Abstract
This article seeks to analyse the evolution of social hierarchies in ancient India. While the primary focus of the article is on gender hierarchy, it also attempts an examination of the intersection of class and caste as well. This article seeks to trace the linkages between women and śūdra in the ancient textual sources. It has also been argued that since hierarchy is never organic but a deliberate act of creation, in this deliberation, alternative possibilities are either marginalised or effaced.
I
In the evolution of human civilisation if there is one premise that runs as a leitmotif in the history of humanity, it is ‘hierarchies’ that human beings have constructed in dealing with their fellow beings. 1 In fact, social stratification embedded in the discourse of power was one of the most important signifiers in the process of transitioning from pre-history to the dawn of civilisation, as Gordon Childe pointed out long ago. 2
We also need to remind ourselves that the evolution of hierarchy was not a simple but a complex process, and hierarchy itself needs to be referred to in plural rather than singular. Joan Wallach Scott in her germinal paper, ‘Gender a Useful Category of Historical analysis’, 3 which was published in 1986, pointed out at least three such hierarchies, namely race, class and gender. All three, Scott emphasised, were structuring hierarchies in any given society. However, in the case of Indian civilisation, we can replace Race 4 with varṇa or caste hierarchy.
Scholars have for a long time described various hierarchies. Class hierarchy was most comprehensively dealt with first by socialists in the eighteenth century and then by Marx and his followers in the nineteenth century. As for caste, Jyotiba Phule 5 came up with his seminal thesis, Gulamgiri, 6 in 1873, and in the twentieth century, his legacy was taken to greater heights by such outstanding social activists and theoreticians as E.V.R. Naicker Periyar and B.R. Ambedkar. 7 As for fender, Mary Wollstonecraft had published ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’ as early as 1792 8 as a counterpoise to the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens’ during the French Revolution of 1789. The French Declaration itself was inspired by the frontal attack on the very notion of ‘hierarchy’ (in singular rather than plural) during the American Revolution, when in 1776 the founding fathers of the United States declared that we hold this truth to be self-evident that all men are created equal. In 1869, John Stuart Mill, 9 in his tract On Liberty and the Subjection of Women, brought upon his considerable intellectual talent to further Mary Wollstonecraft’s agenda when he decried the ‘compulsions’ behind keeping women in ignorant state and canvassed the case for their natural talents flourishing in a congenial manner. Nonetheless, the issue of gender hierarchy did not resonate with either ideologues or grassroot activists in any substantive way for a very long time. It could be that unlike the issues of class and race, which benefitted from the consistent and powerful political movements like the French Revolution, the European revolutionary movements of 1848 (during which Communist Manifesto was released) and the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 as well as the movements against colonialism in part fuelled by highly supportive socialist regimes, gender oppression was not sought to be one of the major causes to be pursued. Even the Suffragette movement, which was ushered in the advanced west at the cusp of the twentieth century, failed to realise its radical potential by providing the required impetus for a systematic analysis 10 and agitation against the structural hierarchies of gender. 11 The movement itself fizzled out once its primary objective of securing right to vote for women was achieved.
II
How does one explain this retardation of any meaningful political and social movement against gender hierarchy? Friedrich Engels 12 in his seminal work, The Origins of Family, Private Property and The State’, which was published in 1884, noted that sexual division of labour was the first form of division of labour, and reification of women and children was the first form of private property, which led to the ‘world historic defeat of the female sex’. However, Marxists failed to improve on this insight, simply subsuming it as an aspect of contradictions based on class. It was left to the feminist intellectuals to theorise the contours and antecedents of gender hierarchy.
It is well known that Marx’s concept of ‘production’ is central to his views of human life and social organisation and focusses exclusively on such activities as those concerned with the production and making of food and physical commodities. But it takes no cognizance of human activities such as child bearing and nursing, which are necessary for the reproduction of human species. This limitation of Marxian production was effectively challenged when Mary O’Brien, 13 in her 1981 book The Politics of Reproduction, argued that while man makes himself materially, he is also made reproductively by the parturitive labour of women. A historian of classics, St. Croix, 14 in the same year described women as a ‘class’ in so far as their labour, both productive and reproductive, was controlled and dominated by men to serve their own ends. A far more cogent analysis of the relationship of women and class was provided by Sumerologist Gerda Lerner in her 1986 book The Creation of Patriarchy, 15 where she argued that while class for men is based on his relationship to the means of production, for women, class is mediated through their sexual ties to men to whom they are related. It is through men that women have access to and seem to control the means of production.
