Untouchability

Also called: Asprishya · Topic: Society in Early India: Kinship, Varna-Jati, Women · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 3 "Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"

Meaning

Untouchability (asprishya, "one who must not be touched") was the Brahmanical practice of treating certain groups, mainly the chandalas, as ritually "polluting" because of the work they did, especially handling corpses and dead animals. These groups were placed below even the Shudras, and higher varnas avoided their touch and even their sight. It matters because it shows how the varna order created a group outside and beneath itself, and because outside evidence shows the rules were actually followed on the ground.

Explanation

Background: the idea of purity and pollution

• Brahmanical texts set out four varnas (Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra). Many people did not fit inside this four-fold scheme.
• Brahmanical thinking ranked jobs by ritual purity (being clean in a religious sense, not just physically clean).
• Some activities, such as performing rituals, were seen as pure.

• Others were seen as "polluting". The most polluting was handling corpses and dead animals.

• People who did this work were called chandalas. They were pushed below all four varnas.

• Those who saw themselves as pure avoided taking food from people they called untouchable.
• The belief was extreme. Not only the chandala's touch but even their sight was said to pollute a person of higher varna.

How the texts justified it

• The Manusmriti, an ancient Sanskrit law code, says the chandala class came from the union of a Brahmana woman and a Shudra man. It treats this "mixed" birth as the reason for the lowest rank [2].
• This is the text's own claim, not a fact about where chandalas really came from. NCERT's point is that the real basis of the ranking was the work of handling corpses and dead animals.

Main features: the Manusmriti's rules for chandalas

The Manusmriti calls these "duties", but they are really rules for keeping chandalas out:

• They had to live outside the village.
• They had to use discarded utensils, meaning thrown-away pots, not fresh ones.
• They had to wear clothes taken from the dead and ornaments of iron, not gold or silver.
• They could not move about in villages and cities at night.
• They had to dispose of unclaimed corpses (bodies with no family to perform the last rites).
• They had to work as executioners, carrying out death sentences.
• Britannica records the same set of rules: living unseen away from the city, near graveyards, keeping dogs and donkeys, eating from broken vessels, no metal vessels, and marrying only within the group [2].
• The pattern: each rule controls where they live, what they touch, what they wear and when they may move. Exclusion became part of daily life.

Practice and protest

• Practice: Chinese pilgrims saw these rules being followed, about two centuries apart.
• Fa Xian (c. 5th century CE) saw untouchables sounding a clapper in the streets [3].

• Xuan Zang (c. 7th century CE) saw executioners and scavengers living outside the city [4].

• Protest: Buddhist stories in Pali challenged the idea of rank by birth.

• In the Matanga Jataka, the Bodhisatta (the Buddha in an earlier life) is born a chandala named Matanga.
• His son Mandavya studies the Vedas and feeds 16,000 Brahmanas. When Matanga comes in ragged clothes asking for food, Mandavya turns him away.

• Matanga tells him that people proud of their birth do not deserve gifts, and that those free from vices are the ones worthy of offerings.

• Result: untouchability gave Brahmanical society a fixed bottom layer below the varnas. It also drew an early counter-voice saying a person's worth comes from conduct, not birth.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: early India, roughly c. 600 BCE – 600 CE. The travellers' accounts come from the 5th and 7th centuries CE.
• Where: towns and villages of north India. Fa Xian visited Udyana, Gandhara, Peshawar, Taxila, Kapilavastu, Bodh Gaya, Banaras (Varanasi) and Kushinagara [3]. Xuan Zang studied at the Nalanda monastery [4].
• How we know: three kinds of evidence.
• Normative text (what the rule-makers wanted): the Manusmriti, with its origin story and its rules for chandalas [2].
• Travellers' accounts (what was actually happening):
  • Fa Xian (c. 337 – c. 422 CE) began his pilgrimage to India in 402 CE and wrote the Foguoji ("Record of Buddhist Kingdoms") [3].
  • Xuan Zang (602–664 CE) left China in 629 CE without a travel permit and wrote the Datang-Xiyu-Ji ("Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang Dynasty") [4].

• Dissenting literature (the excluded group answering back): the Matanga Jataka, in Pali, from the Buddhist Jataka stories.

• Why the evidence is strong: the law code and the outside observers agree. Together they show untouchability was a lived practice and not just a rule on paper.

Don't confuse with

• Shudra: the fourth varna, which stood inside the four-fold order. Chandalas were placed below it, outside the varna scheme altogether.
• Nishadas / mlechchhas: groups outside the varna order who were looked down on for their way of life or language. Nishadas were forest hunter-gatherers. Mlechchhas were people who did not speak Sanskrit. Chandalas were excluded for "polluting" work, and their touch and sight were avoided.
• Fa Xian vs Xuan Zang: Fa Xian (c. 5th century CE, Foguoji) = the clapper in the streets [3]. Xuan Zang (c. 7th century CE, Datang-Xiyu-Ji, Nalanda) = executioners and scavengers living outside the city [4].
• Manusmriti vs Matanga Jataka: the Manusmriti is a Sanskrit Brahmanical law code that sets the rules for chandalas. The Matanga Jataka is a Pali Buddhist story that criticises pride of birth from a chandala's point of view.

Prelims Hooks

• Chandalas were ranked below the four varnas because handling corpses and dead animals was seen as polluting. Even their sight was said to pollute.
• The Manusmriti traces the chandala class to the union of a Brahmana woman and a Shudra man [2].
• Manusmriti rules for chandalas: live outside the village, use discarded utensils, wear clothes of the dead and iron ornaments, no movement in villages or cities at night, dispose of unclaimed corpses, work as executioners.
• Fa Xian (c. 5th century CE, began in 402 CE, wrote the Foguoji): untouchables sounded a clapper in the streets [3].
• Xuan Zang (602–664 CE, left China in 629 CE, wrote the Datang-Xiyu-Ji): executioners and scavengers lived outside the city [4].
• Matanga Jataka (in Pali): the Bodhisatta is born a chandala named Matanga. His wife is Dittha Mangalika, and his son is Mandavya, who fed 16,000 Brahmanas.

Mains Points

• Text and traveller agree, which makes untouchability a lived practice.
• The Manusmriti shows what Brahmana law-makers wanted. Normative texts like this must be checked against other evidence.
• Fa Xian's clapper and Xuan Zang's note on settlements outside the city are outsider accounts, written centuries apart, that match the law code [3][4].

• Method point for GS-I: a text plus an independent eyewitness account is stronger evidence than either one alone.

• Exclusion was built into daily routine. The rules controlled housing (outside the village), objects (discarded pots, iron ornaments), dress (clothes of the dead), movement (no night movement in villages and cities) and work (executioners, disposing of corpses). Ritual ideas of purity became a lasting social hierarchy based on occupation.

• Protest was as old as the practice. The Matanga Jataka gives a chandala a voice and says worth comes from conduct, not birth. This was part of the wider Buddhist and Jain rejection of ranking by birth. Link it forward to Bhakti saints and modern anti-caste reform to show a long line of protest, not something that started only in the 19th century.

Related concepts

• Nishada
• Mlechchha
• Antyaja
• Chandalas
• Dasa-karmakara
• Vishti

Read more

• Beyond and beneath the varnas: integration, subordination, conflict