DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

100 CASTE AND CLASS [4.4
first mentioned as a bali tax, special prerogative of the chief (RV. 10.173.6,
bali-hrtah). This, the first of all regular internal taxes, remained thereafter
in the steadily expanding list of the post-vedic period. The Pali Jat. word
for taxes as well as for sacrifice remained bali, without distinction except
by the context. In the Yajurveda (treated in the-next
chapter) which deals with regular settlements rather than the
conquest of the land, we find four castes 7 fully developed within the
tribe : brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya, Sudra. The fire-sacrifices became
far too cumbrous 8 for any but the professional priesthood. The ostensible 1
major purpose of sacrifice remained success in warfare, both of which
had become correspondingly heavier. A far more powerful secondary
purpose appeared, namely repression of the inner struggle of new classes.
The vaisya (settler, husbandman) and the sudra (helots), are to be
exploited for the advantage of the ruling warrior caste, the ksatriya
with the brahmin priest’s help. The struggle with the wtitya was earlier,
reflected in the Rgvedic strife between the collective Maruts and their
chief, Indra. We are later told that these Maruts are the peasantry (vis)
; Indra eats them up as the king the peasants.’ One of the major purpose
of the sacrifice was to make the other three castes obedient to the ksatriya
rulers (TS. 2.5.10). The Aitareya Brahmana says (AB. 7.29) “ Like a
vaisya.... tributary to another, to be eaten by another, to be oppressed at
will .... Like a Sudra,.... the servant of another, to be removed at
will, to be slain at will”. The two lower castes are to be enclosed,
both on the outward and return ceremonial-rounds at the sacrifice,
between the warrior and the priest castes, to make them submissive
(SB 6.4.4.13). The progressively more complicated yajna fire-sacrifice,
where the principal sacrificial animals had long been, in order, man,
horse, bull, ram, he-goat, developed into ceremonies lasting many days.
The effect, and to some extent even the conscious purpose, (as the
references to the lower castes prove,) was to control the new class
structure that had developed within the tribe. Sometimes the
associated internal conflicts were externalized in warfare.