1 In Brahmanical ideology there is no prescription of who is ‘touchable’, rather it exclusively makes prescriptions of excommunication. ‘Touchable’ as a category could only have been asserted through the emergence of anti-caste figures like Ambedkar and the burgeoning Dalit subjectivity, which rebelled against the label ‘untouchable’ and against the totalizing force of Brahmanism. Using the word ‘touchable’, almost aseptically, was an assertion of the annihilation project, of the separate subjectivities engendered by the caste system. Linguist Laurie Bauer, in her book English Word-Formation (1983, 20–1), coincidentally uses the word ‘untouchable’ as an example to explain the linguistic terms ‘root’, ‘stem’ and ‘base’. To simplify her definitions, the ‘root’ is the indivisible unit within the word from which the whole word derives: e.g. in ‘untouchable’ the root is ‘touch’. The ‘stem’ of a word is that part to which suffixes which change the inflections of the word are added, but the meaning of the word remains the same: e.g. the word ‘untouchable’ acts as the stem of the word ‘untouchables’. A suffix is added to change the usage of the word depending on the context, but the essential meaning is unchanged. The ‘base’ of a word is any smaller unit within a word to which suffixes or prefixes are added; the base isn’t the root of the larger word, rather a smaller word which may or may not have a connection with the larger word. Thus, one can see that ‘touchable’ is the base of the word ‘untouchable’. They share the root ‘touch’, but linguistically, they only have a relation of the added prefix ‘un-’. Of course, in a meaningful sense the two words are antonymous. However, politically, touchability and untouchability don’t derive from each other but rather from the notion of ‘touch’ itself. Ambedkar’s politicization of the word ‘Touchable’ here is crucial: it indicates an oppositional relation of the two classes of people within the larger category of ‘touch’. It is this notion of ‘touch’ as an associational category itself which he calls into question. For a discussion on the various modalities of touch and how it associates with caste, the material and philosophical underpinnings of touch as a driver of caste, see Aniket Jaaware’s Practicing Caste: On Touching and Not Touching (2019).
2 The Rig Veda is considered the most important of the four Vedas and is one of the oldest surviving texts in human history. It is divided into ten mandalas (chapters) and contains 1,017 suktas with eleven additional ‘khilas’. Most of the hymns take the form of praises and were chanted at sacrifices, which involved slaughter of animals and their burning on a sacrificial fire, to invoke deities like Indra, Agni, Soma and Varuna. The Purusha Sukta hymn, found in the tenth book, contains the first known articulation of the four major social groups (varna) along with their symbolic functions (Mani 1975). In most of his works, Ambedkar refers to Rig-Veda Sanhita compiled and translated by Horace Hayman Wilson from 1850–88 (6 vols), London, Trübner & Co., though he does not always provide citations. All further references here are from the exhaustively annotated 1,725-page Jamison and Brereton edition of 2014.
3 The verse goes: ‘Making the sound hin, the goods-mistress of goods, seeking her calf, has come near through (my) thinking/ Let this inviolable cow give milk to the Aśvins. Let her increase for our great good fortune’ (Jamison and Brereton 2014, 357).
4 ‘Of this well-portioned god here his manifestation is the fairest, the most brilliant one among mortals/ Gleaming like the heated ghee of the inviolable (cow), (the manifestation) of the god is eagerly sought like the largesse of a milk-cow’ (Jamison and Brereton 2014, 557).
5 V.82.8 makes no reference to the cow, and 82 is about ‘Savitar’. The numbering here seems to be a proof error (either by Ambedkar or the BAWS editors). V.84.8 offers the closest match: ‘The great bucket—turn it up, pour it down. Let the brooks, unleashed, flow forward/ Inundate Heaven and Earth with ghee. Let there be a good watering hole for the prized cows’ (Jamison and Brereton 2014, 766).
