The ideology of purity – pollution regulates relationship between different castes significantly. It also provides a basis of hierarchy of castes. Thus, more pure a caste is, the higher is its place in the social hierarchy. The Sanskrit word for purity is sodhana It is derived from the root, sudh meaning ‘pure’. The cognate of sudh is saucha meaning cleanliness. The Hindu scriptures lay down several means for attaining purity. Spiritual purity comes from studying the Vedas and other sacred texts; meditating on a deity; undertaking pilgrimages; repeating the name of god; practicing continence (brahmacharya), asceticism (tapas), non-violence (ahimsa); and avoiding food (such as onion, garlic, non–vegetarian food) that raise anger, lust, and passions.(Walker, 1983).
When purity is lost or contaminated (because of, for example, infringement of some critical caste rules as of a Brahmin who touches an untouchable by accident, or because of birth or death in the family, or any other reason), purification through performance of specific rituals is necessitated. Dumont (1970) situates the contrast between Brahmins and untouchables in the opposition between purity and impurity. For him, the opposition of pure and impure lies at the very root of hierarchy to an extent that it merges with the opposition of superior and inferior. He suggests that specialisation in impure tasks in practice or in theory leads to the attribution of permanent impurity to certain categories of people such as the untouchables. The untouchables regularly perform unclean tasks (such as scavenging, washing dirty linen, disposing dead animals and human bodies, making shoes). One example is that of the washermen who, in most parts of the country, clean the soiled linen at the time of birth and menstruation. The other example is that of cobblers who have to use leather (which is an impure material) for making or repairing footwear. Since these are the traditional tasks of the untouchables, they remain perpetually impure. This is permanent impurity.
The impurity is contagious in the sense that it gets transmitted to those who touch or are touched by them. The defilement is corrected after performing a prescribed set of rituals. On the other hand, Manu has identified bodily secretions such as excrements, semen, saliva as impure and their presence on the body makes a person impure. In addition, some events as those of birth and death, menstruation, are considered to ‘harbour a danger which lends to the temporary seclusion of the affected persons, to prohibitions against contact etc. A person’s closest kin often becomes impure, therefore, untouchable for a specific period of time. Touching a menstruating woman or one who is observing taboos after child-birth or a man who has returned from the cremation ground after lighting a funeral pyre all impart temporary impurity. This is temporary impurity. Water is a purificatory agent; bath in running water, better still in sacred water as of the Ganges is particularly efficacious in cleansing impurity.
In order that the Brahmin retain their purity, the untouchables and people of lower castes are believed to absorb the temporary impurity of the Brahmins by cleaning their premises, and their soiled clothes, and performing the tasks that are treated as unclean and impure by them and in the process, become impure themselves. In doing so they ensure that the Brahmins remain in a state to perform rituals and act as intermediaries between gods and people (see Basham, 1954, Hocart, 1950, Gould, 1958). In the broad sense, one of the factors identifying the purity of a caste is whether or not a Brahmin accepts drinking water from the hands of its members. Surely, there are local variations. Hutton (1983) cites the example of Brahmins in north India who take water poured into their own drinking vessels by men of Shudra who are regarded as relatively clean e.g. Barhai (carpenter), Nai (barber), Barbhuja (grain-parcher), Kahar (fisherman, well sinker, and grower of water-nut). Brahmins in south India are extremely particular in this regard.
Like water, exchange of food and dining between castes is fraught with several regulations. The glance or the shadow of an untouchable on the cooking pot of a Brahmin is enough to throw away its contents. Interestingly, food cooked in water as by boiling known as Kachha khana is subject to more restrictions than pakka khana or food cooked in ghee or clarified butter. Just as the restrictions on water and food, those on smoking are observed too. At this juncture it may be mentioned that the material of which the cooking utensil is made is of much importance. Hutton (1983) records that the higher caste people does not use earthenware because it cannot be completely clean. Furthermore, pollution can be contracted through bodily contact too.
