The Brahman and Caste Isogamy in North India W. H.

Newell The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 85, No. 1/2. (1955), pp. 101-110.
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The Brahman and Caste Isogamy in North India

Social Research Unit, Uniuersity of M a l q a , Singapore
TRADITIONALLY, THE HINDU regarded as belonging to one of four main all-India varnas. is
These are Brahmans, Ksatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras. Outside these four groups all are outcastes, whatever their religious beliefs. These four groups are arranged in hierarchical order and each varna has traditionally associated with it some special occupation. The Brahmans are traditionally priests, the Ksatriyas warriors, the Vaisyas merchants, and the Sudras agricultural labourers. Every caste group believes itself to be attached in some way to one of these four main divisions, for, in this fashion, status in the all-India social system is confirmed. In terms of this all-India framework, the Hindu religious system appears based on orderly easily understood principles. Yet this apparent uniformity breaks down as soon as caste is studied as a form of local organization. For instead of four varnas we may find forty castes in a village. And, although there may be a very high degree of agreement as to which castes lie at the very top and the very bottom of the caste hierarchy in a particular village, yet, among the middle groups, there is a continual struggle for group precedence. The nature of this caste difference depends in part on the view of the observer. To a Brahman, the low castes may all appear to behave like each other, and all of them may be regarded as equally impure. But among themselves, each low caste group may refuse to eat the food of the others, enforcing such taboos with a severity not found even among the highest Brahmans. One whom all recognize as pure has less need to emphasize his purity by regulation. Similarly, a low caste man will pay little attention to differences among different types of Brahmans as, to him, they will all be equally remote. The difference between these various castes is stressed by the performance or nonperformance of a number of social rules. The most important of these rules are to do with marriage and with eating, drinking and smoking. Blunt (1931) divided the food taboos into the commensal, cooking, food, eating, drinking, smoking, and vessels. Not all sub-castes lay equal emphasis on all these prohibitions. I t would be very pleasant to draw an absolute scale from the highest caste to the lowest so that a Brahman, for example, might be regarded as keeping all the rules while the lowest castes keep the fewest. But in North India which of these rules are kept and which neglected vary considerably from village to village. A Brahman might refuse to eat food with any but Brahmans yet might freely drink water out of a vessel recently handled by a bottom caste man, whereas a low caste man in the same area might refuse both to eat and to drink water from the hands of any but his own caste. The truth is that the rules of eating, drinking and intermarrying are enforced not by a district protector of caste morals, who might hear representations from all castes, but by a group which may be termed a sub-caste. The sub-caste consists of all those people, who freely give their sons and daughters to each other in marriage, who will punish any infringement of the appropriate commensal rule by expulsion from caste (excommunication), and who act together collectively in certain situations. The boundaries of the sub-caste are not coterminous with any

other sub-castes' boundaries, nor with village, state or district boundaries. The area governed by the subcaste may vary from a few square miles to a large area of several hundred square miles. I t is the common desire of the particular members of this sub-caste to keep these particular rules, which binds the members together. I t is the difference between the rules of sub-castes which keeps them apart.

