The fate of a country usually hangs on the character of its aristocracy. Even in democratic’ countries, it is not the unwieldy majority that controls real power but an influential minority who, by their wealth or education or status or other qualifications, are in the ordinary course of things, recognized as • the leaders of the people. The rise and fall, the progress and decadence of the nation will depend to a great extent on the ideals which animate the policy and conduct of that minority. From days immemorial, the Brahmans have been the undoubted aristocrats of India, the leaders of the people, the custodians of religious and secular learn­ing, unrivalled politicians and administrators, and owners of wealth .and power, besides being the trustees of the peoples’ conscience as priests., Pro­bably no other class of persons in any society ever

combined in themselves all these advantages SD exclusively as the Brahmans. It is equally doubtful if any other aristocratic class has ever exercised their privileges to the detriment of the common people so unscrupulously and for so long a period as these Hindu priests. For an understanding of the causes which have brought India to her present condition no study is more important than that of the policy and doctrines of the Brahmans.

The disappearance of Buddhism and the passing of political power into the hands of the Muham­madans, though they meant the extermination of national life, was a triumph for Brahmanism As in the centuries after the breakup of the Indo-Aryan kingdoms of the Gangetic Valley, the Brahmans showed extraordinary activity in the preparation of Sutras and their promulgation in different parts of the country, so in the period of national prostration and political chaos roughly from the eighth to the twelfth century after Christ, there is a phenomenal revival, expansion and consolidation of the theocratic domination of the ‘Brahmans. One prominent result of the invasion of India by the Muhammadans was that, so far as Hindu society was concerned, Brah­mans became its undisputed leaders and law-givers. “After the overthrow of the Hindu princes by the  Muhammadans, the Hindu -princes and chiefs lost a good deal of their prestige, bilt the leadership of the Hindus instead of passing into the new political authority, namely Muhammadan rulers, passed almost entirely to the Brahmans.”* There were no powerful Indian rulers to question their right to decide what should be or should not be the religion of the people, and by what principles their social life’ should be governed. When the Mutiammadans had overcome

all opposition and settled down as rules, unless some of them were fanatically inclined to make forcible conversion, they left the Hindus in the hands of their religious leaders and whenever they wanted to pacify them by quiet methods, they made use of the Brahmans as their accredited representatives.

Another great advantage was that, for the first time in history, all the peoples of ‘India, of all sects and denominations, were brought under – the supremacy of the Brahmans. Till then they had claimed to be priests of the three higher castes only and did not

* Page 149, An Essay on Hinduism. by S. V. Kellam

presume to speak for the Sudras and other Indian peoples except to keep them at a safe distance. The Muhammadans called all the non-Muslims inhabi­tants, without any discrimination, by the common name “Hindu,” which practically meant non-Muslims and nothing more. This simple fact contributed to the unification of India more than any other single event, but also, at the same time, condemned the “dumb millions of the country to perpetual subjection to their priestly exploiters. Indians became “Hindus,” their religion became Hinduism and Brahmans their masters. “The word Hindu itself is. a foreign one.{ The Hindus never used it in any Sanskrit writing, that is those %villa were written before the Muhammadan invasion.”* “When the Muhammadans came they called all people who were in India, but who did not belong to Muhammadan religion, Hindus. . All castes and creeds which did not acknowledge Muhammadan religion were Hindus.” Thus was the Indian people by an innocent accident of history, permanently subjected to a disastrous social and religious system in the shap­ing of which they had no hand and could thereafter obtain no voice, but were entirely at the mercy of the Brahmans., Brahmanism became Hinduism, that is the religion of all who were not followers of the Prophet of Mecca. Fortified thus in an unassailable position of sole. religious authority, Brahmans com­menced to establish their theocratic overlordship of all India.

