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Yajnavalkya tells us (I, 336), that the king should protect his people from deceivers, thieves, violent men, robbers and others, and especially from Kayasthas. If we take the word in its modern sense of caste, the passage has no sense, and the necessity for protection from a particular caste is not obvious. If, on the other hand, we take the word to mean rapacious tax gatherers, we can well understand the feeling of the writer who classed them with thieves and robbers. Such compli- ments are paid to tax gatherers to the present day. Our next quotation will be from Vishnu. In his celebrated chapter on documents, he classifies them under three heads ; viz. (1) those attested by the king, answering to the registered documents of the present day ; (2) those attested by other witnesses ; and (3) descended from Kshatriyas. We have not entered into the merits of this controversy, and we are unable to give an opinion on the subject. Our main contention is that Kayasthas are not Sudras, nor the product of a hybrid mixture of castes ; that they are the sons of the ancient Aryan population of India, and have formed a separate caste, because they have embraced a separate profession. Whether they are descended from Aryan Kshatriyas or from Aryan Vaisyas is a question of minor importance. It is possible that their ranks have been mainly recruited from the Kshatriya stock, and that poor relatious of kings gladly accepted the posts of accountants and record-keepers in the royal courts. We are informed that to the present day the period of impurity for Kayasthas in Northern India, on the death of relations, is the same as is prescribed for Kshatriyas, Digitized by Google CHAP. VI,] CASTE. 313 those not attested at all. And the writer goes on to say that " A document is said to be attested by the king when it has been prepared in the king's office by the Kayastha appointed by the king, and marked by the hand (or signature) of the head of the office." Here again the word Kayastha has little sense if it means a particular caste. Dr. Jolly translates it simply as "scribe," and he is right. Kayasthas meant in the Pauranik Period what we now mean by " Muharrars " and nothing more. One more passage we will refer to vis. Vyasa I, 10 to 12 in which the indignant writer classes Kayasthas with Kols and Kiritas, Chandalas and beef eaters, and tells us that "one should bathe after speaking to them, and one should look at the sun (for purification of the eyes) after looking at them Vyasa's work in its present shape was composed, as we have seen before, after the Mahomedan conquest ; and the modern reader will, we hope, pardon this outburst of priestly jealousy in a degenerate age against a class of brother Aryans, growing in intelligence, influence, and power ! We next come to the Vaidyas or physicians to whom the Dharma Sastras are scarcely more complimentary than to the Kayasthas. If scribes have been classed with Chandalas and beef-eaters, physicians have been classed by Manu with meat-sellers and liquor vendors, and Yajnavalkya classes them with thieves, prostitutes and others, whose food cannot be taken (1, 162). A physician, Digitized by Google 3H PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. prescribing wrongly to animals, to ordinary men, and to royal personages is liable to different grades of punish- ment. ( Ydjnavalkya II, 245). A goat herd, a painter, a physician and an astronomer are not entitled to respect even if they be as wise as Brihaspati (Atri % 377). A physician prescribing ignorantly is liable to punish- ment {Vishnu V, 171*). Usanas in Chapter VI speaks of the impurity which is caused by the death of men of different castes ; but adds that mechanics, artisans, physicians, (Vaidya), slaves, kings and public servants do not undergo any period of impurity (VI, 55). The passage is important as it distinctly shews that physi- cians formed a profession in those days like mechanics and artisans and not a caste. Vaidyas in the present day have formed a caste in Bengal, and have their prescribed period of impurity on the death of a relation. Parisara (III, 27) lays down the same rule of exemp- tion from impurity for mechanics, artisans, physicians, (Vaidya), slaves, barbers, Srotriyas and kings, shewing that barbers too did not form a separate caste. Daksha (III, 16) deprecates gifts to ignorant physicians, (Kuvaidya). In all these passages Vaidyas are spoken of simply as a profession ; in no single passage that we have met with have they been distinctly spoken of as a caste. Upholders of the modern caste system seek to identify Vaidyas with the Ambashthas of the ancient * V, 175 in Dr. Jolly's translation. Digitized by Google CHAP. VI.] CASTE Stitra writers, and of Manu