Vol. 7 · pages 271–275

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES252 Contact with strange people was also regarded as a source of Untouchability by the Primitive Man. Among the Bathonga, a tribe in South Africa, it is belived that those who travel outside their own country are peculiarly open to danger from the influence of foreign spirits and in particular from demoniac possession. Strangers are tabu because, worshipping strange gods, they bring strange influence with them. They are, therefore, fumigated or purified in some other way. In the Dieri and neighbouring tribes even a member of the tribe returning home after a journey was treated as a stranger and no notice was taken of him until he sat down. The danger of entering a new country is as great as that which attaches to those who come from thence. In Australia, when one tribe approaches another, the members carry lighted sticks to purify the air, just as the Spartan kings in making war had sacred fires from the altar carried before them to the frontier. In the same manner, those entering a house from the outside world were required to perform some ceremony, even if it were only to remove their shoes, which would purify the incomer from the evil with which otherwise he might contaminate those within, while the threshold, door-posts and lintel—important as points of contact with outer world—are smeared with blood or sprinkled with water when any member of household or of the community has become a source of pollution, or a horse-shoe is suspended over the door to keep out evil and bring goodluck. Of course, the rites and ceremonies connected with birth, death, marriage, etc., do not positively and unequivocally suggest that they were regarded as sources of pollution. But that pollution is one element among many others is indicated by the fact that in every case there is segregation. There is segregation and isolation in birth, initiation, marriage, death and in dealing with the sacred and the strange. In birth the mother is segregated. At puberty and initiation there is segregation and seclusion for a period. In marriage, from the time of betrothal until the actual ceremony bride and bride-groom do not meet. In menstruation a woman is subjected to segregation. Segregation is most noticeable in the case of death. There is not only isolation of the dead-body but there is isolation of all the relatives of the dead from the rest of the community. This segregation is evidenced by the growth of hair and nail and wearing of old clothes by the relatives of the dead which show that they are not served by

THE UNTOUCHABLES : UNTOUCHABILITY AMONG NON-HINDUS 253 the rest of the society such as the barber, washerman, etc. The period of segregation and the range of segregation differ in the case of death but the fact of segregation is beyond dispute. In the case of defilement of the sacred by the profane or of defilement of the kindred or by intercourse with the non-kindred there is also the element of segregation. The profane must keep away from the sacred. So the kindred must keep away from the non-kindred. It is thus clear that in Primitive Society pollution involved segregation of the polluting agent. Along with the development of the notion of defilement, Primitive Society had developed certain purificatory media and purificatory ceremonies for dispelling impurity. Among the agents used for dispelling impurity are water and blood. The sprinkling of water and the sprinkling of blood by the person defiled were enough to make him pure. Among purificatory rites were included changing of clothes, cutting hair, nail, etc., sweat-bath, fire, fumigation, burning of incense and fanning with the bough of a tree. These were the means of removing impurity. But Primitive Society had another method of getting rid of impurity. This was to transfer it to another person. It was transferred to some one who was already tabu. In New Zealand, if anyone touched the head of another, the head being a peculiarly ‘sacred’ part of the body, he became tabu. He purified himself by rubbing his hands on fernroot, which was then eaten by the head of the family in female line. In Tonga, if a man ate tabued food he saved himself from the evil consequences by having the foot of a chief placed on his stomach. The idea of transmission also appears in the custom of the scapegoat. In Fiji, a tabued person wiped his hands on a pig, which became sacred to the chief, while in Uganda, at the end of the period of mourning for a king a ‘scapegoat’ along with a cow, a goat, a dog, a fowl and the dust and fire from the king’s house was conveyed to the Bunyoro frontier, and there the animals were maimed and left to die. This practice was held to remove all uncleanliness from the king and queen. Such are the facts relating to the notion of pollution as it prevailed in Primitive Society.

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES254 Turning to Ancient Society the notion of pollution prevalent therein was not materially different from what was prevalent in Primitive Society. There is difference as to the sources of pollution. There is difference regarding purificatory ceremonies. But barring these differences the pattern of pollution and purification in Primitive and Ancient Society is the same. Comparing the Egyptian system of pollution with the Primitive system there is no difference except that in Egypt it was practised on an elaborate scale. Among the Greeks the causes of impurity were bloodshed, the presence of ghost and contact with death, sexual intercourse, childbirth, the evacuation of the body, the eating of certain food such as pea-soup, cheese and garlic, the intrusion of unauthorised persons into holy places, and, in certain circumstances, foul speech and quarrelling. The purificatory means, usually called kaopoia by Greeks, were lustral water, sulphur, onions, fumigation and fire, incense, certain boughs and other vegetative growths, pitch, wool, certain stones and amulets, bright things like sunlight and gold, sacrificed animals, especially the pig and of these specially the blood and the skin; finally, certain festivals and festival rites particularly the ritual of cursing and the scapegoat. One unusual method was the cutting of the hair of the polluted person or sacrificial communion with the deity. A striking feature of the Roman notion of pollution and purification is to be found in the belief of territorial and communal pollution and purification. Parallel to the lustratio of the house is the periodical purificatory ritual applied to a country district (Pagi). The lustractio pagi consisted in a religious procession right round its boundaries, with sacrifice. There seems to have been in ancient days a similar procession round the walls of the city, called amburbium. In historical times special purification of the City was carried out when a calamity called for it, e.g.’ after the early disasters in the Second Punic War. The object of all such expiations was to seek reconciliation with the gods. Lustral ceremony accompanied the foundation of a colony. The Therminalia protective of boundaries, and the Compitalia of streets in the City were also probably lustral in their origin. Down to the late period, priests called Luperci perambulated in the boundaries of the earliest Rome, the settlement on the Palatinate. Earlier there was an annual solemn progress round