For example, in the diagram, A, B, C, and D consist of four sub-castes. Let us suppose that A is recognized by groups B, C and D as being at the top of the caste hierarchy and that groups B and C each consider themselves superior to the other by some such argument as observing Brahmanical custom such as the forbidding of widow re-marriage, or by virtue of a particular occupation, or by a genealogical claim to some special ancestry. The recognition of B's claim by C or C's claim by B will not affect the position of A or D. For in ritual matters, both B and C are equally impure to A, and it is a matter of indifference to A whether B or C regard themselves as equal or above each other. Moreover if group A are Brahmans, from whom priests are recruited, the Brahmanical services of A will continue to be available to both B and C whatever their relative status, as the relation between a priest and his jajman or employer is a personal family relationship unaffected by caste. Even after his employer's expulsion from caste, the Brahman priest (parohit) will often continue to serve him. Similarly, in economic matters the relative positions of B and C cannot affect the nature of their services to other castes, for the services are determined equally by jajmani agreements by which, for a fixed annual payment and certain perquisites, the menial (kamin) concerned will provide certain services. Thus in a quarrel about status between B and C, other village sub-castes such as A and D will not be drawn into the quarrel as castes. Many Punjab villages are divided up into pattis (wards), usually two or four. Caste members in different parts of the village belong to one or other of these wards and it is possible that in a dispute such as this between two sub-castes, patti sympathies might be aroused. But no supra-caste court will rule in matters of caste status. Now in a diagram such as this there might be four means of dealing with the conflict of status. B may become higher than C; C may become higher than B; B and C may combine together on the basis of complete equality (isogamy); or the conflict may remain unresolved. I n the case of B or C being recognized as higher in status by C or B, hypergamy may result. B may receive women from C without offering daughters in return. Bouglt (1908, p.122) makes this point: Si les groupes constitutifs, chacun s' isolent dans son orgeuil, tendent toujours A se repousser les uns les autres, ils n'en sont pas moins comme attirts, les uns et les autres vers un mCme sommet. Cette attraction peut se composer avec cette rtpulsion pour produire des phtnomtnes complexes. Le sentiment qu'il y a des suptrieurs et des inf6rieurs rtagira jusque sur le protectionnisme matrimonial qui est la regle des moindres castes et au lieu de l'endogamie pure et simple, c'est l'hypergamie qui se dtveloppera. Before the struggle for status between B and C occurred, it is possible that both B and C were members of the same sub-caste giving sons to daughters and daughters to sons. With

THE BRAHMAN AND CASTE ISQGAMY IN N O R T H INDIA

1 "3

tlie developnlent of social differentiation within the sub-caste, of wealth, of ritual practices or of occupational specialization, social differences become crystallized into caste differences. Although the idiom of the sub-caste separation is in terms of the adoption of Sanscritic practices, yet without the underlying social and economic differentiation, such collective adoption of Sanscritic practices would be of no interest to any other sub-caste. The claims to follow Brahmanical practices, when put forward by other than Brahman castes, are the validation of a social change in status. Caste proliferation in the Punjab is only found where the margin of subsistence is sufficicntly high to allow of a surplus after the field worker has supported himself and his family. The villages of the Eastern Punjab (other than in the Kangra valley) consist of two main groups, proprietors and artisans (kamins). The land of the village was originally owned collectively by the proprietors. No individual proprietor had the right to alienate the land although he could sell his share in the village to someone else who would then become a proprietor. Under British rule the village agricultural land was divided up with each proprietor separately owning his section of the land. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, other members of the village had the right to a proportion of the harvest of the village in exchange for the performance of certain duties towards the proprietors or other artisans of the village. These rights and duties were termedjajmani rights (Wiser, 1936). I n the Punjab these jajmani rights were not village rights and duties but rights and duties between one particular proprietor or artisan and another artisan. The proprietor was himself responsible for seeing that the artisan received his grain payment. No village whether of I O O or 700 inhabitants had sufficient of all sorts of artisans to provide all the services required by the proprietors. Each sort of artisan was organized together into a sub-caste stretching outside village boundaries. Ibbetson (1883) thus describes the wide sub-caste organization in the Karnal district about I 880 : The menial castes (kamins) only hold land in the rarest possible instances - only in three villages, I think, in the whole tract. They are principally distinguished by their elaborate caste organisation which is so complete that their disputes seldom come into our courts. The heads of most of the communities live in Panipat, the largest city in the Tract, except that of the washerman who lives at Barsat. . . . [The headmen] are called khalifa for the tailor, raj for the mason, mistri for the carpenter and blacksmith, mahtar for the sweeper. And if you wish to be polite to any of the members you address him by the corresponding terms just as you call a landowner chaudhri after the chaudhri or headman of village groups. . . . Each of these tradesmen artisans had their own sub-caste council (panchayat). Not only were they concerned with ritual problems but they also laid down terms on which they would work for their masters, and, on occasion, exercised a boycott against unfair employers. But the higher one moves up the caste structure, the fewer the sub-caste councils until it may be doubted whether in the whole of the Punjab there is a single Brahman council and certainly not more than a few landowning sub-caste councils. Broadly speaking, each particular sub-caste was traditionally associated with a certain trade, including the proprietor, who could be regarded as the traditional organizer of agricultural production. The artisans were related to the land indirectly through the proprietors. If there were too much land, then the proprietors tried to attract artisans from neighbouring areas to work for them. If there were too many artisans in a particular area then they would wander off to the borders of agricultural territory and attach themselves to a new group of proprietors. The land in the Punjab was fertile and extensive. The proprietors very rapidly developed a demand for a large number of specialists such as carpenters, watercarriers and other artisans. Each group was in its own sub-caste and the proprietors could grow sufficient crops from the land to support a number of servants. This economic surplus over and above the bare necessities of life allowed a caste proliferation. This process has been brought to a