One of the first signs of Brahmanical revival, as in the past, was the promulgation of new Shastras, Puranas and other religious literature alleged to be the works of ancient sages. The priests must have

* Page 22, An Essay on Hinduism, by Kelkar.
Page 29, An Essay on Hinduism, by Kellum

been conscious of the untenability of their doctrines and their own unworthiness to –lay down rules for the good of society, for they wrote new works in the name of ancient authors and altered ancient works to suit their present contentions. There is hardly any Sanskrit composition which has not been tampered with, altered or added to by them. There is no famous Rishi or teacher in whose name they have not concocted scriptures. There is no sacred book into which fiction and legend and imaginary history have not been interpolated. The most ancient of scriptures, the Rig-Veda, has not escaped the profane hand of interpolators and its tenth book is wholly ascribed to gods as if to conceal their true origin and later authorship. Veracity as to facts was never a feature of Brahman authors, so much so that historical unreliability has become a universal literary characteristic of the Sanskrit language. The best critic would be unable to separate the grain from the chaff, to say where facts end and fiction begins. This is even more the case in regard to the so-called_ sacred literature. The period of Brahmanical revival naturally abounds in such fraudulent Shastras and Puranas.

Brahmans emigrated in large numbers from the North to the Southern kingdoms which had not been conquered by the Muliannnadans and whose rulers knew very little about the ancients and their Sanskrit classics., Any false Shastra could therefore be easily palmed off as a genuine old work. The Puranas and Dharma Shastras of this age are standing monu­ments of the degrading depths to which a scheming; priesthood could sink in their infatuation for worldly domination. “The Puranas which are still extant were composed in the age of Vikramaditya and Siladitya, but have been considerably altered and largely added to in succeeding centuries even after the conquest of India by the muhammadans.

We accordingly find the Puranas filled with sectarian disputes, each sect upholding the supremacy of its own special deity chosen from the copious storehouse of the modern Hindu pantheon . . . Later Hindu writers wrote under the disguise of ancient names to give their modern works an appearance of antiquity and authority. Thus all the eighteen modern Puranas profess to be the works of Vyasa, the compiler of the Veclas.”*

No less than sixteen writers have composed Dharma Shastras. These are (I) Atri, (2) Vishnu, (3) Harita, (4) Yajnyavalkya, (5) Usanas, (6) Angiras, (7) Yama, (8) Samvarta, (9) Katyayana, (x o) 13rihas2ati, (I I) Parasara, (I2) Vyasa, (13) ,Samkya; 04) Likhita, (15) Daksha and (16) Satapa_ta. Some of them belong to the early cen­turies of the Christian era and the rest came into existence after the Muhammadan conquest, but -even the earlier ones have been mutilated and altered. “Some of them undoubtedly belong to the Puranic times or even earlier, but chapters have been inter­polated in these works in recent times after the Muhammadan conquest.”– The Dharma Shastras of Yajnyavalkya, Vyasa and Parasara were undoubted, produced or recast after the Muhammadans became masters, and the authors assumed the names of the famous Rishis of ancient days to give their works an appearance of antiquity. The Tantras represented the latest development of priestcraft of the most degrading and revolting type, and contained dark, cruel, obscene practices for acquiring superhuman powers. “To the historian the Tantra literature represents, not a special phase of Hindu thought, but a diseased form of the human mind, which is possible only when the national life has departed,

* Pages 155-157, Epochm of Indian History (Ancient), R. C. Butt. t Page 72, Later Hindu Civilisation, R. C. Dna.

when all political consciousness has vanished, and the lamp of knowledge is extinct.”*

In the Dark Age between the eighth and the tenth centuries after Christ, when the Rajputs and the Brahmans were engaged in North India in stamping out Buddhism, by destroying all that was Buddhistic buildings, books and even monks—the famous Brahman teacher Kumarila Bhatta was carrying on his campaign in favour of the Vedas and their sacrifices, and in condemnation of Buddhism  He was followed in later centuries by many famous-writers such as Padmagupta, Bhatta Natayana, Jayadeva, Madhava, Purnaprajnya of the Kanarese country, Sayanacharya of Vijyanagar and others, Under the rule of the Sultans and the Mughals when the only refuge of the Hindu masses was their gods-and goddesses, Brahmanism found it easy to impose itself on the credulous and fear-stricken population. “It is indeed a remarkable fact, that under the adverse political conditions of the rule of the Sultans, Hindu.: society evolved new mean’s of self-protection against alien influence by means of rigorous domestic legislation as embodied in some of the most important Smritj compilations which were all pro­duced during this period. Thus Madhavacharya, Visveswara Bhatta, Candeswara, Vacaspathi Misra, Prataparudra, Raghunandana and Kamalakara, all-flourished during this period and fixed Hindu social: and domestic manners and customs in different parts, of the country by their writing.” . Under the­Mughai monarchy, as a literary historian of India so. aptly remarks, “Brahmanism remained with its un­dying vitality of intellectual life to continue its own’ course unmoved.”

