Abstract
In the currently dominant discourse about Indian society, the caste system appears as an immoral social structure. This moral dimension is perhaps most visible in political and popular rhetoric. Award-winning author Arundhati Roy (2014) calls the caste system as “one of the most brutal modes of hierarchical social organisation that human society has known.” A report published in the UK, titled The Evil of Caste, denounces the system as “the largest systemic violation of human rights in today’s world” (Chahal 2008, 1). The same type of judgement is present in academic scholarship also. By deploying the caste hierarchy, one scholar writes, “Brahmins did not articulate ‘human rights’ but ‘caste rights’, which had the side effect that, in the course of time, about one-fifth of the total population, as ‘outcastes’, had virtually no rights. They were treated worse than cattle, which even in legal theory ranked above them” (Klostermaier 2007, 296–7). Or in the words of another scholar: “Untouchables…were dehumanized by the caste Hindu order” (Rao 2010, 1).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
These views on the conformity between the customs of the Jews and those of the Indians would soon spread widely across the educated classes of Europe. De la Crequinière’s text was included as a section on Indian religion in the bestseller compilation Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1723–43), which was translated, pirated, and imitated across Western Europe (Hunt et al. 2010).
- 2.
In the Dutch Republic, France, and Britain, this is seen in popular texts like Bernard and Picart’s Religious Ceremonies of the World (Hunt et al. 2010). In Britain, we find this image in the entry “Hindoostan, or India” in a series of popular Gazetteers or Geographical Dictionaries of this age, which largely reproduced Scrafton’s account and which saw dozens of editions and imitations in the following decades. See the entry “Hindoostan, or India,” in the seventeenth edition of Brookes General Gazetteer (1820); see the similar or quasi-identical entries in Guthrie 1782, 546; Landmann 1835; Marshall 1840, 377; Walker 1798).
- 3.
- 4.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 760, § 778;
URL: < http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P27.HTM>; consulted on February 11, 2015.
- 5.
For some recent instances of this moral discourse about the caste system, see Guru (2016), Jadhav (2005), Teltumbde (2015), and the debates in a Subcommittee of the United States Congress: India’s Unfinished Agenda: Equality and Justice for 200 Million Victims of the Caste System, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations of the Committee on International Relations House of Representatives, One Hundred Ninth Congress, First Session (October 6, 2005), 10–11, 14, 16–18, 29–31.
Bibliography
Adam, William. 1824. Correspondence Relative to the Prospects of Christianity: And the Means of Promoting its Reception in India. Cambridge: The University Press.
Anonymous. 1800. “The History of British India.” in The Asiatic Annual Register…For the Year 1799, 1–82. London.
Anonymous. 1803. “Account of Books: On the Religion and Literature of the Burmans by Francis Buchanan.” in The Asiatic Annual Register…For the Year 1802, 23–33. London.
Anonymous. 1818. “The Four Castes of the Hindoos.” in Missionary Papers for the Use of the Weekly and Monthly Contributors to the Church Missionary Society, Vol. 9 (Michaelmas, 1818).
Balagangadhara, S.N. 1994. “The Heathen in His Blindness…”: Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion. Leiden: Brill.
Balagangadhara, S.N. 2012. Reconceptualizing India Studies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Balagangadhara, S.N. 2014. “On the Dark Side of the ‘Secular’: Is the Religious-Secular Distinction a Binary?.” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions 61 (1): 33–52.
Bernier, François. 1671. Suite des Mémoires du Sieur Bernier, sur l’Empire du Grand Mogol. La Haye.
Blount, Charles. n.d. Anima Mundi: Or, An Historical Narration of the Opinions of the Ancients Concerning Mans Soul After this Life. Amsterdam.
Blunt, Edward A. 1931. The Caste System of Northern India: With special reference to the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. London: Oxford University Press.
Bolingbroke, Henry St., and John Lord Viscount. 1777. The Works of the late Right Honorable Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, vol. 5. Edited by David Mallet, London.
Brucker, Joseph. 1910. “Malabar Rites.” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 558–62. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Chahal, Chanan. 2008. The Evil of Caste: The Caste System as the Largest Systemic Violation of Human Rights in Today’s World. London: The Federation of Ambedkarite and Buddhist Organisations UK and Dalit Solidarity Network UK.
Craufurd, Quintin. 1790. Sketches Chiefly Relating to the History, Religion, Learning, and Manners of the Hindoos. London.
De La Crequinière. 1705. The Agreement of the Customs of the East-Indians, With those of the Jews, and other Ancient People. London.
