The Penguin History of Early India

by Romila Thapar

  Exchange relations varied according to the products involved. Barter, or the direct exchange of item for item, was negotiated in terms of the value of each item. It tended to be a localized exchange with a limited choice of items. Exchange centres as incipient markets conducted trade in a large variety of goods, including those of high value, and the choice could in theory have been more entrepreneurial. Sometimes the underpinnings were determined more by social considerations than economic. Thus, goods of high value were also a mark of status and were often exchanged outside the commercial circuit as gifts among families of high status or as objects of patronage. Trade converted the item into a commodity that could be transported to distant places. Sale generally involved a money transaction. Coined metallic money radically changed the nature of exchange. Commodities were valued in terms of a common medium – money. Issued by an institution such as a guild or a state, it could be of varying value depending on the metal and the weight, and could be easily carried, thus facilitating long-distance exchange. This encouraged the accumulation of wealth and forward speculation. Complex exchange furthered the growth of markets.

  The heterogeneity of urban life distinguished it from the village. Towns were closely packed settlements with populations larger than in a village. Norms of social behaviour tended to be more flexible, and heterodox ideas were often developed in urban centres or in places associated with these. Early brahmanical normative texts tend to disapprove of the town, although in later works this view changes. Sophisticated Sanskritic culture came to be city-based and the man-about-town was the central figure in many writings, an implicit contrast to the simple country yokel.

  The Creation of Castes

  Reference to these categories of societies ties into a process of social organization that is fundamental to understanding Indian society. This was, and is, the prevalence of group identities referred to as castes. The word as used in modern European languages comes from a root meaning ‘pure’ and reflects the application of what is termed as varna, a concept now often translated as ritual status. In a hierarchy of status the highest and purest was that of the brahmans. Interestingly, an account of Indian society written by the Greek, Megasthenes, in the fourth century BC, merely refers to seven broad divisions without any association of degrees of purity. He says that the philosophers are the most respected, but includes in this group the brahmans as well as those members of heterodox sects – the shramanas – who did not regard the brahmans as being of the highest status. Elements of caste have been noticed in some other societies but the pattern they take in Indian society is different.

  As a construction around ritual status the ranking of the brahman had to be the highest, as ritually the brahman represented the purest category. The evolution of this idea can be seen from the Vedic corpus, and since this constitutes the earliest literary source, it came to be seen as the origin of caste society. This body of texts reflected the brahmanical view of caste, and maintained that the varnas were created on a particular occasion and have remained virtually unchanged. Control over ritual not only gave authority to the brahman varna, but the assertion of purity set it apart. In the varna ordering of society notions of purity and pollution were central and activities were worked out in this context. Varna is formulaic and orderly, dividing society into four groups arranged in a hierarchy – the brahman (priest), kshatriya (warrior aristocrat), vaishya (cultivator and trader) and shudra (who labours for the others), the fifth being the untouchable and therefore beyond the pale.

  However, there have been other ways of looking at the origins and functioning of caste society. A concept used equally frequently for caste is jati. It is derived from a root meaning ‘birth’, and the numbers of jatis are listed by name and are too numerous to be easily counted. The hierarchical ordering of jatis is neither consistent nor uniform, although hierarchy cannot be denied. The two concepts of jati and varna overlap in part but are also different. The question therefore is, how did caste society evolve and which one of the two preceded the other? According to some scholars, the earliest and basic division was varna and the jatis were subdivisions of the varna, since the earliest literary source, the Vedic corpus, mentions varnas. But it can also be argued that the two were distinct in origin and had different functions, and that the enveloping of jati by varna, as in the case of Hindu castes, was a historical process.

  The origin of varna is reasonably clear from the references in the Vedic corpus. The origin myth describes the primeval sacrifice and the emergence of four groups – brahman, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra – which were subsequently called the four varnas. Jatis are not mentioned until the later sections of the corpus, and then rather cursorily, which is not surprising since the corpus is essentially a collection of ritual texts. Yet it is possible that the formation of jatis may even have been the earlier process. The genesis of the jati may have been the clan, prior to its becoming a caste.

  For a society to become a caste-based society there have to be three preconditions: the society must register social disparities; there has to be unequal access of various groups within that society to economic resources; inequalities should be legitimized through a theoretically irreversible hierarchy and the imposition of the hierarchy claim to be based on a supernatural authority. The latter takes the form of a ritual demarcation dependent on degrees of assumed purity or pollution determined by those controlling the religious ideology. The first two features would be present in a minimal way in many societies. These would be essential characteristics of a jati and might even occur in a lesser form in some clan organizations. The ideological factor derives from varna and is characteristic of Hindu society. The insistence on the absolute purity of one group requires the counterweight of the absolute impurity of another – in this case the untouchable.