6 There’s no verse at VII.69.71, but there’s VII.69, focused on Asvins, featuring eight verses with none referring to a cow. A proximal one is VII.68.9: ‘This praise-poet here awakens with good hymns, rousing himself at the beginning of the dawns, bringing good thoughts./ The fertile cow makes him grow strong with her refreshing drink, with her milk. – Do you protect us always with your blessings’ (Jamison and Brereton 2014, 968). Jamison and Brereton warn us about how the poets of the Rig Veda were often having fun with language, deploying wit and irony. They say we cannot ever be alert enough to the panoply of meanings that arise from implied puns that often come aurally alive, in the recitation of the verse. In their general introduction, Jamison and Brereton go to great lengths to explain how and why ‘obscurity [is] so highly prized’ by the Rig Vedic poets. ‘The most significant and salient feature of the poets’ relationship to language is their deliberate pursuit of obscurity and complexity. The strong privileging of obscurity is found in all aspects of Rigvedic poetry’ (61). For instance, they say, ‘In verse [VII.15] 9, as also in VII.1.14, the áksarā refers to both a syllable—its primary meaning—and a cow that always gives milk. Thus, the “syllable” of the poets comes with thousands of syllables, and because their speech is an inexhaustible cow, it brings thousands of cattle’ (899). Elsewhere, considering VII.87, they say, of 4b, ‘“The inviolable cow bears three times seven names.” As often, the “cow” in this verse is speech (e.g., Thompson 1995: 20), and it is speech, or more specifically this hymn, that carries within it twenty-one “names”’ (Jamison and Brereton 2014, 992–3). Consider, also, the expert commentary on X.85 which is an account of the wedding of Surya to the groom Soma (here the moon and not the drink): ‘…menace returns in verse 34, where an unidentified object is ascribed all sorts of harmful qualities. Only a Brahmin can neutralize them. Similarly, in verse 35, various violent actions are depicted, which a Brahmin can absolve’ (1519). The Brahmin calls all the shots. In verse 34, where a cow is killed for a wedding feast, it is said: ‘But Brahmins who understand “Sūryā,” that is, the nature of marriage, including its negative qualities, can safely eat the offered cow’ (1521). All these layers of obscurity, poetic flights of fancy and penchant for quibbling do not take away from Ambedkar’s two key points: one, the cow was both revered and loved, sacrificed and eaten; and two, the supremacy of the Brahmin and the need for hierarchy are established over and over.
7 X.87 is dedicated to Agni Rakshohan (“Demon-Smiter”), and the reference to a cow that ought not be killed comes at verse 17: ‘A year’s worth of the milk of the ruddy cow: let the sorcerer not eat of that, o you with your eye on men. Whoever seeks to gorge himself on [/steal] the beestings, with your flame pierce him face-to-face in his vulnerable spot, o Agni’ (1531).
8 VI.28 is a hymn focused on the well-being of the cows and its eight verses, seen in isolation, could well be the charter of contemporary far-right go-rakshaks (cow-protectors). Jamison and Brereton: ‘The safety of the cows of the pious man as they graze is the subject of much of the hymn, and the various dangers that could befall them are detailed: being stolen by a thief or in a cattle raid, getting lost, going to the slaughterhouse’ (2014, 812). The hymn begins with: ‘The cows have come here and have made (the house) blessed. Let them find a place in the cow-stall; let them find enjoyment among us’ (812); but verse three makes it clear that only the sacrificer (the Hotar Brahmin) has absolute rights over his cows: ‘Those (cows) with which he sacrifices and gives to the gods, he keeps company with them as their cowherd for a very long time’. The Brahmin is both the protector and slayer of cows. Note, too, the difference between simple slaughter for food (proscribed) and the taller claims of sacrifice (extolled).
9 The verse reads: ‘Mother of the Rudras, daughter of the Vasus, sister of the Ādityas, navel of immortality—/ I now proclaim to observant people: do not smite the blameless cow—Aditi’ (Jamison and Brereton 2014, 1213).
10 Brahmanas, instruction manuals for performing Vedic rituals, form the second literary stratum of the Vedas. Although the composition of these texts is not linear, the Brahmanas generally come after the hymns of praise to gods, known as Samhitas, and precede the speculative texts known as the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. The Aitareya Brahmana and Satapatha Brahmana (Brahmanas of one hundred parts) are the most important ones, the latter being the most recent. They indicate a shift from an emphasis on the importance of ritual to invoke gods to stressing the power of rituals in and of themselves (Lochtefeld 19, 122). The Satapatha Brahmana is linked to the school of Brahmin priests known as Vajasaneyins, who looked to excise the various exegetical contents of the Yajur Veda, and solely focus on the formulas necessary for ritualistic purposes. The Vajasaneyins were primarily Adhvaryu priests who were secondary in importance to the Hotars (see p. 228 note 9). The Satapatha Brahmana has two recensions: the Madhyandina and the Kanva, of which only the former has survived in its entirety (Eggeling 1882, xxv–xxix).
11 The above passage is immediately followed by: ‘Such a one indeed would be likely to be born (again) as a strange being, (as one of whom there is) evil report, such as “he has expelled an embryo from a woman,” “he has committed a sin;” let him therefore not eat (the flesh) of the cow and the ox. Nevertheless Yâgñavalkya said, “I, for one, eat it, provided that it is tender”’ (Eggeling 1885, 11). Here the prohibition of beef is immediately overturned by the sage Yajnavalkya. Ambedkar refers to this overturning later in the text (see p. 160 and p. 176 note 42).
