25. Character of Brāhmans.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Russell, R. V. (Robert Vane)
Many hard things have been said about the Brāhman caste and have not been undeserved. The Brāhman priesthood displayed in a marked degree the vices of arrogance, greed, hypocrisy and dissimulation, which would naturally be engendered by their sacerdotal pretensions and the position they claimed at the head of Hindu society. But the priests and mendicants now, as has been seen, contribute only a comparatively small minority of the whole caste. The majority of the Brāhmans are lawyers, doctors, executive officers of Government and clerks in all kinds of Government, railway and private offices. The defects ascribed to the priesthood apply to these, if at all, only in a very minor degree. The Brāhman official has many virtues. He is, as a rule, honest, industrious and anxious to do his work creditably. He spends very little on his own pleasures, and his chief aim in life is to give his children as good an education as he can afford. A half or more of his income may be devoted to this object. If he is well-to-do he helps his poor relations liberally, having the strong fellow-feeling for them which is a relic of the joint family system. He is a faithful husband and an affectionate father. If his outlook on life is narrow and much of his leisure often devoted to petty quarrels and intrigues, this is largely the result of his imperfect, parrot-like education and lack of opportunity for anything better.
In this respect it may be anticipated that the excellent education and training now afforded by Government in secondary schools for very small fees will produce a great improvement; and that the next generation of educated Hindus will be considerably more manly and intelligent, and it may be hoped at the same time not less honest, industrious and loyal than their fathers.
Source notes
1 This article is mainly compiled from a full and excellent account of the caste by Mr. Gopal Datta Joshi, Civil Judge, Saugor, C.P., to whom the writer is much indebted. Extracts have also been taken from Mr. W. Crooke’s and Sir H. Risley’s articles on the caste in their works on the Tribes and Castes of the United Provinces and Bengal respectively; from Mr. J. N. Bhattachārya’s Hindu Castes and Sects (Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta, 1896), and from the Rev. W. Ward’s View of the History, Literature and Religion of the Hindus (London, 1817).
2 Crooke’s Tribes and Castes, art. Brāhman, quoting Professor Eggeling in Encyclopædia Britannica, s.v. Brāhmanism.
3Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Brāhman.
4Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies, 3rd ed. p. 172.
5 Muir, Ancient Sanskrit Texts, i. 282 sq.
6 Quoted in Mr. Crooke’s Tribes and Castes, art. Brāhman.
7 Quoted by Mr. Crooke.
8Tribes and Castes of the Punjāb, by Mr. H. A. Rose, vol. ii. p. 123.
9 See also article Rājpūt-Gaur.
10 See subordinate articles.
11 A section of the Kanaujia. See above.
12Tribes and Castes, art. Brāhman.
13 Chap. ix. v. 173.
14 Ward’s Hindus, vol. ii. p. 97.
15Ibidem, pp. 98, 100.
16Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, by the Abbé Dubois, 3rd ed. p. 499.
17Ibidem, p. 500.
18 London, Heinemann (1897), pp. 84–91.
19 This is the famous Gayatri.
20 It is not known how a slip-knot and a garland are connected with any incarnation of Vishnu. For the incarnations see articles Vaishnava sect.
21 In the Central Provinces Ganpati is represented by a round red stone, Surya by a rock crystal or the Swastik sign, Devi by an image in brass or by a stone brought from her famous temple at Mahur, and Vishnu by the round black stone or Sāligrām. Besides these every Brāhman will have a special family god, who may be one of the above or another deity, as Rāma or Krishna.
22Bipracharanamrita.
23Hindu Castes and Sects, pp. 19–21.
24Rājasthān, i. p. 487.
25Rājasthān, i. p. 698.
26 At that time £12,500 or more, now about £8000.