Vol. 3 · pages 286–290

273 THE TRIUMPH OF BRAHMANISM Manu warns the King against displeasing the Bramhans in the following terms :— IX. 313. Let him (the King) not, though fallen unto the deepest distress, provoke Bramhans to anger; for they, when angered, could instantly destroy him together with his army and his vehicles. Manu further proclaims, XI. 31. A Bramhana who knows the law need not bring any (offence) to the notice of the king; by his own power alone he can punish those men who injure him. XI. 32. His own power is greater than the power of the king; The Bramhana, therefore, may punish his foes by his own power alone. This deification of the Brahmins, placing them even above the King would have been impossible unless the King himself was a Brahmin and in sympathy with the view expressed by Manu. Pushyamitra and his successors could not have tolerated these exaggerated claims of the Brahmins unless they themselves were Brahmins interested in the establishment of Bramhanism. Indeed it is quite possible that the Manu Smriti was composed at the command of Pushyamitra himself and forms the book of the philosophy of Bramhanism. Taking all these facts into considerations there can remain no doubt; the one and only object of Pushyamitra’s revolution was to destroy Buddhism and re-establish Bramhanism. The foregoing summary of the political history of India would have been quite unnecessary for the immediate purpose of this chapter if I was satisfied with the way in which the history of India is written. But frankly I am not satisfied. For too much emphasis is laid on the Muslim conquest of India. Reels and reels have been written to show how wave after wave of Muslim invasions came down like avalanche and enveloped the people and overthrew their rulers. The whole history of India is made to appear as though the only important thing in it is a catalogue of Muslim invasions. But even from this narrow point of view it is clear that the Muslim invasions are not the only invasions worth study. There have been other invasions equally if not of greater importance. If Hindu India was invaded by the Muslim invaders so was Buddhist India invaded by Bramhanic invaders. The Muslim invasions of Hindu India and the Bramhanic invasions of Buddhist India have many similarities. The Musalman invaders of Hindu India fought among themselves for their dynastic ambitions. The Arabs, Turks, Mongols and Afghans fought for supremacy among themselves. But they had one thing in common—namely the mission to destroy idolatory. Similarly the Bramhanic invadars of Buddhist India fought

274 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES among themselves for their dynastic ambitions. The Sungas, Kanvas and the Andhras fought for supremacy among themselves. But they, like the Muslim invaders of Hindu India, had one object in common that was to destroy Buddhism and the Buddhist Empire of the Mauryas. Surely if Muslim invasions of Hindu India are worthy of study at the hands of the historians, the invasions of Buddhist India by Bramhanic invaders are equally deserving of study. The ways and methods employed by the Bramhanic invaders of Buddhist India to suppress Buddhism were not less violent and less virulent than the ways and means adopted by Muslim invaders to suppress Hinduism. From the point of view of the permanent effect on the social and spiritual life of the people, the Bramhanic invasions of Buddhist India have been so profound in their effect that compared to them, the effect of Muslim invasions on Hindu India have been really superficial and ephemeral. The Muslim invaders destroyed only the outward symbols of Hindu religion such as temples and Maths etc. They did not extirpate Hinduism nor did they cause any subversion of the principles or doctrines which governed the spiritual life of the people. The effects of the Bramhanic invasions were a thorough-going change in the principles which Buddhism had preached for a century as true and eternal principles of spiritual life and which had been accepted and followed by the masses as the way of life. To alter the metaphor the Muslim invaders only stirred the waters in the bath and that too only for a while. Thereafter they got tired of stirring and left the waters with the sediments to settle. They never threw the baby—if one can speak of the principles of Hinduism as a baby—out of the bath. Bramhanism in its conflict with Buddhism made a clean sweep. It emptied the bath with the Buddhist Baby in it and filled the bath with its own waters and placed in it its own baby. Bramhanism did not care to stop how filthy and dirty was its water as compared with the clean and fragrant water which flowed from the noble source of Buddhism. Bramhanism did not care to stop how hideous and ugly was its own baby as compared with the Buddhist baby. Bramhanism acquired by its invasions political power to annihilate Buddhism and it did annihilate Buddhism. Islam did not supplant Hinduism. Islam never made a thorough job of its mission. Bramhanism did. It drove out Buddhism as a religion and occupied its place. These facts show that Brahmanic invasions of Buddhist India have a far greater significance to the Historian of India than the Muslim invasions of Hindu India can be said to have produced. Yet very little space is devoted by historians to the vissicitudes which befell Buddhist India built up by the Mauryas and even where that is done they have

