01-18-2006, 08:43 AM
The following is excerpted from the chapter "The Impact of Religiosity upon
Caste", in Volume IV - The Breakdowns of Civilizations, of A.J.Toynbee's "A
Study Of History" (1939).
-----------------------
IV. The Breakdowns of Civilizations
13. The Impact of Religiosity upon Caste
The Lucretian and Voltairean view that Religion in itself is an evil - and
perhaps the fundamental evil in human life - might be supported by citing, from
the annals of Indic and Hindu history, the sinister influence which Religion has
ascertainably and incontestably exercised, in the lives of two civilizations,
upon the institution of Caste. This institution, which consists in the social
segregation of two or more geographically intermingled groups of human beings or
social insects, is apt to establish itself wherever and whenever one community
makes itself master of another community without being able or willing either on
the one hand to exterminate the subject community or on the other hand to
assimilate it into the tissues of its own body social. In the recent history of
our own Western World a caste-division has arisen in the United States between
the dominant element of White race and European origin and the subject Negro
element ..... A similar caste-division has arisen between the two corresponding
elements in the population of the Union of South Africa ..... <b>In the
sub-continent of India the institution of Caste seems to have arisen out of the
irruption of the Eurasian Nomad Aryas into the former domain of the so-called
"Indus Culture" in the course of the first half of the second millenium B. C.;
and in this Indian case the resulting situation has been still more unhappy than
it is in the two cases just cited; for in India there was not only an original
diversity of race between the dominant caste and the subject caste - a diversity
which has continued to produce its estranging effect socially and morally, long
after it has been physically obliterated - but the relative material power ofthe
two castes was in inverse ratio to their relative civilization. </b>The Aryan
conquerors of the Indus Basin in the second millenium B. C. were barbarians,
like the "Dorian" conquerers of Crete and the Lombard conquerers of Italy, while
their victims, like the Minoans and the Romans, were the heirs of a once great
civilization. ....
..... In the Indian case, on the other hand, we may conjecture that from the
beginning the castes were distinguished by certain differences of religious
practice, since the Aryan intruders who constituted the dominant caste were
presumably still in the primitive social stage at which the religious and the
secular side of life are not yet distinguished from one another, and at which
the possession of a distinct and separate life as a community consequently
implies the practice of a distinct and separate religion as well. It is evident,
however, that this hypothetical religious ingredient in the original form of the
local Indian version of the institution of Caste must have been accentuated when
the Indic Civilization developed the religious bent which it has bequeathed to a
Hindu Society that is related to it by "affiliation". It is further evident that
this impact of Religiosity upon the Institution of Caste in India must have
aggravated the banefulness of the institution very seriously. Caste is always on
the verge of being a social enormity; but when Caste is "keyed up" by recieving
a religious interpretation and a religious sanction in a society which is
hag-ridden by Religiosity, then the latent enormity of the institution is bound
to rankle into a morbid social growth of poisonous tissue and monstrous
proportions.
In the actual event the impact of Religiosity upon Caste in India has begotten
the unparalleled social abuse of "Untouchability"; and since there has never
been any effective move to abolish or even mitigate "Untouchability" on the part
of the Brahmans - the hieratic caste which has become master of the ceremonies
of the whole caste-system and has assigned to itself the highest place in it -
the enormity survives, except in so far as it has been assailed by revolution.
<b>
The earliest known revolts against Caste are those of Mahavira the founder of
Jainism (occubuit prae 500 B. C.) and Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of
Buddhism (vivebat circa 567-487 B. C.): two creative personalities who were
non-Brahmans themselves and who ignored the established barriers of Caste in
recruiting the bands of disciples whom they gathered round them to wrestle with
the moral problems of the Indic "Time of Troubles". If either Buddhism or
Jainism had succeeded in captivating the Indic World, then conceivably the
institution of Caste might have been sloughed off with the rest of the social
debris of a disintegrating Indic Society, and an affiliated Hindu Civilization
might have started life free from this incubus.</b> As it turned out, however, the
role of the universal church in the last chapter of the Indic decline and fall
was played not by Buddhism but by Hinduism - a parvenu archaistic syncretism of
things new and old; and one of the old things which Hinduism resuscitated was
Caste. Not content with resuscitating this old abuse, it embroidered upon it.