I~alti n somr pal-ls o f tlie P l ~ t l j a lroclay where the increasing pressure on t h c land has forced ~ a lower standard of living upon the proprietors, whose younger sons are now undertaking some of the duties formerly done by artisans. Thus the process of sub-caste division may result in two new sub-caste divisions being formed or in a hypergamous relation between the two sub-castes, but, in either event, occurs only in a society where increasing social differentiation is possible. This is so only where there is a margin of productivity above mere subsistence.

Now immediately one moves from the Punjab plains to the Punjab hills, the geographical situation radically changes with high mountains up to 20,000 ft, and fast-flowing rivers which allow only here and there a grudging subsistence to a farmer willing to build an embankment of stones along the side of the mountain. One of the most interesting of the Punjab hill states is Chamba State. I t consists of several nationalities formerly ruled by the one rajah and now part of the province of Himachel Pradesh. The community with which I wish to compare the plains and the hills is that of the Gaddis. Although hill people, unlike the other residents of the State, there are historical reasons for believing that they originally emigrated from the Punjab plains about a thousand years ago. I n nearly every village there are a few families caring for sheep from whence they got the name of shepherds, but the great majority of the village residents depend for their subsistence on the crops which they can coax from the hard and grudging soil. From March to November they live in their villages between 3000 ft and ~o,oooft, but during the winter they abandon their homes and live on the plains either as beggars, or as attachments to those of their fellows who are tending sheep, or else to do whatever they can find only for board and lodging. Their farms can support them for the most part during the summer but not during the winter. The villages in which the Gaddis live average 23 families in the group around Brahmaur. Some villages may consist of only one family. The largest village has 1 2 0 families in it. The total cultivated area according to the 1933 census (the last available figures) was 20.06 square miles with a population of 14,847, giving a density of 740 people per square mile of cultivated land. There are two harvest seasons per year, late spring when auxiliary crops such as beans and maize are collected, and late autumn when wheat and mountain rice (grown without water) are harvested. The work during the summer is thus more or less evenly distributed and there is little demand for additional labour. During the winter the villages are abandoned. The village lands surround the village. The amount of cultivable land surrounding the village determines the size of the village. Each house in the village is separate from its neighbour, and made of stone and wood two or three stories high to defy the snow. Each floor is occupied by a separate elementary family of the same clan. If there is insufficient space in a house, a family may build a new house elsewhere in the village, not necessarily adjacent to other members of the family. There is no pattern of social organization exemplified in the plan of house sites. There are no landowners in the Brahmaur district as the whole area of the district was owned (until a few years ago) by the rajah. Each clan has the right permanently to use a piece of land on which to grow crops on payment of revenue to the rajah. The responsibility for the payment of this revenue lies however not with the head of the clan but on the male head of the elementary family using the land. O n his death it passes equally to his sons. Only on the extinction of male heirs of the local family does the right of re-allocation revert to the clan members. On the extinction of the clan, the right to use the land escheats to the rajah andlnot to other members of the village. The size of the village depends on the number of members of the village who can acquire a subsistence from the soil, Thus the one-family