Orenstein (1965 ) explains that basically there are two types of pollution an individual may be subjected to, intransitive pollution, and transitive pollution. The intransitive pollution is one which is incurred when a birth or death occurs in the kin group of an individual. On such occasions, defilement is said to spread throughout the kin group. Importantly, kinship assumes importance here. Near relatives stay impure for a longer time than distant ones. What is interesting to note is the belief that the extent of intransitive pollution is proportionate to the level at which the varna is located. This means that higher the rank, lesser is the pollution. Thus a Brahmin gets less intensely polluted than the Kshatriya, Vaishya, or Shudra. Similarly, a Kshatriya gets more polluted than a Brahmin but less polluted than the Vaishya or Shudra. Transitive pollution, on the other hand, is incurred by way of coming in contact with polluted material. It is of two kinds: external pollution and internal pollution. External pollution is that which is acquired by touch or contact with polluted material. It can be removed by cleansing of the polluted person or polluted object. A spoon touched by an untouchable for example, becomes polluted. This pollution can be removed by washing it thoroughly. Similarly, a person who becomes polluted when an untouchable touches him/her has to take a bath in order to remove the pollution and re-gain his/her purity. Internal pollution is that which is acquired when a person consumes polluted foodstuff, polluted water, or any other substance, which gets absorbed in the body.
The criterion of touch or contact as a means of contracting pollution is not as simple as it seems to be. The pertinent question here is, why a washerman is treated as impure and polluted when he goes to the house of a high caste man on the occasion of a marriage but not treated so when he comes to collect dirty cloth or to deliver clean ones. One of the plausible explanations is that he does not pollute the house when he comes to collect dirty clothes or deliver clean clothes because at that time he is an ‘agent of purification’ (Dumont,1970). On other occasions as that of marriage he is not an agent of purification but a man belonging to an untouchable caste. So he is treated as impure.
If an untouchable pollutes an earthen pot of a person belonging to a higher caste, it has to be replaced. If the same person pollutes a bronze pot, it may be washed scrupulously and need not be replaced. Stevenson (1954) suggests that since the earthen pot is porous it is difficult to purify it by washing. Moreover, it comes cheap so may be replaced easily. The bronze pot, on the other hand, can be washed rigorously; is more expensive so cannot be replaced easily. The people of impure caste are said to pollute the premises of temples by their sheer presence. It is for this reason that they were forbidden to enter the temples and the residential areas of the upper caste people.
Radhakamal Mukerjee proposes the following degrees of social avoidance in ascending order: ‘(1) against sitting on a common floor; (2) against interdining; (3) against admission in the kitchen; (4) against touching metal pots; (5) against touching earthen pots; (6) against mixing in social festivals; (7) against admittance in the interior of the house; (8) against any kind of physical contact’ (cited from Murphy, 1953: 63-64). Hindu conception about purity pollution governing how people interact with and behave towards each other may be consolidated in the following ideas that have been widely drawn from Kolenda(1997).
i) Dietary and Marital Customs
According to Kolenda, one of the basic means of determining the place of a caste group in the ritual rank in its diet and marital customs. It has been found that vegetarianism characterises purer caste. A Brahmin is pure because he/she is a strict vegetarian. This does not, in any way, mean that there are pure castes comprising of those that are vegetarian and impure castes comprising of those that are non-vegetarian. It may be noted that Kolenda’s ascription of vegetarianism to Brahmins does not apply universally, for there are fish and meat eating Brahmins in Bengal, Kashmir and in other parts of the country.
Stevenson (1954) identifies the dietary and marital customs an indicative of the ritual status of castes. There are degrees of impurity based on the kind of non-vegetarian food consumed by the people of different castes. It is especially defiling to eat pork and/or beef. He mentions that it is worst to eat beef followed by pork, mutton, chicken and eggs (in this sequence). So castes that eat pork are lower than those who eat mutton, and castes that eat mutton are lower than those who eat chicken. Vegetarian castes are more pure. The next in hierarchy are the castes that eat mutton, chicken and eggs followed by untouchables who eat all these in addition to pork sometimes beef.
So far as martial customs are concerned, high castes are associated with the practice of monogamy. This is particularly stringent for women. Divorce and remarriage, particularly widow re-marriage is not allowed. Men may, however, marry more than once, middle and lower castes are permissive of widow re-marriage. This is, however, not preferred because it lowers the rank of a caste.
