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half so intelligible as this tradition to explain the separation between the different castes, the absolute superiority of the highest and the absolute inferiority of the lowest. Each was rather a different race than a different order of men from the others. The doctrine upon which policy, as well as philosophy and religion, rested was the utter inequality of mankind.

The Brahmin was a superior being, raised above the humanity to which his nature might appear to bind him.13 No language seemed capable of describing the ineffable dignity of the place appointed to him in the world. He was not only "the chief of all creatures," but "an object of veneration even to deities," 15 and was himself "a powerful divinity," 16 by whose aid "worlds and gods perpetually subsist.”17 It is easy, therefore, to conceive the majesty and the dominion which the Brahmins claimed amongst their fellow-beings. They depended, as they declared, on themselves alone,18 and the bounds of the universe, as they added, were alone the limits of their dominion.19 They alone could study the Vedas,20 the

13 Born above the world" is the expression in Menu, I. 99. There is a beautiful poem, The Brahmin's Lament, translated by Mr. Milman, in which the wife of the Brahmin urges her husband not to mourn as though he were "of lowly caste." Such a glimpse into things goes a great way to explain the position which the Brahmins held and the notions entertained concerning them.

14 Menu, I. 99. 15 Ibid., XI. 85.

16 Ibid., IX. 319. Cf. § 317. 17 Ibid., IX. 316.

18 The words in Menu (XI. 32) are these: "His [the Brahmin's] own power, which depends on himself alone."

19 Whatever exists in the universe is all, in effect, though not in form, the wealth of the Brahmin; since the Brahmin is entitled to it all by his primogeniture and eminence of birth." Menu, I. 100.

20 These holy books were not to be studied by any without the aid

sacred books, whose knowledge was supposed to make its possessors omnipotent on earth and acceptable to the supreme beings from whom it was derived. But instead of communicating the light and the strength they thus exclusively received, it was rather their pride altogether to deny to others the assistance which a race of ignorant and helpless mortals would incessantly require. They had neither to instruct, nor to sacrifice, nor to pray, except in their own behalf and for the sake of their own "ultimate happiness";" and the phantoms which haunted the mountain and the plain, the river and the glade, were evoked rather than appeased by the priesthood, to whom alone their emptiness was known. The distinction between the learned and the unlearned was here at once apparent. On one side, the priests commanded without believing; on the other, the people believed, not because they were ever taught, but because they were commanded ; knowledge having become the power, not only of subduing nature, but of degrading, or, at all events, of overpowering, the great mass of mankind. The secret of the Brahmins' despotism, which many of its subjects must have often regarded with amazement as well as abhorrence, lay in the confidence they professed to receive from the divinities which imparted only doubt and dread to other men.

of a preceptor. Menu, II. 116. The Doctors, as they may be called, were of the highest class amongst the Brahmins.

21 Menu, I. 98.

22

22"Leur but n'était pas d'éclairer, mais de dominer." Condorcet, Prog. de l'Esp. Hum., p. 65.

The same class, deriving supreme authority from the offices and the mysteries of their priesthood, were the sovereigns of the whole land and of all its inhabitants. As lawgivers, they alone were able, not only to establish, but to interpret, the forms of justice, which they also, in great part, put into execution.23 A judge in one of the old dramas describes his duties in language that sounds as well to our ears as to those which first heard it. "A judge," he says, "should be learned, sagacious, eloquent, dispassionate, impartial; he should pronounce judgment only after due deliberation and inquiry; he should be a guardian to the weak, a terror to the wicked; his heart should covet nothing, his mind be intent on nothing, but equity and truth." 24 But though this might be said and heard openly, the drama, as well as every other vehicle of cultivation or expression, was under the control of the Brahmins; so that any sentiments to which it gave utterance were tolerated by them, not breathed against them. It is more to our purpose to observe, that the duties of the judge, as one of the sovereign class, were intended to be observed towards his own order, and towards this alone. No words, at any rate, could make the Brahmins responsible; their authority was universal over religion, government, property, 25 and the occupations and habits of private life; but there was no

23 Menu, VIII. 1.

24 The Mrichchakati, or The Toy-Cart, a drama written probably before our own era, and translated, twenty years ago, by Mr.

Wilson, in his "Hindu Theatre."
This extract is from Act IX.
25 See note 19. The question of
property is a disputed one.

claim upon it from those it swayed with absolute dominion. In the acquirements and the powers they themselves possessed, compared with those of the other castes, their title to such superiority rested upon grounds that were then, at least, indisputable; and it is in remembering how the development of the higher qualities of the human mind was confined entirely to them, that their liberty, though it was but the narrow freedom of a single class, assumes the importance it really deserves in the history of uni

versal civilization.

It will presently, however, appear that the liberty which the priesthood retained from the rest of their race could redound but little to their own activity, however powerful it might at first have assisted them to become. But, for the moment, we have some view to take, as rapidly as is consistent with our purposes, of the inferior castes, whose condition, however painful, will exhibit more exactly the preeminence of the Brahmins. The highest of these subject castes was that of the Chatriyas or warriors, perhaps subdued by the priests in earlier wars, perhaps attaining to the estate they held in after times through the victories they gained in concert with the Brahmins. They could give alms, it was said in the law, but receive none; they could read, but never expound the holy volumes of their people; and as if these distinctions were but the foundation of their subordination, it was further enjoined upon them, that they had no duty "superior to fighting," nor any

26 Bhagvat-Gheeta, Eng. transl., p. 38.

object except to obey the Brahmins, and live in the magnificence which characterized the rich, or the easy discipline to which the poor amongst them were constrained. The season of "fighting" appears soon to have passed away; and a campaign, did it occur, would scarcely rouse the Chatriyas to dangerous conflicts, if the habits of war corresponded in any degree to those of peace. It is worth adding, that the Chatriyas, though they had been more martial than they really were, would have still been quite incapable of resisting the skilful and encroaching management of their superiors.

66 con

"".28

From the same Chatriya caste, a king, or a chiefwarrior, as he ought rather to be called, was appointed to play the nominal sovereign over each His function was community and state. quest"; his duty, "never to recede from combat"; and yet he might be destroyed, "with troops, elephants, horses, and cars," according to the pleasure of the Brahmins.29 As for civil authority, there was none that the king could independently possess or exercise. His reign, if such it can be styled, began with the instructions of the priesthood; and from any powers with which he was invested, the broadest exceptions were made in favor of the same august and inviolable caste. "Dying of hunger," the king could lay no charge on a Brahmin; 30 nor could he condemn a criminal to death, if he were a Brahmin, though "convicted of all possible crimes."31 The

27 Menu, X. 119. 28 Ibid., VII. 88.

29 Ibid., IX. 313.

30 Ibid., VII. 133; IX. 313.

31 Ibid., VIII. 381. So he who knew the sacred texts, that is, the

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