Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

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of India, taken over from the Hindus. And castes are also found among
the Buddhists. Even the Indian Christians have not quite been able to
withhold themselves from practical recognition of the castes. These
non- Hindu castes have lacked the tremendous emphasis that the Hindu
doctrine of salvation placed upon the caste, as we shall see later, and
they have lacked a further characteristic, namely, the determination
of the social rank of the castes by the social distance from other Hindu
castes, and therewith, ultimately, from the Brahmin. This is decisive
for the connection between Hindu castes and the Brahmin; however
intensely a Hindu caste may reject him as a priest, as a doctrinal
and ritual authority, and in every other respect, the objective
situation remains inescapable; in the last analysis, a rank position
is determined by the nature of its positive or negative relation to
the Brahmin.'10
From the time of Guru Nanak upto the Misal times, a period
of nearly three centuries, no caste was observed in the Sikh society.
True, some vestiges of caste appeared later in the post-Khalsa
period. As with the Mohammadans, it was a takeover from the
Hindus. In the case of the Sikhs, this 'take- over' is quite
understandable, because their social roots were close to those of
the Hindus. But, these caste considerations among the Sikhs of
the post-Khalsa period, lacked 'the tremendous emphasis that the
Hindu doctrine of salvation placed upon caste.' Caste among the
Sikhs also lacked the determination of the social rank of caste by
its distance from the Brahmins. Among the Sikhs, this delinking of
the castes from their scriptural sanction and the Brahmins made a
major contribution in eroding the validity and the sanctity of the
caste system. Instead, the observance of caste distinctions is
considered a clear social and moral fault frowned upon by the Sikh
religion.
(c) Commensalism
We referred to Hutton's opinion that the taboo on food and drink
'is probably the keystone of the whole system,' There was a magical
distance between different castes. In some cases the mere look of a
low caste person at the meal defiled it. 'Complete fraternization of
castes has been and is impossible because it is one of the constitutive
principles of the castes that there should be at least ritually inviolable