12 The verse is as follows: ‘At first, namely, the gods offered up a man as the victim. When he was offered up, the sacrificial essence went out of him. It entered into the horse. They offered up the horse. When it was offered up, the sacrificial essence went out of it. It entered into the ox. They offered up the ox. When it was offered up, the sacrificial essence went out of it. It entered into the sheep. They offered up the sheep. When it was offered up, the sacrificial essence went out of it. It entered into the goat. They offered up the goat. When it was offered up, the sacrificial essence went out of it’ (Eggeling 1882, 50). A near-identical verse can also be found in the Aitareya Brahmana; see p. 232 note 29 for our exegesis on the verse.
13 Apastamba was a sage, writer and commentator. The Dharma Sutra that bears his name (roughly 400 BCE) is considered a major source for the law code attributed to Manu which was considered a traditional source of Hindu law by the British rulers. Dharma Sutras, the earliest literature of dharma, are in prose, unlike the verse Dharmashastras which succeeded them. They deal with sources of dharma, upanayana, Veda study, the ashramas (but not as a succession of four stages) (Olivelle 1999, 73–93), food, purity, means of livelihood, marriage, succession, property, the dharma of women, penances, punishments and duties of a king.
14 The reference to the verse is wrong here. Ambedkar is referring I.17.29 in the Apastamba Dharma Sutra. It goes: ‘The meat of one-hoofed animals, camels, Gayal oxen, village pigs, and Sarabha cattle are forbidden’ (Olivelle 1999, 28). However, Ambedkar fails to mention the next verses which go: ‘It is permitted to eat the meat of milch cows and oxen./ A text of the Vajasaneyins states: “The meat of oxen is fit for sacrifice”’ (I.17.30–1).
15 The previous endnote contradicts Ambedkar’s claim. Apastamba Dharma Sutra appears to be quite permissive of beef consumption: cow was both sacrifice and food.
16 Ludwig Alsdorf (2010) points out the Iranian origin of the word ‘Aghnya’; the Persian word for cow was ‘agznya’. He tentatively puts forth an interpretation of the word to indicate ‘that which cannot be killed’, rather than ‘that which must not be killed’. Even though one may concede that the cow was indeed sacred in ancient India, it didn’t mean that it was not sacrificed or consumed: it was its ‘unkillable’ nature that made it more sacred as a sacrifice. Sebastian Carri (2000) points out the even bolder interpretation of ‘Aghnya’ made by Hanns-Peter Schmidt, a German Indo-Iranist and scholar of Sanskrit. The word can be read in two ways according to Schmidt: as the tame animal par excellence (domestic rather than wild) and as that which is characterized by its non-killing, i.e. life-giving, nurturing nature.
17 Pandurang Vaman Kane (1880–1972) was an Indologist and Sanskritist. He was given the honorific of Mahamahopadhyaya in 1941, won the Sahitya Akademi award under the Sanskrit translation category for History of Dharmasastra, Volume IV, in 1956 and was bestowed with the Bharat Ratna in 1963. Kane was a practising lawyer and also a teacher of Sanskrit at various schools and colleges. History of Dharmasastras, an encyclopaedic study of all the major scriptural and prescriptive Hindu texts spanning five volumes, is considered his most important and influential work. Although an orthodox Hindu himself, it was his reading which helped several scholars, including Ambedkar and D.N. Jha, assert that beef was indeed a commonly consumed food item in Vedic times. In his autobiographical note in the Epilogue to the fifth volume of the History of Dharmasastras, he writes about an incident in 1927 when during Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Bombay, a group of Mahar devotees requested a Brahman Sabha, of which he was chairman, to grant permission for temple entry. Kane called the managing committee to a vote and noted that half of them were opposed to the entry of the Mahars. It was his deciding vote that led to the resolution of allowing the Mahars into the shrine. Several aggravated members filed a suit in the High Court against the committee, calling for a temporary injunction. Since temple entry for Untouchables had become a legal right by then, the suit fell through. Nominated by the then President Rajendra Prasad, Kane served as a member of parliament in the Rajya Sabha from 1953 to 1959.
18 The literal translation of the word samhita is ‘collection’. In the Vedas, the Samhitas form the central and most ancient layer of the text. The mantras collected within the various Samhitas include hymns, benedictions, prayers, spells and litanies usually directed to a Vedic diety. These texts have a special significance as rites of sacrifice, which were considered the most important aspect of early Hinduism (Lochtefeld 2001).
