employments of the mixed classes, a resource was opened also for him.' In this arrangement, as usually happens in the laws of the Hindus, the advantages are all on the side of the superior orders. The Brahmen has open to him, if need be, the occupations of all the respectable classes; he can overload them with additional numbers in the season of distress, a season at which it is natural for them to be overloaded without him, while his own occupation is exempt from the encroachment or competition of any other description of men. The Cshatriya, while he has the occupations open to him of two of the castes, is liable to the interference of one of them only. The Vaisya, on the other hand, can have recourse to none but the lowest of employments, that

Laws of Menu, ch. x. passim. Mr. Colebrooke on the Indian Classes, Asiat. Researches, v. 63.

BOOK 11.

CHAP. 2.

BOOK II. of the Sudra, while he is liable to be straitened in his

CHAP. 2.

own occupation by the interference and competition of both the orders above him. The unfortunate Sudra, who has no resource, may be driven from his employment and his means of subsistence, mediately or immediately, by all the other classes of the community.'

This distribution of the whole people into four classes only, and the appropriation of them to four species of employment; an arrangement which, in the very simple state of society in which it must have been introduced, was a great step in improvement, must have become productive of innumerable inconveniences, as the wants of society multiplied. The bare necessaries of life, with a small number of its rudest accommodations, are all it prepares, to meet the desires of man. As those desires speedily extend beyond such narrow limits, a struggle must have early ensued between the first principles of human nature and those of the political establishment. The different castes were strictly commanded to marry with those only of their own class and profession; and the mixture of the classes from the union of the sexes was guarded against by the severest laws. This was an occurrence, however,

'The Sudra has a resource not permitted to the others-emigration— a sufficient proof of his personal liberty. "Let the three first classes invariably dwell in those before-mentioned countries, but a Sudra, distressed for subsistence, may sojourn where he pleases. Manu, ii. 24.—W. 2 This is not correct. The original system seems to have been very lax in this respect, and each caste might take wives from the caste or castes below them as well as their own. "A Sudra woman only must be the wife of a Sudra; she and a Vaisya of a Vaisya; they two and a Kshatriya of a Kshatriya; those two and a Brahmani of a Brahman. Manu, iii. 13. And although it was a sin for a Brahman to marry a Sudra woman, yet that such things did happen, appears from the following stanzas, 14-17, as well as passages in the tenth book.-W.

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which laws could not prevent. Irregularities took BOOK II. place; children were born, who belonged to no caste, and for whom there was no occupation. No event could befall society more calamitous than this. Unholy and infamous, on account of that violation of the sacred law to which they owed their unwelcome birth, those wretched outcasts had no resource for subsistence, excepting either the bounty of the established classes, to whom they were objects of execration and abhorrence; or the plunder of those same classes, a course to which they would betake themselves with all the ingenuity of necessitous, and all the atrocity of much injured, men, When a class of this description became numerous, they must have filled society with the greatest disorders. In the preface of that compilation of the Hindu Laws, which was translated by Mr. Halhed,' it is stated that, after a succession of good kings, who secured obedience to the laws, and under whom the people enjoyed felicity, came a monarch evil and corrupt, under whom the laws were violated, the mixture of the classes was perpetrated, and a new and impious race were produced. The Brahmens put this wicked king to death, and by an effort of miraculous power created a successor endowed with the most excellent qualities. But the kingdom did not prosper, by reason of the Burren Sunker, so were this impure brood denominated; and it required the wisdom of this virtuous king to devise a remedy. He resolved upon a classification of the mixed race, and to assign them occupations, This,

Vide Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, preface.

CHAP. 2.

BOOK II. accordingly, was the commencement of arts and manufactures. The Burren Sunker became all manner of artisans and handicrafts; one tribe of them weavers of cloth, another artificers in iron, and so in other cases, till the subdivisions of the class were exhausted, or the exigencies of the community supplied. Thus were remedied two evils at once: The increasing wants of an improving society were provided for; and a class of men, the pest of the community, were converted to its service. This is another important era in the history of Hindu society; and having reached this stage, it does not appear that it has made, or that it is capable of making, much further progress. Thirty-six branches of the impure class are specified in the sacred books,' of whom and of their employments it would be tedious and useless to present the description. The highest is that sprung from the conjunction of a Brahmen with a woman of the Cshatriya class, whose duty is the teaching of military exercises. The lowest of all is the offspring of a Sudra with a woman of the sacred class. This tribe are denominated Chandalas, and are regarded with great abhorrence. Their profession is to carry out corpses, to execute criminals, and perform other offices, reckoned to the last degree unclean and degrading. If, by the laws of Hindustan, the Sudras are placed in a low and vile situation, the impure and mixed classes are placed in one still more odious and degrading.

Colebrooke on the Indian Classes, Asiat. Researeh. v. 53. On this subject, however, that intelligent author tells us, that Sanscrit authorities in some instances disagree. Classes mentioned by one are omitted by another; and texts differ on the professions assigned to some tribes. It is a subject, he adds, in which there is some intricacy.