275 THE TRIUMPH OF BRAHMANISM not cared to deal in a pointed manner with questions that quite naturally arise: questions such as, who were the Sungas, Kanavas and Andhras; why did they destroy the Buddhist India which was built up by the Mauryas, nor has any attempt been made to study the changes that Brahmanism after its triumph over Buddhism brought about in the political and social structure. Failure to appreciate this aspect of India’s history is due to the prevalence of some very wrong notions. It has been commonly supposed that the culture of India has been one and the same all throughout history; that Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jainism are simply different phases and that there has never been any fundamental antagonism between them. Secondly it has been assumed that whatever conflicts have taken place in Indian politics were purely political and dynastic and that they had no social and spiritual significance. It is because of these wrong notions that Indian history has become a purely mechanical thing, a record of one dynasty succeeding another and one ruler succeeding another ruler. A corrective to such an attitude and to such a method of writing history lies in recognition of two facts which are indisputable. In the first place it must be recognized that there has never been such as a common Indian culture, that historically there have been three Indias, Brahmanic India, Buddhist India and Hindu India, each with its own culture. Secondly it must be recognized that the history of India before the Muslim invasions is the history of a mortal conflict between Bramhanism and Buddhism. Any one who does not recognize these two facts will never be able to write a true history of India, a history which will disclose the meaning and purpose running through it. It is a corrective to Indian history written as it is and to disclose the meaning and purposes running through it that I was obliged to recast the history of the Brahmanic invasions of Buddhist India and the political triumph of Brahmanism over Buddhism. We must therefore begin with the recognition of the fact: Pushyamitra’s revolution was a political revolution engineered by the Brahmins to overthrow Buddhism. The curious will naturally ask what did this triumphant Brahmanism do? It is to this question that I will now turn. The deeds or misdeeds of this triumphant Brahmanism may be catalogued under seven heads. (1) It established the right of the Brahmin to rule and commit regicide. (2) It made the Bramhins a class of privileged persons. (3) It converted the Varna into caste. (4) It brought about a conflict and anti-social feeling between the different castes. (5) It degraded the Shudras and the women (6) It forged the system of graded inequality and (7) It made legal and rigid the social system which was conventional and flexible.

