z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 05.indd MK SJ DK YS 23 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 195
RIDDLE NO. 16
“This entire (universe) has been created by Brahma. Men say that the Vaisya class was produced from Rick-verses. They say that the Yajur-Veda is the womb from which the Kshattriya was born. The Sama-Veda is the source from which the Brahmans sprang. This word the ancients declared to the ancients.”
The second says [1] :
“The Brahman caste is sprung from the gods; the Sudra from the Asuras”.
The third is as follows [2] :
“Let him at his will milk out with a wooden dish. But let not a Sudra milk it out. For this Sudra has sprung from non-existence. They say that which a Sudra milks out is no oblation. Let not a Sudra milk out the Agnihotra. For they do not purify that. When that passes beyond the filter, then it is an oblation”.
195
Again looking at the testimony of the Brahmanas how far do they support the Purusha Sukta? Not one of them do.
III
The next thing would be to see what the Smritis have to offer some explanation of the origin of the Varna system. It is worthwhile taking note of them. This is what Manu has to say on the subject [3] .
“He (the self-existent) having felt desire, and willing to create various living beings from his own body, first created the waters, and threw into them a seed. 9. That seed became a golden egg, of lustre equal to the Sun; in it he himself was born as a Brahma, the parent of all the worlds. 10. The waters are called narah, for they are sprung from Nara; and as they were his first sphere of motion he is therefore called Narayana.
- Produced from the imperceptible eternal, existent and nonexistent, cause, the male (Purusha) is celebrated in the world as Brahma. 12. After dwelling for a year in the egg, the glorious being, himself, by his own contemplation, split it in twain.”
“That the worlds might be peopled, he caused the Brahman, the Kshattriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to issue from his mouth, his arms, his thighs, and his feet.
- Having divided his own body into two parts, the lord (Brahma became), with the half of male (purusha), and with the half, a female; and in her he created Viraj. 33. Know, O most excellent twice-born men, that I, whom that male, (Purusha) Viraj, himself am the creator of all this world.
1 Muir’s Sanskrit Texts Vol. I p. 21.
2 Ibid p. 21.
3 Ibid pp. 36-37.