The unfortunate truth, however, is that what was self-protection, nay self-glorification ‘ for Brahmans was damnation for the rest of the Hindus.

* Page 93, Later Hindu Civilisation, R. C. Dutt, :

Pages, 15-16 Local Government in Ancient Ind‘a, Padhakumud Muker,

Priestly monopoly in all its heartlessness, and the unhealthiest restrictions and worst superstitions of Brahmanism started from the time of the Rajputs and were legitimatised and perpetuated during several centuries of national lifelessness under alien subjec­tion. This will become clear by an enumeration of some of the typical recommendations and command­ments of the Shastras of this period :—(1) They insist on the observance of caste distinctions which are made more rigorous and oppressive than before,

They prohibit inter-marriages, inter-dining and other kinds of social intercourse among the castes.

They condemn as degraded caste persons those who follow numerous useful arts, and crafts, such as goldsmiths, blacksmiths, washermen, weavers, carpenters, traders in various articles of daily need and so forth. (4) They enforce the observance of various degrees of pollution and untouhability among the castes. (5) Some communities are branded as impure and therefore to be shunned, as Mlechchas and Chandalas. (6) Muhammadans, Christians, the Chinese and the Japanese, and other civilised peoples are treated insultingly as impure communities whose contact will cause pollution. (7) Not only punish­ment for offences, but also the reward of labour are to be regulated according to caste distinctions. “The wealth that is stolen l y the Brahman tends to wellbeing in the next life; the wealth that is given to the Sudra tends to Heir* (8) They prohibit sea-voyages which are to be punished with expulsion from caste or degrading penances. (9) They encourage idolatry in all its debasing forms. (10) Temples and their premises are glorified as spots of divine manifestation and visits to them are treated as a sure way to God’s grace. (11) Gods and god­desses are described in numerous fantastic forms with many heads and hands, in the shape of animals

  • Sukraniti ii, 811-812.

and semi-human beings, sleeping on snakes and riding on rats, possessing wives and children, some of whom sit on the heads of their lord, and doing things which decent men should shun—pictures which now furnish models for advertisements of beer and cigarettes and stories which disfigure the nation’s life, (12) They recommend self-immolation in fire or water for sinners. They sing false praises of Brahmans, of their sacred origin, of their exalted nature, of their extraordinary powers to bless and to curse, of the terrible effects of their wrath, of the great merit of making valuable gifts to them and of the necessity. for all other men to do reverence and be submissive to them. 03) There is no good result that cannot be achieved by making golden images of Ganesa, Vishnu, Asvins, Kubera, Indra, etc., and after worship, presenting them to Brahmans. “There is no sin, no incurable disease, no domestic calamity and no loss or injury to property which cannot he washed away by such gifts.”* (14) They recommend self-immolation of widows on the funeral pyre of their dead husbands, enforce child marriage and prohibit re-marriage of widows.

We shall quote a few instances to serve as samples of the rules and beliefs promulgated by the Shastras and which prevailed during the time of Akbar. (a) “A cough is a punishment for killing a Brahman. Cure: Making a lotus of four tolas of gold, and after repeating certain incantations performing with it the ceremony of Hama, and giving it to a righteous Brahman.”

(b) “A fever is a punishment for killing an innocent Kshatriya. Cure: Repeating one hundred times the incantation of Mahadeo, feeding thirteen Brahmans and sprinkling with water the image of Mahadeo one hundred times.”

  • Page 78, Early Ifinclu Civilisation, by R. C. Putt.