Along with the limitations of Marxian category of class and production, what was also critiqued was the understanding of varṇa or caste hierarchy from the vantage point of gender perspective. The varṇa/caste hierarchy functions differently for men and women. While men of higher varṇa/caste status had enjoyed greater privileges and had lived an empowered existence, women had to face a varṇa/caste reality beyond birth. Higher status did not automatically empower these women. In fact, it is a truism of Indian civilisation that the higher the caste status of women, the greater the constraints placed on them. Thus, we have this paradox that a Brahmin woman was more constrained and circumscribed in her existence in spite of being placed at the crest of the pecking order of varṇa/caste society. On the other hand, a śūdra woman was freer by her varṇa
In his writings on ancient Indian society, R.S. Sharma found that women and śūdra are conjoined in the textual sources. 20 However, Sharma did not explicate on this very significant insight that he had provided. It is crucial in the context of ancient Indian society to understand in what way the two hierarchies of caste and gender became coterminous, and misogyny, along with abhorrence for lower caste, entered into the DNA of the Brahmanical framers of societal norms, even as the Tantric discourse might reject such hierarchies. 21 In the Brahmanical lawbooks, while śūdras were held to be impure and had a polluting presence at all times, women were impure periodically at the time of menstruation. The term vṛṣalī is used interchangeably to describe both a śūdra woman and a menstruating woman. 22 It is also noteworthy that normative texts refer to menstruating women as cānḍālī and rajakī on the first and third days, respectively, of her biological cycle, and these are also the names for untouchable castes. 23 Second, both śūdras and women were denied upanayana and, hence, a dvija status, 24 and as such, they were both outside the pale of Sanskritic Vedic knowledge. Interestingly, in the Sanskrit plays, both female and śūdra characters are represented as Prakrit speakers. Third, the textual sources also underline the service performed by both women and śūdra. From Vedic age onwards, the śūdra are described as those who serve (paricaryā) the three upper varṇa, which constitute their only duty (śūśruṣā śūdrasyetareṣam varṇānām). 25 Similarly, the service role of śūdra in the private sphere is assigned exclusively to women. 26 The Mahābhārata states that in service lies women’s strength—śūśruṣā tu balam strīṇām. 27 The pativratā dharma itself was fashioned to provide an ideology to school women into this role. 28 Lastly, for both śūdra 29 and women, 30 their access to and control over productive resources that were income-generating and livelihood-sustaining and therefore capable of conferring autonomous status were strictly circumscribed.
As is obvious from the above discussion, in the explanation of social relations, neither of the three categories—class, caste and gender–can be made an omnibus category. Gender hierarchy is just one form of hierarchy, but it cannot serve as an adequate explanation for the other hierarchies that have historically existed in our society. And since it is futile to rank ‘hierarchies of oppression’, the aim has to be to affirm the importance of liberation from all. We therefore need to develop a triple vision where each hierarchy is analysed at the intersection of the other two. Only then can we arrive at a balanced explanatory framework for the social order, as it has existed in our past and continues to have a life beyond it.
III
None of the hierarchies, least of all gender, is a natural given; it is an act of creation. Furthermore, in the process of its formulation, alternative possibilities are sought to be jettisoned altogether or marginalised. We can illustrate this thesis by citing some examples.
Ancient India has always been perceived as possessing a society of dutiful and chaste wives. The exemplar of this ‘hegemonic femininity’ has been the glorious pativratā, who is much celebrated not only in literature but also in historiography. 31 Yet this cult of pativratā wife did not always prevail in ancient India; rather, it was a hierarchy of conjugal relationships that was fashioned in a concerted manner from the post-Vedic times onwards and finds its prominent efflorescence in the great epics Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa. In these texts, we witness a process of ‘pativratisation’, which sought to delegitimise a wilful, even dangerous wife—one who is referred to in the Vedic corpus 32 both as patighnī (death of husband) and ghoracakṣu (evil-eyed) into a benign pativatsalā 33 who is at all times (samayānuvartinī) 34 an unquestioning follower of her husband, towing his line in thought, word and deeds (manasā vācā karmaṇā). 35
Catherine Mackinnon 36 held that ‘sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism; that which is most one’s own yet most taken away’. The control and harnessing of female sexuality have been a cornerstone in the edifice of patriarchal society. Women are prevented from having control over their desire, their body and their womb. The foundation of these normative injunctions was laid by marginalising ‘alternative’ possibilities, which could not always be effaced completely. We get plenty of data from our sources to trace these social tensions at work. Mother whose fertile womb produced sons was a cherished symbol for ancient patriarchs. Nonetheless, women who were at the margins of this paradigmatic social order not only mocked these shibboleths but even sought to overturn their embedded hierarchies. Damodargupta’s Kuṭṭanīmatam, 37 a text that enlightens us about practices within veśavāsa, states that the birth of a daughter alone is praiseworthy (duhitā eva ślāghya) and the tendency to be satisfied with the birth of a son should be disparaged. In fact, motherhood itself was decried within veśavāsa. In Kshemendra’s Samayamātṛkā, 38 a bawd expresses her strong disapproval of pregnancy (prasava), which she describes as a curse (śrāpa) due to its debilitating effect on women’s youth. She then goes on to contrast the sensual and cultural allure of a veśyā with kulavadhū, who are seen as being constantly pregnant (nityaprasūti) with their youth destroyed (yauvanahata). Furthermore, in their onerous responsibilities of child care and household chores, they miss out on the pleasures of a cultured gathering (goṣṭhivilāsa sarasakeli nirādareṣu) even as veśyā enliven a gathering with their smiling demeanour (satatsmitāsu). 39
Our textual sources also tell us about women within patriarchy who tried to claim the pursuit of desire for themselves. 40 Svairiṇī were such free women, and patriarchy had to fashion a strīrājya (female commune) or herd them into socio-sexual liminal border zones (uttarakuru, utsavsanketa) to keep off this daring attempt on their part. Simultaneously, as a counterpoise, Brahmanical patriarchs, on the one hand, emphasised a pure madhyadeśa where such libertine women had no place, and on the other hand, they constructed the ideal of chaste pativratā and even invented agnīparīksā as a test for their chastity. One only has to juxtapose this development of a later date with Vedic society, where the priest, during the varuṇapraghāsa rite of the śrauta ritual, only threatens the wife of yajmāna to reveal either by speech or gesture if she had a paramour (jāra). 41 Sometimes when the phallic idealogues were not completely successful in concealing the consequence of women pursuing desire for themselves, they hierarchised the progeny of such women like kānīna 42 and sahoḍha 43 by placing them at the bottom of the list of sons.
