The Background to Buddhism 43part of the process I have called the ‘self-creation’ or ‘self-construction’
of the Brahmans. The claim to superiority by virtue of birth was
being made, and it was being brought into reality.
The process is seen in many Buddhist texts which depict a debate
among Brahmans themselves about whether to identify themselves
as a hereditarily-closed group. The Vasetthasutta of the Sutta
Nipatabegins with a debate between the young Brahmans Vasettha
and Bharadvaj (both very esteemed clan names): ‘Bharadvaj main-
tained that what made a brahman was pure descent on both sides
right back for seven successive generations of forebearers...whereas
Vasettha contended that it was virtue and moral conduct which
made a brahman.’ While the Pali texts may have tactical reasons
for proclaiming the conversion of large numbers of Brahmans, the
fact that many Brahmans are claimed to have sought out the
Buddha (and others, in the Upanishadic stories, went to kings) to
find answers to their questions, indicates that there was a fair
degree of openness and dissension at the time among them. The
Buddhists intervened in the debate by taking ‘Brahman’ to be a
non-hereditary term and by insisting that it was ‘virtue and moral
conduct’ not birth, that made a Brahman. However, this effort
failed and eventually the debate was being won by those who
claimed a hereditary and birth-given right of status. In the process,
‘Brahmanism’—and not just the social group of Brahmans—came
into being.
In the process of claiming birth-right and pure descent from
sages, the Brahmans of course ignored mobility and ‘irregularities’
in their own family backgrounds; this is done by elites everywhere.
Along with this, the ‘moral conduct’ seen as part of the Brahman’s
character was interpreted in Brahmanic literature, in contrast to
that of Buddhism, in ritualistic as well as ethical terms, so that it
included specific caste duties and the performance of rituals. Ethics
itself included adherence to the caste system. Purity was also inter-
preted in materialistic terms; Brahmans remained as householders,
not renouncers, but in doing so they gradually came to claim
exemption from the pollutions of the material world with all its
violence and death, and this meant that in the social order, other
groups (Kshatriyas, Shudras and women) had to take over the
‘responsibilities’ of dealing with violence and the death-related
aspects of material production. This in turn meant, as Dumont has
stressed, that hierarchy was crucial to the system and the purity oflineage you belong to. I got you in my youth, when I travelled
about a great deal as a servant’ (Upanisads2000: 174).
Who were the Brahmans? Around the 2nd century CE, a
Satavahana king of western India was described in an inscription
as ekakusas ekadhanudharas ekasuras ekabahmanas, translated as
‘a unique controller, an unrivaled bowman, a pre-eminent hero
and a peerless Brahman’ (Mirasi Part II: 45–47). But ‘Brahman’
(bahman) in this list could not have had a caste meaning, but rather
seems to be used in an elegiac way; the same king married his son
to a ‘barbarian’ Saka ruler and the Satavahanas had regular marriage
connections with and basically derived from the indigenous
Marathas (at that time semi-tribal). The Buddha and his followers
consistently used the term ‘Brahman’ or ‘Bahman’^7 to indicate
nobility of character and learning, though the texts show awareness
that this was a contested usage.
The term ‘Brahman’ was applied to those who claimed superior
status on the basis of intellectual knowledge, ritual skills and to
some extent moral attainments. They were taken as knowers of the
Vedas. They were almost always non-noble, though the Jatakas
give one example of a noble who is later described as a ‘Brahman’,
Khattiyas and Brahmans were normally exclusive groups. Where
Khattiyas oriented themselves to warfare and arms and were identi-
fied with the gana-sanghas, the Brahmans oriented themselves to the
sacrifice, rituals and intellectual attainment, and were associated
with the rising monarchies both as councillors and as priests.
Unlike the samanas, they were householders, and their intellectual
and ritual-related knowledge was overwhelmingly devoted to
worldly concerns.
Ambedkar, in his days as a student at Columbia University, had
written an early essay on ‘Castes in India: Their Mechanism,
Genesis and Development’ which put forward a theory of caste as
representing a ‘closed class’, closed by the imposition of endogamy,
which began with an initial closure made by the Brahmans them-
selves (Ambedkar 1979: 15). This seems to have been the case; the
Brahmans in postulating a varna social order, undertook a collective
project of constructing themselves as a caste. It can be said that this
process of closure was going on during the first millennium BCE, as
42 Buddhism in India
(^7) We also don’t know exactly which they used; see Dhammapada #388.