  There are close parallels between the clan as a form of social organization and the jati. Jati derives its meaning from ‘birth’ which determines membership of a group and the status within it; it also determines rules relating to the circles within which marriage could or could not take place and rules relating to the inheritance of property. These would strengthen separate identities among jatis, a separation reinforced by variance in ritual and worship as well as the acceptance of a hierarchy among jatis. Therefore, these are entities which gradually evolve their own cultural identities, with differentiations of language, custom and religious practice. A significant difference between clans and jatis is that occupation becomes an indicator of status, since jatis emerge in conditions of a wider range of occupations than clan-based societies. The differentiations would be influenced by contact with other societies.

  Systems of social organization take a while to evolve. The nature of pre-Vedic societies has not been investigated in sufficient detail since the evidence is archaeological and therefore not easily readable for this purpose. Inevitably explanations remain hypothetical as is the one being suggested here. Chalcolithic societies are sometimes said to be chiefships and this would assume a clan organization of some kind. The urban Harappan cultures indicate more complex systems, probably with a clear differentiation between those in authority controlling the production of the cities and those who laboured for them. The theory that might have legitimized this is not easily discernible from the excavated data, but the social hierarchies are evident. Peasant cultivators and pastoralists fed the cities, labour of various kinds was involved in their construction and maintenance, artisans were the producers of goods for exchange and there was the overall authority controlling distribution and asserting governmental powers. Such a society may well have been based on a hierarchy of jatis and the differentiation between those who produced and those who controlled was doubtless legitimized through an ideology, probably religious. Social hierarchy requires an ideological legitimation. When the urban system collapsed the legitimation might well have disappeared, although the basic social organization of some clans and some potential or actual jatis may have continued in various forms.

 
Segmentation and hierarchy made it easier to control such a society, but the continuance of both required an ideological explanation. Occupations also had to be brought into the hierarchy to assist control over the system. Labour, for instance, had to be placed at the lowest level to ensure its availability and continuity. It is possible therefore that in the post-Harappan period, with the emergence of Vedic culture, the ideological legitimation was encapsulated in varna which underlined hierarchy, occupation and purity. The ideology of varna was then imposed on societies that may have been familiar with the notions of jati. The idea of purity and pollution, derived from religious sanction and knitted into the jati structure, made it difficult to change the system.

  The clue to the formation of at least some early jatis may lie in tracing back the relationship between settled societies and others. For example, a differentiation between forest-dwellers and jati society is that the former do not conform to caste rules. An interface between them was created through historical pressures, such as hermitages or kingdoms encroaching into the forest, routes cutting through the forest or demands for forest resources from local administrations. According to caste rules, the forest-dwellers were regarded as mlechchha – those outside the social pale of caste society. If they were given a caste status, either when they were convened into peasants or into craftsmen, then they would become part of an acceptable hierarchy. Such a status would be conferred upon them where there was need for closely controlled labour to produce the requirements of a society that functioned as a state.

  Hypothetically, a forest-clan would generally be a group of people sharing defined space, kinship relations, material culture, a near egalitarian status, custom and ritual. Where such a group begins to concede that there can be unequal access to resources among its members, and treats this differentiation as a hierarchical status inherited at birth, the elements of jati begin to surface. The change would be encouraged through new attitudes to resources and authority or through close and continued contact with a society differentiated by caste. Varna status would follow, with such groups performing rituals and observing, at least in theory, a hierarchy according to certain prescribed rules of the Dharmashastras, as well as accepting notions of purity and pollution among the castes. The families of chiefs would aspire to kshatriya or aristocratic status, while others would fill the range of lower shudra jatis. Where Hinduism had to incorporate a local cult, the priest of the cult could be inducted into brahman status or a lesser status could be given to priests of less important cults.

  The conversion from tribe or clan to caste, or from jana to jati as it is sometimes called, was one of the basic mutations of Indian social history and, whether it was the result of persuasion or confrontation, would have varied with individual situations. For those being converted it would have affected all aspects of their life. Certain foods, such as beef and alcohol, would become taboo to such members of the tribe who were inducted into higher-caste status, and eating together – which had been a form of bonding among clans – would be disapproved of; the assertion of women as equal members of society would be curtailed, forcing them to accept the subordinate part; religious rituals were new and strange as were some of the deities to be worshipped – although in this matter substantial concessions might have been necessary, with the Puranic aspects of the Hindu religion incorporating the deities and rituals of such new castes; the introduction of ownership of land and revenue collection could have resulted in the oppressive experience of debt bondage for some; and the notion of hierarchy in caste was opposed to the more egalitarian ethos of the clan. New activities encouraged the breaking apart of some earlier clans.