THE UNTOUCHABLES : UNTOUCHABILITY AMONG NON-HINDUS 255 the limits of the most ancient territory of the Primitive City. It was led by the Archaic priesthood called the Arval brotherhood. The ceremony was called ambravalia and it was distinctly piacular. When Roman territory was expanded no corresponding extension of the lustral rite seems ever to have been made. These round-about piacular surveys were common elsewhere, inside as well as outside Italy and particularly in Greece. The solemn words and prayers of the traditional chant, duly gone through without slip of tongue, seem to have had a sort of magical effect. Any error in the pronouncement of these forms would involve a need of reparation, just as in the earliest Roman legal system, the mispronunciation of the established verbal forms would bring loss of the lawsuit. Other forms of quaint ancient ritual were connected with the piacular conception. The Salii, ancient priests of Mars, made a journey at certain times round a number of stations in the City. They also had a ‘cleaning of the weapons’ and a ‘cleaning of the trumpets’ which testify to a primitive notion that the efficiency of the army’s weapons required purification. The ‘washing’ (lustrum) with which the census ended was in essence military; for it was connected with the Comitia Centuriata, which is merely the army in civil garb. Lustratio exercitus was often performed when the army was in the field, to remove superstitious dread which sometimes attacked it at other times, it was merely prophylactic. There was also a lustration of the fleet. Like all Primitive people the Hebrews also entertained the notion of defilement. The special feature of their notion of defilement was the belief that defilement was also caused by contact with the carcass of unclean animals, by eating a carcass or by contact with creeping things, or by eating creeping things and by contact with animals which are always unclean such as “every beast which divideth the hoof, and is not cloven footed, nor cheweth the cud...whatsoever goeth upon his paws, among all manner of beasts that go on all four”. Contact with any unclean person was also defilement to the Hebrews. Two other special features of the Hebrew notion of defilement may be mentioned. The Hebrews believed that defilement might be caused to persons by idolatrous practices or to a land by the sexual impurities of the people. On the basis of this survey, we can safely conclude that there are no people Primitive or Ancient who did not entertain the notion of pollution. zz

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES256 CHAPTER II UNTOUCHABILITY AMONG HINDUS IN the matter of pollution there is nothing to distinguish the Hindus from the Primitive or Ancient peoples. That they recognized pollution is abundantly clear from the Manu Smriti. Manu recognises physical defilement and also notional defilement. Manu treated birth, 1 death and menstruation 2 as sources of impurity. With regard to death, defilement was very extensive in its range. It followed the rule of consanguinity. Death caused difilement to members of the family of the dead person technically called Sapindas and Samanodakas? It not only included maternal relatives such as maternal uncle 4 but also remote relatives. 5 It extended even to nonrelatives such as (1) teacher 6, (2) teacher’s 7 son, (3) teacher’s 8 wife, (4) pupil, 9 (5) fellow 10 student, (6) Shrotriya, 11 (7) king, 12 (8) friend, 13 (9) members of the household, 14 (10) those who carried the corpse, 15 and (11) those who touched the corpse. 16 Anyone within the range of defilement could not escape it. There were only certain persons who were exempt. In the following verses Manu names them and specifies the reasons why he exempts them :— 1. Chapter V. 58, 61- 63, 71, 77, 79. 2. Chapter III, 45-46 : IV 40-41, 57, 208 ; V. 66,85,108. 3. Chapter V. 58, 60, 75-77, 83-94. 4. Chapter V. 81. 5. Chapter V. 78. 6. Chapter V. 65, 80, 82. 7. Chapter V. 80. 8. Chapter V. 80. 9. Chapter V. 81. 10. Chapter V. 71. 11. Chapter V. 81. 12. Chapter V. 82. 13. Chapter V. 82. 14. Chapter V. 81. 15. Chapter V. 64-65, 85. 16. Chapter V. 64, 85