100 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
found to enjoy it, it is because he belongs to that class. Contrawise, if an individual is suffering from a wrong, it is not because he by his conduct deserves it. The disability is the disability imposed upon the class and if he s found to be labouring under it, it is because he belongs to that class.
Does the Hindu social order recognize fraternity ? The Hindus like the Christians and the Muslims do believe that men are created by God. But while the Christians and the Muslims accept this as the whole truth the Hindus believe that this is only part of the truth. According to them, the whole truth consists of two parts. The first part is that men are created by God. The second part is that God created different men from different parts of his divine body. The Hindus regard the second part as more important and more fundamental than the first.
The Hindu social order is based on the doctrine that men are created from the different parts of the divinity and therefore the view expressed by Paul or the Pilgrim Fathers has no place in it. The Brahmin is no brother to the Kshatriya because the former is born from the mouth of the divinity while the latter is from the arms. The Kshatriya is no brother to the Vaishya because the former is born from the arms and the latter from his thighs. As no one is a brother to the. other, no one is the keeper of the other.
The doctrine that the different classes were created from different parts of the Divine body has generated the belief that it must be divine will that they should remain separate and distinct. It is this belief which has created in the Hindu an instinct to be different, to be separate and to be distinct from the rest of his fellow Hindus. Compare the following rules in the Manu Smriti regarding the Upanayan or the Investiture of a body with the sacred thread:—
II. 36. “In the eighth year after conception, one should perform the initiation (Upanayan) of a Brahmani in the eleventh after conception (that) of a Kshatriya but in the twelfth that of a Vaishya.”
II. 41. “Let students according to the order (of their castes), wear (as upper dressed) the skins of black antelope, spotted deer, and he-goats and (lower garments) made of hemp, flex or wool.”
II. 42. “The girdle of a Brahmana shall consist of a triple cord of Munga grass, smooth and soft (that) of a Kshatriya, of a bowstring, made of Murva fibres (that) of a Vaishya of hempen threads.
II. 43. “If Munga grass (and soforth) be not procurable, (the girdles) may be made of kusa, Asmantaka, and Balbaga (fibres) with