In classical Sanskrit literature,
44
among the different types of nāyikā, the poets had to make place for an abhisārikā nāyikā, who is the only one among the aṣṭa nāyikā claiming an autonomy of desire. Abhisārikā’s amorous mood is of her own volition, and whom she keeps tryst with is also by her decision. Interestingly, in Sanskrit anthologies, most verses about abhisārikā are put under the subheading ‘unchaste woman’ (asatī/kulaṭā), yet in the Sanskrit poetic convention a cheated (khanḍita) or abandoned (vipralabdha
In the masculinist world of Sanskrit kāvya, men are the ones who look, while women are only looked at. If gaze was the vehicle of passion, the path by which desire entered the heart and the means by which it was maintained, women were denied the right to be the initiators of that passion. Yet when poetess Vijjika proclaims her desire, she speaks of erotic fulfilment lying in ‘interlocking’ of eyes of both men and women, and thus avows her entitlement to the gaze. 45
IV
A common misconception about gender hierarchy is that when we refer to it, we are exclusively indicating hierarchy amongst the genders, that is, between men and women. However, it is imperative to register tensions and interplay of power equations ‘within genders’ as well, for that too is integral to the notion of gender hierarchy. Ancient texts do give us an idea of how stratification within genders existed. At the level of family unit, the hierarchy operated around the axis of age. Son(s) had to defer to father, and daughter-in-law had to kowtow to the mother-in-law. 46 Equally, in patriarchal families within the same generation, the status of a man’s wife (who had come from outside) was sought to be placed above that of the man’s sister, who was one’s ‘own’ (svasṛ). 47 What was at work here was the jettisoning of the principle of same origin/birth/kin (sajāta) and equality (samāna), 48 which would not have been conducive to the maintenance of hierarchical familial relations.
At the wider level of society, the powerplay of hierarchy and the resultant tensions were largely between the two higher varṇas of Brahman and Kshatriya. 49 While the Brahmanas monopolised ritual hierarchy, 50 the economic and political power and status accruing from it became the prerogative of Kshatriyas. Furthermore, brahmanas and kshatriyas together formed the ruling hierarchy over the lower varṇa/caste.
Another important gender hierarchy was constructed around the sexual axis. In the antiquity, the third sex (tṛtiyā prakṛti) stood as emasculated liminal beings with respect to the hegemonic masculinity of the male nāyaka. 51
As noted earlier, hierarchies are created; they are not a spontaneous outcrop. Can we then assume that they can also be subverted? If the phallic world has succeeded for so long in placing women at the lower rung of the familial hierarchy, it is by muting them. Gargi was silenced by Yajnavalkya in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad on pain of death. 52 A woman does not speak she mumbles (antaramukhabhāsiṇī), 53 or she has to be low-voiced (mandavākyā), 54 so as not to give offence. But sometimes women revolt against this conspiracy of silencing them, and when they articulate their dissent, it may well be a cogent reasoned justification that they boldly put forward. Thus, Amba in the Mahābhārata 55 denounces the charade of a svayamvara marriage, which refers to a woman’s self-choice but, in reality, never gives it to them. She bemoans her status as a mere bought woman (paṇyastrī) who is nothing but a prize for the feat of some manly valour (vīryaśulkeṇa). Amba describes it unambiguously as injustice (anyāya). Queen Amritmati in Yaśastilaka campū 56 critiques the approved forms of marriages 57 in the lawbooks, which are based on kanyādāna or gifting of girl by the guardian to the groom. Amritmati shows a mirror 58 to this male exchange social economy when she characterises such a marriage rite as being sold by the parents in the presence of gods, brahmins and fire—deva dvija agni samakṣam mātṛ pitṛ vikṛtasya. Amritmati asserts that a husband who acquires a wife in such a manner can only be the master of her body and not of her heart.
In conclusion, one may say that real social transformation comes about not when hierarchy is ‘changed’, but only when it is eliminated. Because ‘one does not win by struggling to be at the top of the caste system, one can win only by refusing to be trapped within one at all’. 59 It is only then that we will come near the post-structuralist utopia, where power is not possessed by some at a hierarchical summit but is something that circulates in a chain and can be simultaneously exercised by all. 60