De Nobili, Roberto. 2000. “Report Concerning Certain Customs of the Indian Nation.” in Preaching Wisdom to the Wise: Three Treatises by Roberto de Nobili, S.J., Missionary and Scholar in 17 th century India, ed Anand Amaladass and Francis X. Clooney, St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources.
De Roover, Jakob. 2015. Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
De Roover, Jakob, and Sarah Claerhout. 2010. “The Colonial Construction of What?.” in Rethinking Religion in India: The Colonial Construction of Hinduism, ed. Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens, and Rajaram Hegde, 164–83. London and New York: Routledge.
Deloche, Jean. 1971. Voyage en Inde du Comte de Modave, 1773–1776. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient.
Dirks, Nicholas B. 2002. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Delhi: Permanent Black.
Dubois, Jean Antoine. 1817. Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India; and of Their Institutions, Religious and Civil. London.
Duff, Alexander. 1840. India and India Missions: Including Sketches of the Gigantic System of Hinduism, Both in Theory and Practice. Edinburgh.
Elwell, W. A., and B. J. Beitzel. 1988. “Covenant.” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, 533–34. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Falk, Gerhard. 1992. The Jew in Christian Theology. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company.
Forbes, James. 1805. Reflections on the Character of the Hindoos; and on the Importance of Converting Them to Christianity. London.
Forrester, Duncan B. 1980. Caste and Christianity: Attitudes and Policies on Caste of Anglo-Saxon Protestant Missionaries in India. London and Dublin: Curzon.
Forster, Georg. 1785. Sketches of the Mythology and Customs of the Hindoos. London.
Gelders, Raf. 2009b. “Genealogy of Colonial Discourse: Hindu Traditions and the Limits of European Representations.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 51 (3): 563–89.
Gelders, Raf, and Willem Derde. 2003. “Mantras of Anti-Brahminism: Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals.” Economic and Political Weekly 38 (43): 4611–17.
Grant, Charles. 1813. “Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain, particularly with respect to Morals; and on the means of improving it.” in British Parliamentary Papers – Papers Relating to East India Affairs, 1812–1813.
Grey, Edward, ed. 1892. The Travels of Pietro Della Valle in India: From the Old English Translation of 1664 by G. Havers. London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society.
Guru, Gopal. 2016. “A Tragic Exit from Social Death.” Outlook, 1 February 2016, Web Extra. URL: <http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/a-tragic-exit-from-social-death/296480>
Guthrie, William. 1782. A New Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar; and Present State of Several Kingdoms of the World. London.
Halhed, Nathaniel B. 1776. A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits, from a Persian Translation, Made from the Original, Written in the Shanscrit Language. London.
Harcourt, H. 1924. Sidelights on the Crisis in India: Being the Letters of an Indian Civilian and Some Replies of an Indian Friend. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Harvard, W.M. 1823. A Narrative of the Establishment and Progress of the Mission to Ceylon and India, founded by the Late Rev. Thomas Coke, L.L.D., under the direction of the Wesleyan-Methodist Conference. London.
Heber, Reginald. 1828. Narrative of a Journey Through the Upper Provinces of India, from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824–1825. London: J. Murray.
Herbert of Cherbury, Edward Lord. 1768. A Dialogue between a Tutor and His Pupil. London.
Holwell, John Z. 1765. Interesting Historical Events Relative to the Provinces of Bengal, and the Empire of Indostan. London.
Hubbard, D. A. 1996. “Priests and Levites.” in New Bible Dictionary, ed. D. R. W. Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, and D. J. Wiseman, 961. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Hunt, Lynn A., Margaret C. Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt. 2010. The Book that Changed Europe: Picart & Bernard’s Religious Ceremonies of the World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Jacolliot, Louis. 1880. Les Législateurs Religieux: Moïse, Manou – Mahomet, Traditions Religieuses Comparées. Paris: Librairie Internationale.
Jadhav, Narendra. 2005. Untouchables: My Family’s Triumphant Escape from India’s Caste System. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Jones, Sir William. 1796. “Institutes of Hindu Law or, the Ordinances of Menu.” in Representing India: Indian Culture and Imperial Control in Eighteenth-Century British Orientalist Discourse, Vol. 9, ed Michael J. Franklin, London and New York: Routledge. 2000.
Karesh, Sara E., and Mitchell M. Hurvitz. 2006. Encyclopedia of Judaism. New York: Facts On File.
Kaye, John William. 1859. Christianity in India: An Historical Narrative. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
Klostermaier, Klaus K. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Landmann, George. 1835. A Universal Gazetteer; Or, Geographical Dictionary of the World. London.