  The conversion of clan to jati was not the only avenue to creating castes. Since caste identities were also determined by occupations, various professional associations, particularly urban artisans, gradually coalesced into jatis, beginning to observe jati rules by accepting a social hierarchy that defined marriage circles and inheritance laws, by adhering to common custom and by identifying with a location. Yet another type of jati was the one that grew out of a religious sect that may have included various jatis to begin with, but started functioning so successfully as a unit that eventually it too became a caste. A striking example of this is the history of the Lingayat caste in the peninsula.

  This process of jati formation was primarily a change in social identity and ways of social functioning. Subsequent to this change, a jati was also inducted into a religious identity. Where the religious identity was of Vedic Brahmanism or, later, of Puranic Hinduism, there was a shuffling of jatis into hierarchies and the varna hierarchy was imposed. Ritual status meant observing rules of purity and pollution, where the brahman was regarded as the purest and the others in descending order down to the most impure, who was untouchable. The process became apparent when members of the same group, for example, the Abhiras, were given different varna statuses – brahman or shudra.

  It was not that an existing varna was invariably subdivided into jatis, but that jatis were often allotted varna statuses. This might also explain why jatis are universally recognized in India as functional social units even if their names vary from region to region, but varna statuses are not uniformly observed, barring the brahman and the untouchable. Intermediate castes have a varying hierarchy. Thus, in some historical periods the trading caste of khatris in the Punjab and the landowning velalas in Tamil Nadu were dominant groups. Jati identities therefore often provide more incisive information on social reality than do varna identities. Nevertheless, references to varnas as a shorthand in the texts act as pointers to social disparities. Since the status of the higher varna was protected, the maximum recruitment of new jatis would have been into the shudra status. This would accommodate varieties of professions. Therefore some existing practices would also be accommodated in the new varna identity of shudras.

  The creation of jatis as the primary step in the making of caste society also meant that jatis could be converted to religions other than the Hindu. An interesting characteristic of caste society in relation to religion is that, apart from hunter-gatherers, shifting cultivators and forest-dwellers (who were regarded as beyond the pale of caste), many religious communities other than Hindus have also observed rules similar to caste. Jati identities were frequently continued even on conversion to religions that theoretically rejected caste, such as Islam or Christianity. This was particularly so when an entire jati or a substantial part of one, in a village or town, was converted. The continuities among such groups pertained to regulations of kinship and inheritance, and to the observance of marriage circles, and less to ritual. This was largely because there was continuity in social custom even after conversion.

  This also raises the issue of religious conversion. It would seem that the conversion of an individual to Hinduism would present difficulties and it would be easier to convert the larger group – the clan or the jati – and allot it a varna status. Other religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity and Islam were more flexible in encouraging individual conversion. This is not to suggest that the conversion of the individual was not possible, but it was more problematic for Hinduism because of the intermeshing of caste and religious sect.

  The categories of societies described here do not exhaust the permutations inherent in social forms. Variations of these coexisted in a region in the same historical period. With some of these categories being transmuted into castes, a new dimension is added to social history. However, at particular times and in particular regions, some among them could be dominant and the need to explain the structure of social relationships sharpens the historical image of place and time. Although the historical reconstruction of a region or a period focuses on the predominant forms, the roles of the lesser ones require integration. Societies in India evolved and changed. Understanding these processes involves understanding situations of assimilation and confrontation, of tolerance and intolerance, of social incorporation and contestation, all of which become essential to historical analyse
s. These call for not just a familiarity with the evidence from the past, but also an explanation and understanding of this evidence. Data on the earliest forms of societies are more easily observed in the archaeological record.

  3

  Antecedents

  Prehistoric Beginnings

  The interest in the archaeology of India is rooted in the activity of the late nineteenth century, focusing on the collection of historical remains to help in understanding the past and illumine the present. The search for antiquities that constituted prehistory was encouraged by comparative studies with other parts of the world, and the recognition of similarities or of deviances. To begin with, antiquities of the historical period were mainly objects that were later classified as art remains. Interpretations of excavated data became current during the last century and these have undergone change from time to time.

  The excavation of the Indus cities in the 1920s and 1930s led to a reorientation in Indian archaeology, their origin being initially attributed to possible colonial transpositions from west Asian civilizations. Even later, when the methods and techniques of excavating were altered and made more rigorous by Mortimer Wheeler, the shadow of this imprint did not disappear. The pendulum has now in part swung the other way, for some archaeologists would like to explain the Harappa culture as entirely indigenous and a lineal ancestor to subsequent cultures.

  In the intervening half-century between these two interpretations, new ways of examining archaeological data were adopted by other archaeologists. The questions asked of the data have moved away from being confined to discussions of origins and chronology and have begun to explore the nature of various archaeological cultures and the changes manifested by them or by successor cultures. The context of the artefact demands attention more than just the artefact. Hopefully this approach will help shift the interest away from merely fuelling the search for origins. This will, however, require more empirical data, from a range of cultures, collected through controlled surveys and systematic excavations and motivated by questions that relate to explaining the various societies that created the Indian past.