The Hindu Civilization has been handicapped from the outset by a considerable
heavier burden of Caste (a veritable load of karma) than the burden that once
weighed upon its predecessor; and accordingly the series of revolts against
Caste has run over from Indic to Hindu history.
In the Hindu Age these revolts have no longer taken the form of creative
philosophical movements of indigenous origin like Buddhism or Jainism, but have
expressed themselves in definite secessions from Hinduism under the attraction
of some alien religious sytem. Some of these secessions have been led by Hindu
reformers who have founded new churches in order to combine an expurgated
version of Hinduism with certain elements borrowed from alien sources. Thus, for
example, Kabir and the founder of Sikhism, Nanak, (vivebat A. D. 1469-1538)
created their syncretisms out of a combination between Hinduism and Islam, while
Ram Mohan Roy (vivebat A. D. 1772-1833) created the Brahmo Samaj out of a
combination between Hinduism and Christianity.the largest scale in districts in
which there had previously been a high proportion of members of low castes or
depressed classes in the local Hind It is noteworthy that, in all
these three syncretisms alike, the institution of Caste is one of the features
of Hinduism that has been rejected. In other cases the secessionsts have not
stopped at any half-way house but have shaken the dust of Hinduism off their
feet altogether and have entered outright into the Islamic or the Christian
fold; and such conversions have taken place on u population. The classic instance is the
latter-day religious history of Eastern Bengal, where the descendents of former
barbarians who had been admitted just within the pale of Hinduism on sufferance,
with an extremely low status, have become converts to Islam en masse.
This is the revolutionary retort to the enormity of "Untouchability" which has
been evoked by the impact of Religiosity upon Caste; and, as the masses of the
population of India are progressively stirred by the economic and intellectual
and moral ferment of Westernization, the trickle of conversions among the
outcasts seems likely to swell into a flood, unless the abolition of the stigma
of "Untouchability" is achieved at the eleventh hour by the non-Brahman majority
of the Caste-Hindus themselves, in the teeth of Brahman opposition, under the
leadership of the Banya Mahatma Gandi.
Caste", in Volume IV - The Breakdowns of Civilizations, of A.J.Toynbee's "A
Study Of History" (1939).
-----------------------
IV. The Breakdowns of Civilizations
13. The Impact of Religiosity upon Caste
The Lucretian and Voltairean view that Religion in itself is an evil - and
perhaps the fundamental evil in human life - might be supported by citing, from
the annals of Indic and Hindu history, the sinister influence which Religion has
ascertainably and incontestably exercised, in the lives of two civilizations,
upon the institution of Caste. This institution, which consists in the social
segregation of two or more geographically intermingled groups of human beings or
social insects, is apt to establish itself wherever and whenever one community
makes itself master of another community without being able or willing either on
the one hand to exterminate the subject community or on the other hand to
assimilate it into the tissues of its own body social. In the recent history of
our own Western World a caste-division has arisen in the United States between
the dominant element of White race and European origin and the subject Negro
element ..... A similar caste-division has arisen between the two corresponding
elements in the population of the Union of South Africa ..... <b>In the
sub-continent of India the institution of Caste seems to have arisen out of the
irruption of the Eurasian Nomad Aryas into the former domain of the so-called
"Indus Culture" in the course of the first half of the second millenium B. C.;
and in this Indian case the resulting situation has been still more unhappy than
it is in the two cases just cited; for in India there was not only an original
diversity of race between the dominant caste and the subject caste - a diversity
which has continued to produce its estranging effect socially and morally, long
after it has been physically obliterated - but the relative material power ofthe
two castes was in inverse ratio to their relative civilization. </b>The Aryan
conquerors of the Indus Basin in the second millenium B. C. were barbarians,
like the "Dorian" conquerers of Crete and the Lombard conquerers of Italy, while
their victims, like the Minoans and the Romans, were the heirs of a once great
civilization. ....