THE BRAHMAN AND CASTE ISOGAMY IN NORTH INDIA

15

villages are mainly on the high slopes of the mountain, where the land is scarcer, poorer and limited. Few villagers have attained the right to work land outside their own village areas. Of the numerous villages in the Brahmaur district, only three or four have more than one caste residing in the village. I t is principally one village one caste. The village in which I resided, the village of Goshen, unlike most villages, has three castes, two lower (a Riara and a Sipi) and a higher Gaddi caste. The houses are mixed together, but each caste worships at its own shrine. Members of different clans are also burnt at different burning ghats along the side of the stream, river or spring. Nevertheless the usual rules separating castes apply to this area; namely each caste is endogamous, unable to eat food with other than fellow castemen, unable to smoke from the same pipe stem and unable to sit around the same fire at night. One peculiar feature of the distribution of caste villages within the valley is that the Brahman caste mainly occupies the villages at the top of the valley where the soil is poorer, leaving the more fertile lower portions of the valley to Gaddi and Sipi castes. The castes in the Brahmaur district are as follows: Caste* Caste Division Proportion of Castes (%)

I
1

I (a)
(6)

Brahman Gaddi

(
Rajput Thakur Khatri Rana

I0

80

1
I
8
2

(c)

Sipi Riara Halli

(d)

*(a) and (6) are termed the upper castes and (c) and (d) the lower castes.

I n the valley of Kugti, two days' journey up the Bud1 Nadl river from Brahmaur, thirty years ago when communications were bad and there were insufficient women among the Brahmans of Kugti, the Gaddis gave their daughters in marriage to the Brahmans, .but Brahmans would not give their daughters in marriage to Gaddis. This was hypergamous marriage and was the result of a lack of suitable brides in the Brahman caste. This form of marriage was abandoned as soon as communications improved and the proportion of the sexes among the Brahmans was equalized. But in the Brahmaur district there is the opposite process of isogamous marriage. In the village of Kunni, there exists a caste called Thakurs, formerly petty chiefs ol' the district but now ordinary cultivators. In Goshen there are members of the Rajput caste, related to the Ksatriya of the traditional four-fold classification. In Penshei village, there are some lamilies of Khatris, traditionally related to the Vaisyas. All these three groups may freely interdine, intersmoke and intermarry, giving daughters to sons and sons to daughters. Whatever the origin of these groups (and there is a certain amount of historical evidence as well as a tradition of arrival from Lahore and Delhi) they now form a single caste instead of three castes. In the History of the Western Hills Hutchinson & Vogel (1915, p. 24) state that in documents and land inscriptions t1it.y 'find tlae tern1 'I'haliurs and Ranas (originally used with the meaning of