19 [Dharm Shastra Vichar (Marathi) p. 180]
20 Jamison and Brereton (2014, 1528): ‘[Indra:] “For they cook fifteen, twenty oxen at a time for me. And I eat only the fat meat. They fill both my cheeks.” – Above all Indra!’
21 Jamison and Brereton (2014, 1542): ‘(For him) into whom horses, bulls, oxen, mated cows, rams, once released, are poured out [=offered]…’
22 The reference Ambedkar makes here does not have any mention of cow slaughter. Ralph Griffith’s translation of X.72.6 is: ‘When ye, O Gods, in yonder deep closeclasping one another stood,/ Thence, as of dancers, from your feet a thickening cloud of dust arose.’ In the Jamison and Brereton translation of the Rig Veda, the following is found at X.44.9 (2014, 1448): ‘Let the axe [=fire] arise, together with its light. The (cow) of truth,/ yielding good milk, should come into being as of old./ Let the ruddy, blazing (fire) shine out with its radiance. The master of/ settlements should blaze like the blazing sun.’ The next verse is as follows: ‘With cows we would overcome neglect that goes ill, and with barley we/ would overcome all hunger, o you who are much invoked.’ The hymn from which these verses are taken extolls the marauding prowess of the Aryas, mythically embodied in the figures of Indra and Manu. One can argue that the verses given here seem to indicate a sort of cow-sacrifice; however, the layers of metaphor imbued in the text dissuade any definitive claim.
23 The Kamyashtis or Kamya Ishtis are the minor sacrifices prescribed in the Taittiriya Brahmana (Chakravarti 1979). Kamya sacrifices are made primarily for the fulfilment of special wishes, like the success of a particular undertaking (Kittel 1872).
24 Each of the Vedas is broadly divided into four sections: the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. The Vedas were studied by several rishis who went on to form their own schools and editions of the original text. These schools were known as shakhas (Mani 1975). One such shakha was the Taittirya, which was a recension of the Krishna (Black) Yajur Veda (Dalal 2014). According to legend, the Taittiriya shakha originates from Vyasa’s disciple Yajnavalkya. His guru, on being annoyed with Yajnavalkya, orders him to return all that he had taught him about the Vedas. Yajnavalkya is then said to have ‘vomited’ all that he had learnt. But such was the extent of his knowledge that the guru tells the lesser disciples to consume this ‘vomit’ like tittiris (sparrows) (Chinmayananda 2013). From this body of knowledge arose the Taittiriya shakha. This recension of the Yajur Veda is most popular in Southern India and the Konkan region.
25 Ralph T.B. Griffith quotes this same text from the Taittiriya Brahmana in The Vedas: With Illustrative Extracts. It is as follows: ‘A thick-legged cow to Indra; a barren cow to Vishnu and Varuna; a black cow to Pushan; a cow that has brought forth only once to Vayu; a cow having two colours to Mitra and Varuna; a red cow to Rudra; a white barren cow to Surya, &c’ ([1892] 2003, 56).
26 Griffith, whom Ambedkar often consults, also refers to the Panchasaradiya-seva in his work ([1892] 2003). Rather than the immolation of five-year-old humpless, dwarf bulls, he claims that it is young cows that are sacrificed. The Brahmana says about the ritual: ‘Whoever wishes to be great, let him worship through the Panchasaradiya. Thereby, verily, he will be great.’ Pratapacandra Ghosa (1871) notes that the Panchasaradiya is an autumnal rite, as one can glean from the ‘-sarad-’ that occurs in the term.
27 Such a verse reference number is not found in Patrick Olivelle’s translation of the Apastamba Dharma Sutra. However, the following quote can be found: (1.17.24) ‘It is permitted to eat the meat of milch cows and oxen. A text of the Vajasaneyins states: “The meat of oxen is fit for sacrifice”’ (Olivelle 1999, 28). Elsewhere in the text, the following is said with regard to sacrificial offerings: (2.16.24–28) ‘When the food is made greasy, however, the gratification it gives the ancestors is more ample and lasts longer, as also when one gives righteously (dharma) acquired wealth to a worthy person. With cow’s meat their gratification lasts for a year, and even longer than that with buffalo meat. This rule makes clear that the meat of domestic and wild animals is fit to be offered’ (60). See also p. 175 note 40.
28 The oldest usage of the word ‘Madhuparka’ is found in the Jaiminiya Upanisad-Brahmana (Jha 2009), and references to it are also found in the Satapatha and Aitareya Brahmana (Chakravarti 1979). The popular ceremony, employed for welcoming guests, is both a Srauta ritual (performed by someone versed in the srutis) and a Grihya (domestic) ritual. It is also part of Soma sacrifices (Valhe 2015).