and Yajnavalkya. The Ambashthas are described by Vasishtha as a mixed caste, a cross between Brahmans and Kshatryas (see Vol. II, p. 72), and by Manu and Yajnavalkya as across between Brahmans and Vaisyas (see ante p.p. 149 & 309) ; and Manu further adds that the Ambashthas practised medicine (X, 47). On this slender ground the modern Vaidyas are all identified with this mixed caste ; — as if the Aryan Hindus did not practise the healing art until amorous Brahman youths pursued and embraced girls of a humbler class ,— as if the science of medicine was unknown among Aryan Hindus until the produc- tion of a hybrid mixed caste ! The modern reader will brush aside such idle myths, and will unhesitatingly recognize the fact that the modern Vaidyas are descend- ed from the ancient Aryan people, — the Vaisyas, (see Vol. II, p. 75 note) and have formed a separate caste, because they have followed a separate profession. And as in the case of Kayasthas, so in the case of Vaidyas, it is possible that descendants of royal races, like the Sena kings of Bengal, have become merged in the modern profession caste. We now pass on to other professions which have also been formed into castes since the Mahomedan conquest. We have seen before that Parasara lays down that the occupations of blacksmiths and jewellers, as well as trade, agriculture and the tending of cattle were the legitimate duties of Vaisyas, (I, 60). The modern Digitized by Google 3l6 • PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. castes of Vaniks, goldsmiths and blacksmiths do not appear therefore to have been distinctly formed in Parasara's time. We find a more remarkable passage further on in the same work which deserves to be quoted. 20. "Among Sudras, the Dasa (slave) the N&pita (barber), the Gopdla (cowherd), the Kulamitra (friend of the family), the Ardhasirin and he who devotes him- self, — are persons whose food can be taken. 21. "He who is begotten by a Brahman on a Sudra's daughter, and receives Sanskara is a Dasa (slave) ; if he does not receive Sanskdra, he is a N&pita (barber). 22. " He who is begotten by a Kshatriya on a Sudra's daughter is to be known as a Gopala (cowherd) ; Br&h- mans should feel no hesitation in taking their food. 23. " He who is begotten by a Brdhman on the daughter of Vaisya, and receives Sanskara, is to be known as Ardhaka, (Ardhasirin); Brahmans should feel no hesitation in taking their food " (Pardsara) XI. We have seen in the last chapter that Parasara's work is one of the very latest Dharma Sastras. The above passage indicates how in this late period cow- herds and barbers were drifting into separate caste guilds. They were still Sudras, and Parasara reckons them "among Sddras" but nevertheless they had so far differentiated themselves from the great body of Sudras, that Parasara had to apply to them the same theory of Digitized by Google CHAP. VI.] CASTE. 31/ the origin of castes which had been applied by the Sutra writers and by Manu and Yajnavalkya to Ambashthas, Ugras. Nishadas, and others. This in- genious and ancient theory of the origin of castes was not applied to Goalas and Napits before the close of the Pauranik Period, and we may therefore conclude that Napits and Goalas had not formed separate castes before that time. Again this theory was not applied to K&yasthas and Vaidyas by any writer even in the Pauranik Period ; and we may therefore hold that scribes and physicians had not yet separated themselves from the great body of the Vaisyas before the Mahom- medan conquest. Vyisa's work is even later than Par&sara's, and Vyasa also tells us that no fault is incurred from food taken from Ndpita, Kulamitra, Ardhasirin, Dasa and Gopftla " even though they be S&dras? (Ill, 50). While thus at the very close of the Pauranik Period we find some of the lower professions separating them- selves into castes, we find in all the Dharma Sastras of the period a contempt for all trades, professions and industries which is painful to observe. Yajnavalkya's work is one of the earliest of the Dharma Sastras, and indeed belongs, as we have stated before, to the 4th or 5th century A.D., and is therefore nearer in point of time to Manu than to Parasara and Vyasa. But never- theless we find in Yajnavalkya, (as indeed we found in Manu himself), an undeserved contempt for all honest Digitized by Google 318 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. trades and professions. In a passage which we have referred to before, Y&jnavalkya (I, i6oto 165) condemns a large class of professions as impure, and lays down that the food of the people of these professions cannot be touched. It is with pain that the historian of the Hindus finds in this passage all mechanical arts, trades and industries classed with prostitution and crime.