Untoucables in Classical Tamil Society? (Re: New discovery in Tamil Nadu)

[Mahadevan, Thennilapuram]

I don't mean to drag this out and my last note as clarification:

As far as is possible to infer, Hart is right on the first three points in his note, that the Vedic clans constituted a small number against the indigenous peoples of South Asia; that the indigenous peoples were materially more advanced; and that the literature that has survived is all Vedic, thus valorizing the Brahmans as the keepers of the texts, as it were.

The oral tradition that came with the Vedic clans would seem to be determinant factor.   As we know, Witzel (1999; 2003), following the Ehret (1988) model, has been characterizing the Vedic oral tradition a a sort of "status kit" providing the indigenous peoples an entry into Vedic society through the mastery of the Vedic status kit.  We have a number of poets in the RV whose names are not philologically Vedic, who seem to found what appear later in the Brahmanical gotra system as the "kevala" appellations, 7 among the Angirasas and 4 among the Bhrgus.  Several of these seem also the result of possible niyoga alliances between the Vedic clans and local populations.  We even have what Kuiper (2000; Narten festschrift) called a bilingual rsi at RV 10.106.

We do not know if an oral tradition existed among the indigenous populations of northwest South Asia at this time.  Staal (1993 [?]: the Heesterman festschrift)  has argued  that the Samaveda may reflect a local oral tradtion, modifying the rks of the RV: the SV is a Mantra period text made up of rks but "chanted" rather than recited (as rks are)  but with such novel features as to preclude a natural evolution from the RV style within the time period in question.

It would seem that the immigrant Vedic oral tradition, part of the IE milieu (Jamison 2007), was successful in establishing a hegemony, as its sister traditions were, in Iran (Avesta) and Greece (Homer).  And the agents of this oral tradition, Vedic as well as non-Vedic, naturally rose to a privileged group, with the leisure for the svaadhyaaya sytem, without which the texts would not have survived, as "tape recordings."  This agency eventually becomes the historical Brahman group, made, it should be emphasized, from both Vedic and non-Vedic peolpes, in charge of a pan-Vedic sytem, and cohered as a "caste" grouping through the well known Gotra-based endogamy-exogamy marital relations.  It is a closed caste grouping by the Brahmana and Sutra periods and later, wherever the Brahmans migrated.  For instance, when the Brahmans came to the Sangam Tamil country, no new admixture took place between Brahmans, now a decidedly closed caste group, and local peoples--or rather, when it took place, as for instance with the Nambudiri Brahmans and Nairs of Kerala, the melae descendants did not enter the Vedic svaadhyaaya system.  As we know, they did acquire Sanskrit learning, producing land mark figures, even providing the Nambudiri boys what may be called non-Vedic secular Sanskrit education.

Many thanks, George Hart, for a useful discussion.
________________________________________
From: Indology [INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] On Behalf Of George Hart [glhart at BERKELEY.EDU]
Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2009 8:23 PM
To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Untoucables in Classical Tamil Society? (Re: New discovery in Tamil Nadu)

Dear Palaniappan,

I really don't think we need to drag this out.  We disagree, period.
For me, the poems describe quite clearly an institution in which
people who deal with death and the spirit world are stigmatized and
exist in several categories.  A similar institution existed in
traditional Japanese society.  As for aNanku, the DED gives cognates
in several languages, and the Lexicon says, "1 pain, affliction,
suffering 2 disease 3 fear 4 lust 5 killing 6 deity 7 celestial damsel
8 demoness that takes away one's life by awakening lust or by other
means 9 beautiful woman, as resembling a celestial damsed 10 devil 11
dancing under religious excitement, especially possession by skanda 12
low-caste person 13 beauty 14 form 15 young offspring"  (Note the last
meaning is given a different entry in DED).  As a verb, the word means
"to suffer," "to afflict," and is connected with Kannada aNunku,
"depress, humble, ruin, destroy."  Rajam is a fine scholar, but I do
not think she has established that the word means anything other than
"afflict" or something similar in any of her examples.  And then, of
course, we have the notion of aNanku in musical instruments played by
performers (who, yes, are low caste) and in the breasts of beautiful
women (because they bewitch men).  And certainly, there is no
commentator who sees the word as meaning anything other than "afflict"
in some sense.

In any event, I'm tired of quibbling.  I find your commentary very
interesting and even helpful, and am grateful for the ideas and
insights it contains, but I don't agree with your conclusions.

Dear Mahadevan,

Thanks for the wonderful piece on the Vedas and varnas.  I completely
agree with you that the Vedic Aryans did not have a jaati system in
the early period.  But what about the following speculation:

1. The Aryans must have been a tiny population next to the original
inhabitants -- evidence: the pre-Aryan skeletons in the IV show the
same genetic features as today.  Besides, it just stands to reason.

2. We happen to have preserved an enormous amount of sacred literature
from a very small class one of whose purposes was to empower itself.
This literature no doubt describes the ritual culture of the Aryans
from the view of the Brahmins -- but inevitably that view is skewed.
As you know, one gets very different views of hierarchy in modern
South India from different groups.

3. The pre-Aryan culture of N. India was materially far more advanced
than that of the Aryans.  The people who lived there must have had an
extremely complex and rich culture.  Note that many have seen evidence
of "caste" separation in IV cities.

4. Even if we ignore the IV Civilization, the fact is that a rich
village culture existed in N. India for millennia before the advent of
the Aryans.  Village culture tends to be highly resistant to change.
Villages may have incorporated Aryan elements and language, but I
suspect their basic social institutions were little changed.  Who has
not been struck by the virtual identity of the IV bullock cart and its
modern counterpart?

Given all these facts, is it not inevitable that many elements of pre-
existing culture(s) of N. India found their way into the "Vedic"
milieu?  And, if jaati were a prominent feature of this indigenous
culture, is it not plausible that it was slowly taken up by the
"Vedic" people?  (I use quotes because by the time they had absorbed
these elements, they were as much or more indigenous as they were
Vedic).  What seems likely to me is that jaati was as much a part of
all of South Asian culture 4000 years ago as it is today -- though no
doubt it has changed in many ways (and of course is different today in
different areas).  Is it not more likely that it was absorbed from pre-
existing cultures by the Aryans than that it somehow miraculously
evolved from the varna system (which, I would suggest, was itself a
response to the jaati system the Aryans encountered among the
indigenous people)?