29 The Grihya Sutras are manuals that prescribe domestic behaviour, religious ceremonies and rituals. Among other things, these texts outline daily sacred-fire rites and the life-cycles rites (Samskaras). The samskaras encompass all stages of a person’s life: from offerings to be made at the time of birth, to the memorials to be made after death. These domestic rituals, though they have evolved with time, continue to be performed by a majority of caste Hindus.
30 According to D.N. Jha (2009, 33–4): ‘The killing of the kine to honour guests seems to have been prevalent from earlier times. The Rig Veda (X.68.3) mentions the word atithinir, which has been interpreted as ‘cows fit for guests’ and refers to at least one Vedic hero, Atithigva, meaning literally ‘slaying cows for guests’. The cow was also killed on festive occasions like marriage. A Rig Vedic passage, for instance X.85 discussed earlier on p. 164–5 note 6, refers to the slaughter of a cow on the occasion of marriage and, later, in the Aitareya Brahmana, we are told, that ‘Just as in the world when a human king has come, or another deserving person, they slay an ox or a cow that miscarries; so for him [Soma] they slay in that they kindle the fire, for Agni is the victim of the gods’ (Keith 1920, 118).’
31 The Asv.gr. is the Asvalayana Grihya Sutra. There is debate whether the sutra should be attributed to the writer Asvalayana or his teacher Saunaka. The ingredients of the Madhuparka are mentioned in 24.5–6: ‘He pours honey into curds,/ Or butter, if he can get no honey’ (Oldenberg 1886, 82).
32 The reference to the Madhuparka in the Apastamba Grihya Sutra is spread across 13.10–12: ‘(The host) pours together curds and honey in a brass vessel, covers it with a larger (brass cover), takes hold of it with two bunches of grass, and announces (to the guest), “The honey-mixture!”/ Some take three substances, (those stated before) and ghee./ Some take five, (the three stated before), and grains, and flour’ (Oldenberg 1886, 270).
33 The Paraskara Grihya Sutra is an appendix of Katyayana’s Srauta-sutra and forms a part of the White Yajur Veda. The Kandika thirteen Ambedkar mentions above does not speak about the Madhuparka; however, at 10.5, the following is given: ‘Let them announce three times (to the guest) separately (each of the following things which are brought to him): a bed (of grass to sit down on), water for washing the feet, the Argha water, water for sipping, and the Madhuparka (i.e. a mixture of ghee, curds, and honey)’ (Oldenberg 1886, 214).
34 The Kausika Sutra is an accessory text to the Atharva Veda. Similar in vein to the Grihya Sutras, it contains additional exegesis on medicinal and abhicara practices (incantations by a priest to defeat any enemy). The Sutra is part of the Sunikya shakha of the Atharva Veda and is one of the earliest works belonging to the school. Some scholars date the text back to the Sutra period (first and second centuries CE), but references to the work have been made as far back as the time of Panini (sixth to fifth centuries BCE). It can be held that the Kausika Sutra is a fusion of the earlier Atharva Sutras and the Grihya Sutras that were brought together in the Sutra period (see Gopalan 1992).
35 Ambedkar is probably referring to the Manava Grihya Sutra here. This Grihya Sutra belongs to the Manava school of the Krishna (Black) Yajur Veda. Unlike other Grihya Sutras, which begin by detailing either the marriage or the Upanayana ceremonies, this one begins by listing all the rules that ought to be followed by a good Brahmacharin. The Manava Grihya Sutra has three other names: Maitrayaniya Grihya, Maitrayaniya Manava Grihya and Manava Grihya. The text of Manava Grihya Sutra attributes Manavacaryya as its author, but the name can also signify ‘teacher of the manavas (people)’ (Sastri 1926). In his preface to the 1926 edition of the Sutra, B.C. Lele writes: ‘The Manava Grhya Sutra points to a very ancient state of Indian society. In the opening section the Brahmacarin is enjoined not to eat meat and partake of wine. This shows that meat-eating was not forbidden wholesale but only in certain cases. In the Madhuparka rite the killing of a cow is a necessity and the author quotes at 1.9.22 the Sruti: ‘namaanso madhuparkah iti shrutih’ [which, according to Bibek Debroy means: ‘Without flesh, it is not madhuparka. The sacred texts have said this’]. However, an option is given later and the cow instead of being killed might be let loose…The elaborate rules about the Upanayana of the four different castes are not given in this Sutra. The killing of a cow was also compulsory at the time of another rite namely the final Astaka’ (Lele in Sastri 1926, 7–8). The Manava Grihya Sutra is also said to have influenced the development of the Manusmriti (Weber 1882). Debroy says: while the primary meaning of mamsa is flesh, it also means fish and the fleshy part of a fruit.