local chief) used as a caste name, but with gradually decreasing influence until the I ~ t h century'. Presumably these terms were being replaced by the term Gaddi where it applied. Thus in the Brahmaur district of Chamba State instead of the sub-castes following a process of splitting into numerous smaller groups, there is the opposite process of the middle groups of castes amalgamating. This process does not apply to the Brahman group, who remain an endogamous group at the top of the ladder. It does not apply to the groups at the bottom of the caste ladder. Among this middle group of Gaddis, caste and occupatioil are largely unrelated. All Gaddis have got access to some land, and all are agriculturists whatever their original castc or occupational specialization. For the use of this land the Gaddi pays revenue to the rajah. But in addition to this normal revenue, certain types of service were demanded of certain castes: the Rajput gave military service; the Brahman clerical and religious service; the Sipis and low castes begar or labour on roads and carrying government goods. But besides these rather general services there was little distinction between one caste and another. For within a caste, it was difficult to grow sufficient grain on the poor soil to maintain oneself during the three months' snow and to pay for the specialist services required. Clothes are washed by the women of the house, not by a washerman caste. Some Gaddis become apprenticed as carpenters to learn the trade but they are then employed to build Gaddi houses in periods of prosperity, not to arrange for the upkeep of ploughs, for any Gaddi with any ability would do so himself. This lack of caste occupational specialization applies to nearly all the tasks undertaken. Even within the family certain tasks which are traditionally undertaken by men or women may be quite easily transferred from one sex to another in a family which lacks an even proportion of men and women.1 Yet in spite of this isogamous process taking place it is not in conflict with the principle of endogamy for it is the Gaddi which is the name of the caste, not Rajput, Khatri, or Thakur. The Gaddi takes a strict attitude towards infringement of caste. The enforcement of these caste rules lies in the hands of the family in the first instance, and finally with the village council (the members of which will in most instance belong to one caste). An appeal against false judgement can be made to the rajah, who has the right to reverse the judgement. I n the case of fair judgement, only the rajah can re-admit the offender to caste after the appropriate expiation. The only caste which is associated with a special occupation is that of the Brahman p r i e ~ t . ~ All priests are Brahmans but not all Brahmans are priests (although every Brahman can become a priest). Every family in the valley of whatever caste is related by birton (reciprocal ties) with a family of Brahman priests. These Brahmans are the topmost caste. I n comparing this caste system with that on the Punjab plains we have the castes A and D in the same position in the caste structure performing the same duties. But the intermediate castes, B and C, etc., instead of being in relative positions of superiority and inferiority, are equal. Hutchinson & Vogel (1915, p. 2 5 ) state: 'Non-feudal or agricultural Ranas intermarry either with their caste fellows, or with the Thakurs and Rathis. The Thakurs marry within their own caste or with the Rathis and other similar castes such as the Kanets in Kulu.' Ranas, Rathis, Thakurs, and Kanets are castes similar to those making up the Gaddis of Brahmaur. As these various hill chiefs gradually sank back to the position of' agriculturists from petty chiefs, caste was no obstacle to their intermarriage. Without social differentiation, there can be no caste differentiation. Caste follows the social organization.
lPerhaps it should be mentioned here that the tasks usually considered as really unclean, namely sweeping and bootmaking, are not really necessary in Gaddiland as snow covers the ground for much of the year making sweeping unnecessary. Boots are usually bought only once a year in the winter at city markets. 1 am neglecting the low caste Kiaras and Hallis in the Brahmaur Valley, as they rnake a very small proportion of the population of the valley, and do not occur in other valleys in Gaddiland, e.g. the upper reaches of the Savi river.

