DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

318 FROM TRIBE TO CASTE (9,4
fighting ruler like Gotamiputra claimed to be ‘the unique brahmin’ ?
Another Satakarn! of the same period married the daughter of the Saka
foreigner Rudradaman. Like her father, the princess showed more
Sanskrit (Likters 994, at Kanheri) than all the Satavahanas put together.
Nevertheless, Vasithlputa Pulumayi claimed to have “put an end to the
intermixture of the castes”. The chieftains of food-gathering atavika
tribes, who had increased tribal property by trade or as mercenaries
in more advanced armies, had to find some way of converting that gain
into personal property. They had to rise above the rest of the tribe in
some way. For them, the brahmin could discover ancestors in the epics,
or write them into some ancient text. Ceremonies like the hiranyagarbha
described in the puranas” were actually performed by such chiefs
(EL 27. 8-9; 17.328; IA. 19.9 ff). Here the priest would insert the
ambitious candidate into a golden pot, the ‘womb’. The ritual for a
pregnant woman was then recited, followed by the birth-mantaw, after
which the king stepped out from his contracted position to thank
the priest for his rebirth, in so many words. Thereby, he acquired a high
caste, while the obliging brahmins acquired the vessel of gold as part of
their fee. The new caste entitled him and his well-born descendants to
instruction in brahmin lore from which the Sudra and the pre-caste
tribesmen were equally barred. The tribes or portions of a tribe that
did not change over to plough agriculture bred far less rapidly than
those who preferred the new method of getting a more regular and
ampler food-supply. Nevertheless, the same name is often found for a
peasant or craftsman jati as for a food-gathering tribe in the
neighbourhood. The essentials of tribal society were retained in this
transition, namely endogamy — except for the chief, now become raja,
who thus further separated himself from his former equals. The
commensal tabu now meant not receiving food cooked by anyone of
lower caste. Expulsion from the jati remained the most potent and
dreaded punishment, as expulsion from the gens or tribe had been
earlier, because the individual could not easily acquire membership of
another such group while he lost all rights guaranteed him by his own.
Some trival priests were also metamorphosed into -brahmins during this
process.