Lord, Henry. 1630. A display of two forraigne sects in the East Indies. London.
Lyall, Alfred. 1884. Asiatic Studies: Religious and Social. London: John Murray.
Markus, Robert A. 1990. The End of Ancient Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marshall, John. 1840. Brookes’s Universal Gazetteer, Re-Modelled and Brought Down to the Present Time. Philadelphia.
Martin, Benjamin. 1769. Physico-Geology: or, a New System of Philosophical Geography. London.
Maurice, Thomas. 1800. Indian Antiquities or Dissertations, Relative to…Hindostan. Vol. 4. London.
McCready, W. O. 1979–1988. “Priests and Levites.” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised, Vol. 3, ed G. W. Bromiley, 965. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans.
Meigs, Benjamin C. 1854. Caste, in the Island of Ceylon. Boston.
Nelson, Eric. 2010. The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Orme, Robert. 1753. “General Idea of the Government and People of Indostan.” in Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, of the Morattoes, and of the English Concerns in Indostan, London, 1805.
Orme, Robert. 1763. A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Hindostan from the Year 1745, to Which is Prefixed a Dissertation on the Establishment made by Mahomedan Conquerors in Indostan, Vol. 1. London.
Orme, Robert. 1805. Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, of the Morattoes, and of the English Concerns in Indostan. London.
Rao, Anupama. 2010. The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
Rehm, M. D. 1992. “Levites and Priests.” in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, vol. 4, ed D. N. Freedman, 305. New York: Doubleday.
Ridge, D. R. 2003. “Excommunication.” in Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, E.R. Clendenen, and T.C. Butler, 521. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
Roberts, Joseph, ed. 1847. Caste, in Its Religious and Civil Character, Opposed to Christianity: Being a Series of Documents by the Right Reverend Bishops Heber, Wilson, Corrie, and Spencer, and by Eminent Ministers of Other Denominations. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
Rogerius, Abraham. 1651. De Open-Deure Tot het Verborgen Heydendom, Ofte Waerachtigh vertoogh van het Leven ende Zeden; mitsgaders de Religie, ende Gods-dienst der Bramines, op de Cust Chormandel, ende de Landen daar omtrent. Leyden.
Roy, Arundathi. 2014. “India’s Shame.” in Prospect, December 2014.
Scrafton, Luke. 1761. Reflections on the Government of Indostan and a Short Sketch of the History of Bengal. Edinburgh.
Silva, M., and M. C. Tenney. 2009. “Excommunication.” in The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, D-G, 458. Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corporation.
Staughton, William. 1811. The Baptist Mission in India: Containing a Narrative of Its Rise, Progress, and Present Condition, a Statement of the Physical and Moral Character of the Hindoos, Their Cruelties, Tortures and Burnings, With a Very Interesting Description of Bengal, Intended to Animate to Missionary Co-operation. Philadelphia.
Strachey, John. 1911. India: Its Administration & Progress. London: Macmillan.
Stuart, Charles. 1808. Vindication of the Hindoos from the Aspersions of the Reverend Claudius Buchanan. London.
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. 2010. “Monsieur Picart and the Gentiles of India.” in Bernard Picart and the First Global Vision of Religion, ed Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt, 197–214. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.
Sutcliffe, Adam. 2003. Judaism and Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Teltumbde, Anand. 2015. “Ghar Wapsi: Welcome to the Hellhole of Hinduism.” Economic and Political Weekly 50 (1): 10–11.
Trautmann, Thomas R. 1997. Aryans and British India. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Walker, John. 1798. The Universal Gazetteer. London.
Ward, William. 1822. A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos; including a minute description of their manners and customs, and translations from their principal works. London: Kingsbury, Parbury and Allen.
Whitehead, Henry. 1924. Indian Problems in Religion, Education, Politics. London: Constable & Co.
Wilkins, John. 1678. Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion Two Books. London.
Wilson, Horace Hayman. 1862. Works by the Late Horace Hayman Wilson, vol. 1. London: Trübner & Co.
Yelle, Robert A. 2013. The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in British India. New York: Oxford University Press.
Zastoupil, Lynn, and Martin Moir. 1999. “Introduction.” in The Great Indian Education Debate: Documents Relating to the Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy, 1781–1843, ed. Lynn Zastoupil and Martin Moir, 1–72. Richmond: Curzon.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
De Roover, J. (2017). A Nation of Tribes and Priests: The Jews and the Immorality of the Caste System. In: Fárek, M., Jalki, D., Pathan, S., Shah, P. (eds) Western Foundations of the Caste System. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38761-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38761-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-38760-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-38761-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)