T H E BRAHMAN AND CASTE ISOGAMY IN N O R T H INDIA

107

At the present time in Gaddiland, the trace of the original castes of the middle Gaddi caste is retained only in name. For example one Rajput Gaddi woman in Penshei village married into a Thakur Gaddi family at Kunni, and the Rajput Gaddi doctor of Brahmaur has a wife from a Gaddi Rana family fiom the bottom of the valley. To the villagers this is no infringement of caste as both bride and bridegroom are Gaddis. Within the Gaddi caste the normal criterions of relative wealth and mutual advantage are the main factors in the marriage arrangements rather than the original caste name. This process of caste isogamy has come to an end in Chamba State with the creation of the new caste of Gaddis and the lessening of immigrants from the plains. For today Gaddi is the caste name, not Rajput, Thakur, Khatri, or Rana. For this caste isogamy to take place there must be ( I ) an economy which cannot support an excessive number of caste specialists; ( 2 ) a centralized authority which reduces all inferior chieftains of different castes to an equal status; and (3) a geographical situation such that those compelled by lack of choice to marry beneath themselves cannot depart elsewhere. These three conditions were found in Chamba State in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With the building of a new road through the district and wealth coming in from the outside, these villages will in the future more closely approximate to the normal Hindu pattern. But no matter how poor the people, Brahmans and unclean castes cannot be incorporated into the Gaddi caste without loosening the essential Hindu feature of having priests who must be born Brahmans to perform family rites. In this system of caste isogamy found on the Punjab hills, it is the middle castes which coalesce. With the exception of the Brahmans of Kugti hypergamously marrying Gaddis, there are no records or knowledge of Brahmans being integrated into this gr0up.l At first sight this appears rather surprising, considering that Brahmans are economically no better off than the majority of Gaddis and in some areas are very much worse off. Although a minority among them gain a slight extra income from performing duties as priests, for the majority their income is derived from their land, which they work themselves. They wear the same woollen clothes as the Gaddis, plough their own fields and otherwise have a similar social organization, yet they show no signs of being integrated with the Gaddi caste. In Brahmaur, the Brahman priest is not the only religious specialist. Besides him, there are a group of sadhus (celibate priests), who are in charge of the main temple at the capital, Brahmaur. In Gaddiland they are all non-Gaddis belonging to a sadhus' federation with headquarters in Benares. There are a group of pujaris (traditional worshippers), who must be Brahmans and who, once a day, present the god in a Brahmaur temple with certain obligatory food gifts. The right to present the food is inherited. There are mediums (chelas) who are attached to village shrines and become possessed on certain occasions when the god Shiva (who resides on a hill behind Gaddiland) talks to the village through them. This right is non-hereditary and may be undertaken by a member of any caste (except Brahmans). Each of these religious groups deals with different units. The sadhus represent the wider all-India Hindu community and the whole valley. Pilgrims from all over India visit the shrine, and gifts flow in from as far afield as Calcutta. The pujaris are the local representatives of worshippers at this all-India shrine. The Brahman priests are connected only with the clan to which they are linked by birton (reciprocal) ties. The mediums deal only with the community attached to the shrine of which they are spokesmen.
1This statement does not take into consideration the area which M r Colin Rosser recently studied in the Kulu valley. The social organization is so very different from that found in Brahmaur that it can be ignored. For example the rites used in marriage and death do not require the services of a priest. They seem to be similar to the Lahuli (Tibetan) rites of Kriloknath Chamba state.

I 08

W. H. NEWELL

The necessity of being born with the possibility of being a priest is in contrast with the sadhu, who is outside the caste system, as he passes through a ceremony in which he dies and his former place in the system is forgotten, or with a medium, who is only temporarily possessed by the god. His own character is of no importance. I t is this being born a priest which is a t the basis of Brahman endogamy and the superiority of caste A in the caste hierarchy. For a domestic ceremony such as a shadhi marriage between two ritually equal people, is invalid unless performed by a Brahman. This marking off of the Brahman from the other castes is illustrated in the relationships between the rajah of Rajput caste and Brahmans. All land in Chamba State belonged to the rajah, the proprietor, for which he received a regular rent from the occupier. I n granting land to non-Brahmans he granted the right to use the land. I n granting land to Brahmans he gave the Brahmans the right to receive his rent, but not, unless especially mentioned, the right to use the land. One typical grant of land to Brahmans inscribed on an ancient copperplate tablet, after describing the boundaries of the land, goes on to say that the rajah, the grantor, gives it 'as far as its limits, grass, grazing and pasture grounds together with fruit trees and with the water-courses and channels, with approaches, ingress and egress, with fallow land and cultivated land with [the fines for] the ten offences'. I t then goes on to say that the grantee 'should freely enjoy and make [others] to enjoy [this grant] on the authority of our charter. The subjects resident in the enjoyed land in obedience to our command will have to deliver to him the regular share and use tax in kind and cash, and every tribute due to the king.' There is evidently no idea of a disturbance of the cultivating rights of the hereditary cultivator, and no idea of giving away anything except those rights due to the rajah. Grants given to castes other than Brahmans never alienated these State rights to collect revenue. This granting of the income from a tract of land as a royal gift is of course in no way peculiar to grants made to Brahmans, as all jagirs given by princes to their nobles were based on the same principle. What is peculiar to Brahmans is that the income was granted to them only because they were Brahmans from the merit of their birth, whereas in the case of jagirs, income was given as a result of their services to the rajah. I n the first the rajah acquires merit; in the second it is merely a secular gift. As a matter of fact there are almost no examples of the second form of gift in this particular state as it was so small and the rajahs protected their prerogatives so closely. Diagramatically the relationship could be shown in this fashion. Caste Rajah (of Rajput caste) A B C
I

