PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM 43
Brahmins alone have the right to teach the Vedas. But in the case of the Shudra he has not only not to study the Vedas but he should not be allowed to hear it read.
The successors of Manu made the disability of the Shudra in the matter of the study of the Veda into an offence involving dire penalties.
For instance Gautama says:—
XII. 4. If the Shudra intentionally listens for committing to memory the Veda, then his ears should be filled with (molten) lead and lac; if he utters the Veda, then his tongue should be cut off; if he has mastered the Veda his body should be cut to pieces.
To the same effect is Katyayana.
The ancient world may be said to have been guilty for failing to take the responsibility for the education of the masses. But never has any society been guilty of closing to the generality of its people the study of the books of its religion. Never has society been guilty of prohibiting the mass of its people from acquiring knowledge. Never has society made any attempt to declare that any attempt made by the common man to acquire knowledge shall be punishable as a crime. Manu is the only devine law giver who has denied the common man the right to knowledge.
But I cannot wait to dilate upon this. I am more immediately concerned in showing how the prohibition against the study of the Vedas to the mass of the people came to give rise to illeteracy and ignorance in secular life. The answer is easy. It must be realized that reading and writing have an integral connection with the teaching and study of the Vedas. Reading and writing were arts necessary for those who were free and privileged to study the Vedas. They were not necessary to those who were not free to do so. In this way reading and writing became incidental to the study of the Vedas. The result was that the theory of Manu regarding the rights and prohibitions in the matter of the teaching and the study of Vedas came to be extended to the arts of reading and writing. Those who had the right to study the Vedas were accorded the right to read and write. Those who had no right to study the Vedas were deprived of the right to read and write. So that it can be rightly said according to the law of Manu reading and writing has become the right of the high class few and illeteracy has become the destiny of the low class many.
Only a step in the process of this analysis will show how Manu by prohibiting literacy was responsible for the general ignorance in which the masses came to be enveloped.