..... In the Indian case, on the other hand, we may conjecture that from the
beginning the castes were distinguished by certain differences of religious
practice, since the Aryan intruders who constituted the dominant caste were
presumably still in the primitive social stage at which the religious and the
secular side of life are not yet distinguished from one another, and at which
the possession of a distinct and separate life as a community consequently
implies the practice of a distinct and separate religion as well. It is evident,
however, that this hypothetical religious ingredient in the original form of the
local Indian version of the institution of Caste must have been accentuated when
the Indic Civilization developed the religious bent which it has bequeathed to a
Hindu Society that is related to it by "affiliation". It is further evident that
this impact of Religiosity upon the Institution of Caste in India must have
aggravated the banefulness of the institution very seriously. Caste is always on
the verge of being a social enormity; but when Caste is "keyed up" by recieving
a religious interpretation and a religious sanction in a society which is
hag-ridden by Religiosity, then the latent enormity of the institution is bound
to rankle into a morbid social growth of poisonous tissue and monstrous
proportions.
In the actual event the impact of Religiosity upon Caste in India has begotten
the unparalleled social abuse of "Untouchability"; and since there has never
been any effective move to abolish or even mitigate "Untouchability" on the part
of the Brahmans - the hieratic caste which has become master of the ceremonies
of the whole caste-system and has assigned to itself the highest place in it -
the enormity survives, except in so far as it has been assailed by revolution.
<b>
The earliest known revolts against Caste are those of Mahavira the founder of
Jainism (occubuit prae 500 B. C.) and Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of
Buddhism (vivebat circa 567-487 B. C.): two creative personalities who were
non-Brahmans themselves and who ignored the established barriers of Caste in
recruiting the bands of disciples whom they gathered round them to wrestle with
the moral problems of the Indic "Time of Troubles". If either Buddhism or
Jainism had succeeded in captivating the Indic World, then conceivably the
institution of Caste might have been sloughed off with the rest of the social
debris of a disintegrating Indic Society, and an affiliated Hindu Civilization
might have started life free from this incubus.</b> As it turned out, however, the
role of the universal church in the last chapter of the Indic decline and fall
was played not by Buddhism but by Hinduism - a parvenu archaistic syncretism of
things new and old; and one of the old things which Hinduism resuscitated was
Caste. Not content with resuscitating this old abuse, it embroidered upon it.
The Hindu Civilization has been handicapped from the outset by a considerable
heavier burden of Caste (a veritable load of karma) than the burden that once
weighed upon its predecessor; and accordingly the series of revolts against
Caste has run over from Indic to Hindu history.
In the Hindu Age these revolts have no longer taken the form of creative
philosophical movements of indigenous origin like Buddhism or Jainism, but have
expressed themselves in definite secessions from Hinduism under the attraction
of some alien religious sytem. Some of these secessions have been led by Hindu
reformers who have founded new churches in order to combine an expurgated
version of Hinduism with certain elements borrowed from alien sources. Thus, for
example, Kabir and the founder of Sikhism, Nanak, (vivebat A. D. 1469-1538)
created their syncretisms out of a combination between Hinduism and Islam, while
Ram Mohan Roy (vivebat A. D. 1772-1833) created the Brahmo Samaj out of a
combination between Hinduism and Christianity.the largest scale in districts in
which there had previously been a high proportion of members of low castes or
depressed classes in the local Hind It is noteworthy that, in all
these three syncretisms alike, the institution of Caste is one of the features
of Hinduism that has been rejected. In other cases the secessionsts have not
stopped at any half-way house but have shaken the dust of Hinduism off their
feet altogether and have entered outright into the Islamic or the Christian
fold; and such conversions have taken place on u population. The classic instance is the
latter-day religious history of Eastern Bengal, where the descendents of former
barbarians who had been admitted just within the pale of Hinduism on sufferance,
with an extremely low status, have become converts to Islam en masse.
This is the revolutionary retort to the enormity of "Untouchability" which has
been evoked by the impact of Religiosity upon Caste; and, as the masses of the
population of India are progressively stirred by the economic and intellectual
and moral ferment of Westernization, the trickle of conversions among the
outcasts seems likely to swell into a flood, unless the abolition of the stigma
of "Untouchability" is achieved at the eleventh hour by the non-Brahman majority
of the Caste-Hindus themselves, in the teeth of Brahman opposition, under the
leadership of the Banya Mahatma Gandi.