.................................... Brahman
..........
......
.............. .......... ._."
............ ..." ........_..
..... .... ._.. .......
.......... __.' ......." ....._..'

. I "

......'

.... _..'

Unclean Castes

The distinction between castes A, B, C, and the caste to which the rajah belonged, the Rajput caste, is a social one. The rajah was invariably the wealthiest and most important

'I'Nh BRAHMAN AND CASTE ISBGAMY IN NORTH INDIA

person in the state. He was the head of the secular hierarchy. I n this capacity he was head of the Armed Forces, was chief government official and was the chief revenue officer. But he had a number of religious functions in addition to his functions as a ruler. These were to constitute a final court of appeal in the case of caste offences so that no one excommunicated could be reinstated without his permission, and to provide certain government officials whose duty it was to discover lost property and witches by divination. He also had the right to confer the sacred thread on low castes, raising them in the caste hierarchy. However, he could not create Brahmans or Rajputs. I t can thus be seen that the rajah of Chamba had many of the divine attributes of a king found in other parts of the world as well as in other parts of India. But these attributes only apply in force fully to castes below himself. For example, in granting the right to work land to Gaddis or castes A, B or C he is performing a favour for them, in granting land to Brahmans he is acquiring merit for himself. Thus he gives the Brahmans that part of the rent of land which would normally remain his own property as ruler. That this is so is rather amusingly illustrated in the school history book of the rajas of Chamba where councillors forcibly compelled one rajah to abdicate as he not only gave away all the land surrounding his palace but started to give away the boards of his palace and even the bed on which he slept to any Brahman fortunate enough to visit him. Thus the distinction between the Rajputs and most of the castes lower than the Rajput is a social one largely based on such facts as ownership of land, wealth and chieftainship. Thakur, Rana, and Rathi all have a basic meaning of chief. When these distinctions disappeared with improving communications and equalization of wealth, the necessity of separate castes also disappeared. But the difference between a Brahman and other castes is not based upon social but religious differentiation. There are certain qualities acquired by Brahmans at birth and essential to the performance of domestic ritual. Now in an isogamous situation as in the Brahmaur district of Chamba State, should the Brahman be identified with the Gaddi caste, the religious separation of the Brahman would be impossible. This separation is not so much to the interests of the Brahman as to those castes which are linked by birton (jajmani) ties with priests. Every family has such ties in every caste other than the very few unclean castes, negligible in numbers and not an integral part of the economy of the valley. For if Hindu rites are to be performed in rites de passage (and Chamba State has been continuously part of Hindu India with a Hindu rajah for over a thousand years), then it has to have a caste of born Brahmans to perform the appropriate rites. Other occupations such as carpenters, washermen or weavers depend for their employment ultimately on whether there is a demand for their skill and the money to pay them. But in the case of Brahmans it is not their skill which is in demand but their birth. This cannot but be associated with their caste. Thus in an isogamous situation Brahmans are never incorporated into lower castes if they can remain economically independent (as they can in Chamba State where they all work land). This separation of Brahmans from other castes is in contrast to village mediums, who are of the same caste as other village members, as their efficacy as village mediums in no sense depends upon their birth but only on their having the ability to become possessed. Northern India, in common with the rest of India, has a well developed caste system. North India also has marked differences in the fertility of the soil and the climatic conditions. I n the plains of the Punjab where independent wealthy villages sprang up on fertile soil, the number of special trades in demand by the inhabitants was extensive. These trades were associated with certain sub-castes ruled by local councils (panchayats). The sub-castes in any particular district were arranged in an hierarchical order with a top caste recognized by all. The struggle for status among the middle sub-castes was a matter of some dispute among the sub-castes concesncd 'illcl wherr t h r number of people, trades and variety of new skills wrse increasing