276 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES To begin with the first. The revolution brought about by Pushyamitra created an initial difficulty in the way of the Brahmins. People could not be easily reconciled to this revolution. The resentment of the public was well expressed by the poet Bana1 when in referring to this revolution reviles Pushyamitra as being base born and calls his act of regicide as Anarya. The act of Pushyamitra was properly described by Bana as Anarya i.e. contrary to Aryan law. For on three points the Aryan law at the date of Pushyamitra’s revolution was well settled. The then Aryan law declared (1) That Kingship is the right of the Kshatriya. only. A Brahmin could never be a king. (2) That no Brahmin shall take to the profession of Arms 2 and (3) That rebellion against the King’s authority was a sin. Pushyamitra in fostering the rebellion had committed a crime against each of these three laws. He was Brahmin, and although a Brahmin he rebelled against the King, took to the profession of Arms and became a King. People were not reconciled to this usurption which constituted so flagrant a breach of the law that the Brahmins had to regularize the position created by Pushyamitra. This the Brahmins did by taking the bold step of changing the law. This change of law is quite manifest from the Manu Smriti. I will quote the appropriate shlokas from the Code: XII. 100. “The post of the Commander-in-Chief of the Kingdom, the very Headship of Government, the complete empire over every one are deserved by the Brahmin.” Here we have one change in the law. This new law declares that the Brahmin has a right to become Senapati (Commander of forces), to conquer a kingdom, and to be the ruler and the Emperor of it. XI. 31. A Brahmin, who well knows the laws, need not complain to the king of any grievous injury; since, even by his own power, he may chastise those, who injure him. XI. 32. His (Brahmin’s) own power, which depends on himself alone is mightier than the royal power, which depends on other men; by his own might, therefore may a Brahmin coerce his foes. 1 Harsha Charita, quoted by Smith (1924) p. 208. 2 The rule was so strict that according to the Apastamba Dharmasutra ‘A Brahman shall not take up a weapon in his hand though he be only desirous of examining it.’ It may be matter of some surprize how Pushyamitra who was a Brahmans could have done a deed which could under the circumstances be expected only from a member of the martial race. This difficulty is well explained by Harprasad Shastri. According to him the Sungas though Brahmins were a martial race. Among the fighting Brahmans, two were distinguished among the rest, the Vishwamitras and the Bharadvajas. The wife of Vishvamitra Brahmin proving barren, a Bharadvaj was requested by the ancient custom of ‘Niyoga’ to beget a son on Vishvamitra’s. The issue was Sung. He was the progenitor of a Gotra and that Gotra took up the Samveda for their study. The Sungas were called a Dvayamushyam gotra i.e. a gotra issuing from the two gotras, Vishvamitra and Bharadvaj both of which had taken to military occupation— See Buddhistic Studies (Ed. by Law) Ch. XXXIV, p. 820.

277 THE TRIUMPH OF BRAHMANISM XI. 261-62. A Brahmin who has killed even the peoples of the three worlds, is completely freed from all sins on reciting three times the Rig, Yajur or Sama.-Veda with the Upanishadas.” Here is the second change in the law. It authorized the Brahmin to kill not only the king but to engage in a general massacre of men if they seek to do injury to his power and position. VIII. 348. “The twice born man may take arms, when the rightful occupation assigned to each by Dharma is obstructed by force; and when, in some evil time, a disaster has befallen the twice-born classes.” IX. 320. Of a Kshatriya (Military man or king), who raise his arm violently on all occasions against the Brahmins, Brahmin himself shall be the chastiser; since the soldier originally proceeded from the Brahmin.” This is the third legal change. It recognized the right to rebellion and the right to regicide. The new law is very delicately framed. It gives the right of rebellion to three higher classes. But it is also given to the Brahmins singly by way of providing for a situation when the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas may not be prepared to join the Brahmin in bringing about a rebellion. The right of rebellion is well circumscribed. It can be exercised only when the king is guilty of upsetting the occupations assigned by Manu to the different Varnas. These legal changes were as necessary as they were revolutionary. Their object was to legalize and regularize the position created by Pushyamitra by killing the last Maurya King. By virtue of these legal changes, a Brahmin could lawfully become a king, could lawfully take arms, could lawfully depose or murder a king who was opposed to Chaturvarna and could lawfully kill any subject that opposed the authority of the Brahmin. Manu gave the Brahmins a right to commit Barthalomeu if it became necessary to safeguard their interests. In this way Brahmanism established the right of Brahmana to rule and set at rest whatever doubt and dispute there was regarding the same. But that could hardly be enough for the Brahmins as a whole. It may be a matter of pride but not of any advantage. There can be no special virtue in Brahmin rule if the Brahmin was treated as common man along with the Non-Brahmins having the same rights and same duties. Brahmin rule if it is to justify itself, it must do so by conferring special privileges and immunities on the Brahmins as a class. Indeed Pushyamitra’s Revolution would have been an ill wind blowing no good if it had not recognized the superior position of the Brahmins and conferred upon them special advantages. Manu was alive to this and accordingly proceeds to create monopolies for Brahmins and grant them certain immunities and privileges as may be seen from the Code.