ii) Inheritance of pollution
Lower castes are said to suffer from permanent impurity. All the members of a caste inherit the defilement. Stevenson (1954) explains that any waste product from the body is treated as impure; death makes the entire body waste and those who deal with these incur impurity. The barber who deals with hair and nail chippings both waste products of the body is impure. What makes him impure to further extent is his duty to wash the male corpse of his clients while his wife washes the female corpse before cremation. Similarly, the washerman washes dirty clothes, those soiled by bodily excretions; the sweeper removes feaces and filth; he eats from pots and other utensils that have been polluted because of birth or death in the family, he wears the clothes in which a man dies. In effect the barber, washerman, sweeper and other castes are treated as polluted because of the kind of material they handle. Pollution spreads through touch, which means that one who is polluted passes on the pollution to other persons when he/she touches them. This is most explicit when water and/or food are exchanged. A Brahmin, as mentioned earlier does not accept food or water from anyone belonging to a lower caste. He may accept food, which is coated with ghee or clarified butter from castes belonging to middle ranks; he may take raw ingredients from anyone because it is believed that fire would purify these in the process of cooking.
iii) Dividual- Particle Theory
Marriot and Inden based their understanding on Hindu writings — Vedas, Brahamanas, Upanishads, classical books of moral and medical sciences, and late medieval moral code books of certain castes in Bengal. It is believed that these writings reflect the Hindu native models and bespeak of the people’s own view of a person as ‘individual’ which also implies indivisibility into separable portions.
Marriott and Inden (1977) explain the theory of pollution in terms of coded-substance, which is itself, made up of coded particles. These particles (consisting of saliva, sweat, bits and pieces of hair) get exchanged among people through food water etc., in the course of interpersonal interactions. Each varna is believed to have received a specific coded substance from the creator and it is only proper that the people maintain or else improve the code and not indulge in anything that would make it inferior. Each person gives off and also receives these coded particles in social interaction. Now, better-coded particles are received from gods and people of higher castes while worse coded particles are received from those belonging to castes lower than one’s own. It is suggested that one may get better particles through right eating, right marriage, and other right exchanges and actions. These may get consolidated because the inferior particles are got rid off through excretion etc. Further, they propose that the particles of different kinds separate, combine, and re-combine in different permutations because of the heat in the body which is generated in the process of digestion, sexual intercourse etc. It is for this reason that hot bodily and nutritive substances need to be carefully managed when one is associated with serving or eating warm food. Marriot and Inden maintain that the coded substance may break up into particles that may combine and recombine with each other. This determines the degree of a person’s pollution or purity, which suggests that the Hindu view of a person is one, that is individual (meaning divisible into separable portions).
iv) Guna Theory
The Guna theory of pollution was proposed by Marvin Davis (1976) who was a student of Marriott and Inden. This theory was derived after interviewing the Hindus of West Bengal but it is also mentioned in the sacred books such as Bhagavada Gita, Srimad Bhagavata Mahaprurana, Purushasukta and the Manva Dharamasastra. According to this theory, the feminine principle called prakriti joins with the male matter called purusha. The union of prakriti and purusha forms three basic materials called gunas. The three gunas are sattvaguna, rajoguna and tomoguna. The sattvaguna is a white substance, generates goodness and joy and inspires all noble virtues and action; rajoguna is red, ‘produces egoism, selfishness, violence, jealousy, and ambition; tamoguna is black, engenders stupidity, laziness, fear, and all sorts of base behavior.’(Davis,1976:9).
The sattvaguna may be treated as symbolic of purity while the tamoguna may be treated as symbolic of impurity. It is believed that all the gunas are present and well balanced in the body of the Brahma while one or the other guna predominates among the four varnas. The proportion of guna in each varna is maintained through the lifestyle, diet, marriage pattern or the inter caste relation. Vegetarian food builds up sattvaguna, non-vegetarian food builds up rajoguna, and beef, left over food, spoiled food, and alcohol build up tamoguna. It is believed that disproportionate admixture of the tamoguna with the sattvaguna or the rajoguna creates, what Stevenson referred to as ‘permanent pollution.’ Brahmins involved in reciting sacred chants, performing sacrifices, and preaching the scriptures largely have sattvaguna. Similarly, untouchables involved in the work of scavenging, tanning, and that which involves dealing with dirt and filth, animal hide, body excretions largely have tamoguna, and Kshatriyas or Vaishyas who are involved in warfare, and activities that sustain life such as cultivation, herding, trading respectively, largely have rajoguna.
It may be understood that people of different varnas and jatis may improve their guna through diet, work, and performance of religious rituals, meditation and learning. Another way in which the guna may be improved is through marriage. In the words of Davis (1976:16), ‘Through activities in accord with dharma and through mixing one’s own physical nature with that of sattvik substances, for example, the defining features of a birth-group are transformed positively and its rank elevated; for in this way individuals of the group and the birth- group as a whole become more cognizant of Brahma and lead a more uplifting, spiritual life.’