II0

W. H. NEWELL

(for whatever reason) the sub-castes were splitting among themselves by a process of hypergamy. But in the Punjab hills in the Brahmaur district of Chamba State among the Gaddi people, owing to the limited means of gaining subsistence, the families in these poor villages can not support any caste which does not receive its main support from agriculture. Most of the tasks undertaken on the plains by special sub-castes are undertaken in the hills by members of the family. Owing to this lack of social differentiation, immigrants from the plains have gradually been incorporated into a common Gaddi caste by caste isogamy. This process has not, however, been successful in the case of Brahmans and low caste Sipis, although economically very similar to Gaddis in owning the right to work land of about the same proportional size as the other castes. I n the case of Brahmans this is due to the fact that the religious family rites of the Hindu must be .undertaken by a priest qualified to undertake them by birth. That other religious specialists in Gaddiland such as the medium or the sadhu may be drawn from any caste shows that it is the nature of family ritual among these Gaddis which prevents the Brahman becoming a member of the isogamous group although otherwise qualified to do so. For today the Rajput and the Khatri (trader) are Gaddis. Thus in Gaddiland, owing to the poor environment which does not allow a large caste elaboration, such castes as Khatris and Rajputs with a tradition of emigration from the cities of Lahore and Delhi on the Punjab plains, coalesce by a process of caste isogamy into the Gaddi caste. However among the Brahmans, also with a tradition of origin from the plains, isogamy does not take place because of the powerful influence of Hinduism (Sanscritization) which demands that certain essential family rites must be performed by Brahmans by birth. That this is a ritual matter is shown by the fact that there are other religious specialists of Gaddiland who may be recruited from any caste. These latter are however not concerned with family ritual. The impossibility of isogamously incorporating Brahmans in the Gaddi community as long as the present birton relationship between parohit priest and family remains is confirmed by the fact that in no village in the Brahmaur valley are Brahmans and Gaddis associated together in the same village. The constant respect that is necessarily shown to a Brahman by birth is more easily recognized when it is not frequently exercised.

REFERENCES BLUNT, EDWARD ARTHUR HENRY93 I . Caste Systems of Northern India with special references to the United I Provinces of Agra and Oudh. 374 pp., London. Oxford University Press. BOUGL~, CELESTIN CHARLES ALFRED908. Essais sur le rkgime des castes. Travaux de 1'Annke Sociologique. I 278 pp. Paris. Felix Alcan. J. and VOGEL, J.Ph. 1915. History of the Western Hills. Journal of the Punjab Historical HUTCHISON, Society. 3. pp. 5-54. Lahore. HUTCHINSON J. AND OTHERS 1909-13.Chamba State Gazetteer. 230 pp. Punjab State Gazetteers 22. Lahore. IBBETSON, DENZIL CHARLES 1883.Report on the Revision of Settlement of the Pan$at tahsil and Karnal JELF parganah of the Karnal district 1872-1880. 358 pp. Allahabad. Govt. Printer. H. MAYNARD, J. 1918. Influence of the Indian King upon the growth of caste. Journal of the Punjab Historical Society. 6. pp. 95-103. Lahore. 1936. The Hindu Jajmani System, a socio-economic system interrelating members WISER, WILLIAM HENRICKS of a Hindu uillage community in services. 191 pp. Lucknow Publishing House.