THE UNTOUCHABLES : CONTEMPT FOR... UNTOUCHABILITY 315
have a strong objection, and, should a Brahmin attempt to enter their quarters, they turn out in a body and slipper him, in former times, it is said, to death. Members of the other castes may come as far as the door, but they must not enter the house, for that would bring the Holiar bad luck. If, by chance, a person happens to get in, the owner takes care to tear the intruder’s cloth, tie up some salt in one corner of it, and turn him out. This is supposed to neutralise all the good luck which might have accrued to the tresspasser, and avert any evil which ought to have befallen the owner of the house.
What is the explanation of this strange phenomenon? The explanation must of course fit in with the situation as it stood at the start, i.e. when the Untouchables were not Untouchables but were only Broken Men. We must ask why the Brahmins refused to officiate at the religious ceremonies of the Broken Men? Is it the case that the Brahmins refused to officiate? Or is it that the Broken Men refused to invite them? Why did the Brahmin regard Broken Men as impure? Why did the Broken Men regard the Brahmins as impure? What is the basis of this antipathy?
This antipathy can be explained on one hypothesis. It is that the Broken Men were Buddhists. As such they did not revere the Brahmins, did not employ them as their priests and regarded them as impure. The Brahmin on the other hand disliked the Broken Men because they were Buddhists and preached against them contempt and hatred with the result that the Broken Men came to be regarded as Untouchables.
We have no direct evidence that the Broken Men were Buddhists. No evidence is as a matter of fact necessary when the majority of Hindus were Buddhists. We may take it that they were.
That there existed hatred and abhorrence against the Buddhists in the mind of the Hindus and that this feeling was created by the Brahmins is not without support.
Nilkant in his Prayaschit Mayukha [1] quotes a verse from Manu which says :–
“If a person touches a Buddhist or a flower of Pachupat, Lokayala, Nastika and Mahapataki, he shall purify himself by a bath.”
The same doctrine is preached by Apararka in his Smriti. [2] Vradha Harit goes further and declares entry into the Buddhist Temple as sin requiring a purificatory bath for removing the impurity.
1 Edited by Gharpure, p.95.
2 Smriti Sammuchaya I. p. 118.