36 [Kane’s vol. II. Part I p. 545.] In the BAWS edition of The Untouchables, the above quote is given as part of Ambedkar’s own text and the footnote is placed wrongly. The correction has been made here.
37 The term ‘goghna’ is used by Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian, to connote ‘guests’ (Jha 2009, 33). Although, the word is used in pejorative sense by Manu’s time, its original meaning was ‘one for whom the cow is killed’. Sanskrit scholars like S.D. Joshi and J.A.F. Roodbergen also emphasize the point that the word may have had a mocking application, where guests may have been called ‘cow-killers’ in jest (Cardona 1999, 280–1n16).
38 Asvalayana was the most noted disciple of Saunaka, a celebrated teacher of the Atharva Veda, and the author of works on Vedic ritual, most notably the Srautasutras and the Grihya Sutras. Asvalayana was also the founder of a Sakha of the Rig Veda, one of the many variations of the texts traditionally handed down orally by teachers and leading to the formation of various schools. Most of his Rigvedic recensions however have been lost.
39 The following twenty-seven instructions occur in the third kandika of the fourth adhyaya of the Asvalayana Grihya Sutra and not the Apastamba Grihya Sutra. (See IV.3.1–27, Olden-berg 1886.) Ambedkar here is citing the Oldenberg translation of the Grihya Sutras, which appeared as a single volume edition in 1886. The errors in Ambedkar’s version of the quote have been corrected here.
40 In the Apastamba Dharma Sutra, direction is taken from Manu concerning the rituals of ancestral offering. ‘In this rite, the ancestors are the deity to whom the offering is made, while the Brahmins stand in the place of the offertorial fire’ (Olivelle 1999, 60). In the elucidation of rites, a variety of vegetarian food items—rice, barley, water, roots, fruits, sesame and beans—are specified as materials to be used in the ‘sacrifice’. ‘When the food is greasy, however, the gratification it gives the ancestors is more ample and lasts longer…With cow’s meat their gratification lasts for a year, and even longer than that with buffalo meat’ (Olivelle 1999, 60, emphasis added). Simply put, the Brahmin is the recipient of the beef which is sacrificed in the ritual.
41 Yajnavalkya, the purported author of the Yajnavalkya Smriti, was a sage in the court of mythical king Janaka and a disciple of Sanatkumara. He is also said to have been a part of Yudhistira’s court as also Indra’s assembly. His dialogues pertaining to the relationship between atman, Brahman and the world and perceived support for a non-dualistic philosophy with respect to reality and being has influenced the followers of Advaita Vedanta (Mani 1975, 891–2). See p. 138 note 26 on the Yajnavalkya Smriti.
42 As far as the prohibition of food is concerned, Yajnavalkya does not much differ from Manu, which points to the profound influence of the Manusmriti on most of the dharmshastra writers (Olivelle and Davis 2018, 26). Much like Manu, he gives lists of specific animals not to be eaten (deer, sheep, goat, boar, rhinoceros, partridges, etc.). References to the arghya, Madhuparka and rituals of welcoming learned Brahmins, indicate that consumption of consecrated meat was not merely enjoined but necessitated. However, the bottomless pit of rules and sub-rules (typical to Brahmanism) meant that meat consumption was not so much about meat consumption itself but about following the correct rules and rituals, and about who was the one consuming the meat, under what circumstances, for what purpose, at what time, and so on; these were all only so many ways of creating an abstract web of control which maintained power and supremacy through an infinite set of forever amendable rules at the centre of which sat the illusory (but ever-present) notion of purity (Jha 2009, 93).
43 The Canon of Buddhist religious texts was set in its written form around the first century BCE in Pali. Until then the doctrines were preserved through oral transmission. It is Vattagamini (who was king of Ceylon between the first and second centuries BCE) who is credited for having commissioned the preservation of the canon in written form. The Pali Canon is divided into three sections (and therefore is known as Tipitaka, or The Three Baskets): Vinaya Pitaka, The Book of Discipline, which is meant for monks and nuns and pertains to the discipline they must adhere to; Sutta Pitaka, the Discourses, which contain the dialogues of the Buddha; and Abhidhamma Pitaka, the further doctrines, which is a collection of seven books that contain further setting down of Buddhist philosophical doctrines. The Sutta Pitaka itself is divided into five further sections or Nikayas: Digha Nikaya, Majjhima Nikaya, Samyutta Nikaya; Anguttara Nikaya and Khuddaka Nikaya. Of these, the Digha Nikaya is the longest collection and it contains thirty-four Suttas, one of which is the Kutadanta Sutta (Walshe 1987, 46–53).
