Note 174 — Volume II. (continued 3)

The functions of the Brâhmans. 32. The religious functions of the Brâhman are various. If the word is, as Professor Schrader174 suggests, philologically the same as the Flamen of Rome, we have a link with the religious practices of two branches of the great Aryan race. We have first, the Upâdhyâya or Pâdha, who is the officiating priest, with whom may be classed the Achârya, Hotri, and similar functionaries whose business it is to superintend the more elaborate and mysterious rites of the faith which can be performed by none but those deeply conversant with the Vedic ritual. Next comes the Parohit or Purohit, “one placed in front,” the prepositus or praeses of the Roman world. The institution of the Purohita, who was not only a mere house priest, but a political functionary, goes back to the early Aryan times. In Vedic times he was regarded as a confidential and virtuous minister of state; but by the time of Manu175 he had fallen to a lower status, and was regarded as inferior to other Brâhmans. His duties consist in superintending the domestic rites at birth, initiation, and marriage. He must be acquainted with the appropriate mantras or texts which are used on these occasions, and he generally knows a modicum of astrology (jyotish) by which he is enabled to cast horoscopes and announce the lucky and unlucky days for the performance of the various family rites, the commencement of agricultural operations, and the like. The ordinary village Purohit is, it is hardly necessary to say, very seldom proficient in Sanskrit or religious learning. He is able to mumble a few texts without understanding them; but he rarely makes any attempt to inculcate morality or improve the lives of his parishioners. This duty, so far as it is done at all, he leaves to the Guru, who may or may not be a Brâhman. The lowest class of semi-religious Brâhman is that which, as Mr. Ibbetson176 says, “exist only to be fed. They consist of the younger members of the Purohit families, and of Brâhmans who have settled as cultivators or otherwise in villages where they have no hereditary clients. These men are always ready to tender their services as recipients of a dinner, thus enabling the peasant to entertain the desired number of Brâhmans on occasions of rejoicing, as a propitiatory offering, in token of thanksgiving, for the repose of his deceased father’s spirit, and so forth. The veneration for Brâhmans runs through the whole social as well as religious life of the Hindu peasant, and takes the practical form of either offerings or food. No child is born, named, betrothed, or married; nobody dies or is burnt; no journey is undertaken or auspicious day selected; no house is built, no agricultural operation of importance begun, or harvest gathered in, without the Brâhmans being fed; a portion of the produce is set apart for their use; they are consulted in sickness and in health; they are feasted in sorrow and in joy; and though I believe them to possess but little real influence with the people, a considerable portion of the wealth of the Province is diverted into their useless pockets.” This is pretty much the state of the Brâhmans further east. As Mr. Sherring177 says of the Benares Brâhman:—“Light in complexion in comparison with the rest of the people, frequently tall in stature, with the marks of a clear penetrating intelligence depicted plainly, and sometimes in a striking manner, upon his countenance, erect, proud, self-conscious, the Brâhman walks along with the air of a man unlike any I have ever seen, in which self-sufficiency, a sense of superiority and a conviction of inherent purity and sanctity are combined.”