Note 10 — Chapter I

Caste not immutable. 12. By another popular theory caste is eternal and immutable. The ordinary Hindu will say that it has always existed, that it is based on what he calls the Shâstras, a vague body of religious literature of which he knows little more than the name. We have already shown that the vague reference to caste in the Vedas discloses the institution at a very different stage from what we see it in the “Institutes” of Manu or at the present day. Even in an age so comparatively recent as that of Manu, the rules of connubium and social life were very different from those which prevail at present. The modern Vaishnava, for instance, would shudder at the comparatively liberal permission given in these days for the use of meat.10 But in addition to this we meet all through the range of Hindu history and myth with numerous illustrations of the mutability of caste. Thus in the Mahâbhârata Bhîma is married by his brother Yudhishthira to the Asura woman Hidimbi, and the marriage rites are regularly performed: while Draupadi, a Kshatriya girl, accepts as her husband at the Swayamvara Arjuna who pretends to be a Brâhman. Viswamitra, a Kshatriya by birth, compelled Brahma by the force of his austerities to admit him to the Brâhmanical order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha, with whom he had quarrelled.11 It is even more significant to learn from the Mahâbhârata12 that all castes become Brâhmans when they have crossed the Gomati on a visit to the hermitage of Vasishtha, and we are told that the country of the five rivers is contemptible because there a Bahîka or Panjâbi “born a Brâhman becomes afterwards a Kshatriya, a Vaisya or a Sûdra, and eventually a barber.” It would be easy to repeat examples of this kind almost indefinitely.13