44 The Kutadanta Sutta recounts the tale of the Buddha’s encounter with an influential Brahmin named Kutadanta. On learning that the Buddha was set up in a park in his village, the Brahmin makes his way to meet the illustrious teacher, in order to clarify how best to perform a sacrifice. Kutadanta had already prepared ‘seven hundred bulls, seven hundred bullocks, seven hundred heifers, seven hundred he-goats and seven hundred rams’ (Walshe 1987, 133) for this purpose. On being posed the question, the Buddha recounts a story. Once there was a great and powerful king named Mahavijita who had amassed much wealth and glory in his lifetime. Having done so, he summons his Brahmin chaplain and consults him about how best he should make a sacrifice so that his good fortune wouldn’t wane. The chaplain tells him to distribute more crops and cattle to those in his kingdom who are engaged in agricultural work, to distribute more capital to the traders, and to increase the wages of those engaged in other services. The king agrees to this and lo and behold his kingdom grows happier and him wealthier. Joyous, Mahavijita once again summons the chaplain and makes known his wish to perform yet another sacrifice. The chaplain tells him that he should send for all the Kshatriyas, advisers, counsellors, influential Brahmins and wealthy householders in his kingdom and ask them to present their sacrifices to him. The Buddha says that in these sacrifices no animals were slain, no trees were cut, and no harm was done to any creature. Having done so, the Kshatriyas, advisers, counsellors, influential Brahmins and wealthy householders then return with the wealth they have amassed thanks to the earlier sacrifice and present it to the king. But the king refuses to accept it saying that he has no need for further wealth and asks them to keep it for themselves. The subjects, affected by the king’s generosity, in turn decide to distribute what they had amassed among the people. Having heard the story, Kutadanta wonders how the Buddha is able to tell it with such authority: ‘But it strikes me that the ascetic Gotama does not say: “I have heard this”, or “It must have been like this”, but he says: “It was like this or like that at the time”’ (Walshe 1987, 139). He concludes that the Buddha must have been the lord of sacrifice in king Mahavijita’s court in his previous incarnation. The Buddha confirms this hypothesis and reveals himself to be Mahavijita’s chaplain in a previous life. The Brahmin then enquires about the best sacrifice he can make, and he is told that it is the acceptance of the dhamma. Kutadanta accedes and becomes a disciple of the Buddha (Walshe 1987, 131–41).
45 The above quote is taken from Dialogues of the Buddha (1899, 180), which is a translation of the Digha Nikaya by T.W. Rhys Davids. T.W. Rhys Davids and wife Caroline Foley Rhys Davids often worken together on Buddhist translations. Although, Caroline Foley started out as an economist, she soon set her sights on philosophy, particularly Buddhist philosophy, under the influence of her professor and to-be husband T.W. Rhys Davids. She was the foremost interpreter and translator of several works from Pali to English and was an early scholar of Theravada Buddhism. Her translation of the Therigatha was the first ever in English. She was also a proponent of women’s suffrage and closely studied the role of women in early Buddhist society (Neal 2014). Ambedkar quotes C.A.F. Rhys Davids several times in his career, the oldest of which can be found in an abandoned draft of his Master’s dissertation at Columbia in which he quotes Rhys Davids’ 1901 paper entitled “Notes on Early Economic Conditions in Northern India” (860). In it, Rhys Davids draws from Buddhist texts and cites instances where caste seemed to have weakened under Buddhist rule. The Jataka depicts Kshatriyas, Brahmins and Vaishyas (Savarnas) having meals and learning together, and intermarrying. She also cites instances where a deer-trapper forms an inseparable friendship with a Sethi, and a prince adopts the garb of a potter, basket-maker, florist and chef without losing his caste. However, it is made clear that the Chandalas were despised and faced the wrath of the Brahmins (867–8). Y. Krishan further documents the following events in the Jatakas (1986, 74): ‘In the Setaketu Jataka (no. 377), brahmana Setaketu, on seeing a candala fears that “the wind, after striking the candala’s body, might touch his own body” and thereby pollute him. He calls the candala ill-omened. In the Matanga Jataka (no. 497), Dittha-mangalika, on seeing a candala, says “Bah, I have seen something that brings bad luck” and washes her eyes with scented water. This is repeated in the Citta Sambhutta Jataka (no. 498). In the same Jataka a man describes a candala as “the blot in the blood” (jatiya doso). The dwellings of the candalas were outside the towns.’ The Orientalist French scholar Eugène Burnouf (1801–1852), in his pioneering work Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme Indien recently translated (2010) in a critical edition, is highly critical of Brahmanism as a persecutor of Buddhism that eventually drove it away from the subcontinent, but also speaks of how institutionalized Buddhism did not quite shake up caste the way earlier European scholars had rushed to say it did. While the Buddha’s teaching is offered to all castes, the right to be a Bodhisatta is limited to Brahmins and Kshatriyas. In Buddhist sutras, ‘the brahmans are those whose name occurs most often; they figure in almost all the sūtras, and their superiority over the other castes is always uncontested’ (168–9). In Lalitavistara Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism dated to the third century CE, it is explicitly said that ‘bodhisattvas are not born into the womb of abject families, like those of the candalas, of flute players, of cart makers, and of the puskasas. There are only two races into which they are born, the race of the brahmans and that of the ksatriyas. When it is principally to the brahmans that the world shows respect, it is in a family of brahmans that bodhisattvas descend to earth. When, on the contrary, it is principally to the ksatriyas that the world shows respect, then they are born into a family of ksatriyas. Today, O monks, the ksatriyas obtain all the respect of the people: it is for this that bodhisattvas are born among the ksatriyas’ (173). Ambedkar of course rejects all this and formulates a new Buddhism by writing a new book toward the end of his life (The Buddha and His Dhamma, 1956) where he rejects all the stories that ‘do not appeal to reason’, stopping often to ask, ‘Do they form part of the original teachings of the Buddha?’ (13–4). Rejecting texts and stories often written three to five hundred years after Siddhartha Gautama’s passing, he contends that the Buddha ‘was the strongest opponent of caste and the earliest and staunchest upholder of equality’ and ‘there is no argument in favour of caste and inequality which he [Buddha] did not refute’ (301–2). The Jatakas were of course later constructions of the Buddha’s life. The precise dating of Buddhist texts is crucial here to understand attitudes towards caste; those written during or after the Brahmanic revival have much stronger affirmation of hierarchy than those that were written closer to the time of the Buddha. The Nikayas for instance form the earliest expression of Buddhist thought and may have been set down when the sangha was still a united body and hadn’t broken into differing factions. They can be dated back to the first half of the fourth century BCE (Pande 1974). Uma Chakravarti notes that the Buddhists had a three-fold ‘kula’ system with the Khattiyas, Brahmanas and the Gahapatis, as opposed to the four-fold varna of the Brahmins. She further cites the Majjhima Nikaya where ‘the Buddha pertinently refuted the brahmana claim to superiority based on the criteria of the lower vanna serving the higher. He pointed out that anyone including suddas who had wealth, corn, gold, and silver could have in their employment others who would rise earlier than the employer, rest later, carry out his pleasure, and speak affably to him’ (1987, 99–100). The core of Chakravarti’s argument is that though there was acknowledged caste stratification in Buddhism, and sometimes the Buddha even spoke in the idiom of caste, the attitude was markedly different from the rigid Brahmanical order. Further, the organizational structure of the Buddha’s sangha, which placed a premium on egalitarianism over caste, is further indication of an anti-Brahmanic attitude.
46 Also taken from Dialogues of the Buddha (Rhys Davids 1899, 184).
47 The Samyutta is the third Nikaya in the Sutta Pitaka. It is a collection of various suttas grouped into specific categories: for instance the reference Ambedkar makes here is from the Kosalasamyutta which is a collection of dialogues the Buddha has with the Kosalan king Pasenadi. The ninth section of the Kosalasamyutta is an exegesis on the morality of sacrifices. In preparation for a sacrifice made in the name of king Pasenadi ‘[f]ive hundred bulls, five hundred bullocks and as many heifers, goats, and rams, were led to the pillar to be sacrificed’ (Rhys Davids 1917, 102). The Buddha exhorts: ‘These are not rites that bring a rich result./ Where divers goats and sheep and kine are slain […] The noble seers who walk the perfect way./ These are the rites entailing great results./ These to the celebrant are blest, not cursed./ Th’ oblation runneth o’er; the gods are pleased’ (Rhys Davids 1917, 103). Pasenadi was the king of Kosala and was the sovereign to whom the Sakhyas, the clan of the Buddha, swore fealty. Like the Magadhan kings of his time, he was of ‘low-birth’ and did not have tribal affiliations, leading to his ability to create a large army not based on tribal origin. He also didn’t have much regard for Vedic rituals and was quite willing to patronize cults like Buddhism and Jainism. However, this wasn’t a result of strong convictions or a principled stand: he was as much a patron of Brahmin pandits and open to performing yajnas when desirable (Kosambi 2008, 108–9,127–30).