Untouchables of Malabar, Kerala (1906)
The sacred books of the Hindus contain no uniform or consistent account of the origin of castes, but offer mystical, mythical, and rationalistic explanations of it, or fanciful conjecture concerning it.[5]
The earliest of the Hindu books, written by scholars (10.90.11-12), envisage a society divided into four theoretical varnas ("colors", "types" or "orders" ): Brahman (scholar-priest), Kshatriya (warrior-chief), Vaishya (farmer, artisan, traders), and Shudras (menials, servants). The idea is further developed in the Laws of Manu (200 BCE-200 CE). The first three varnas are known as the twice-born, all of whom undergo a ceremony in their youth admitting them formally as students of the Vedas, which was the foundation for a later high status.
The varna caste division does not mention untouchables, but an untouchable occupation (ćaṇḍālas, handlers of corpses) is mentioned in the Manu Smriti and early Buddhist literature, as resulting from the union of Shudra males and Brahmin females.[citation needed]
While the varnas were theoretical, idealistic categories, jatis, meaning "by birth" were the thousands of tribal, post-tribal and occupational groupings that actually existed. A jati is an endogamous group, sharing many customs and often an occupation, usually based in one language area. Some scholars believe that Jatis were a pre-Aryan social division of society which, by being grafted on to the Aryan concept of social order (varna), has acquired Brahmanical sanction.[6]
Beliefs about pollution generally regulated relations between all the castes. Members were not allowed to marry outside their caste; there were strict rules about the kind of food and drink one could accept and from whom; and there were restrictions on approaching and visiting members of another caste. Violations of these rules entailed purificatory rites, penalties and sometimes expulsion from the caste. This differentiated society was often justified with traditional Hindu religious beliefs about samsara (reincarnation) and karma (quality of actions). A person's position in this life was determined by his or her actions in previous lives. Persons who were born in a Brahman family must have performed good deeds in their earlier lives. Being born a Shudra was punishment for the sinful acts committed in previous lives.
Shudras were confined to menial labour and despised or polluting jobs, working as farm laborers, handlers of unclean animals such as pigs, and curers of hides. Burning ghat workers and executioners are two of the occupations considered most polluting. The seventh century Chinese traveler Xuanzang listed butchers, fishermen, public performers, executioners, and scavengers as marked castes living outside the city. Anything to do with a dead cow or its hide is the work only of untouchables. They were denied access to many Hindu temples, were not allowed to read religious Sanskrit books, could not use common village wells and tanks, and lived in settlements outside the village, forbidden to enter inside the residential areas of the upper castes. A caste of ritual drummers in the south known as the Parayan contributed the word pariah (outcaste) to English.
In many parts of the country Untouchables Marriages are generally arranged between persons of the same caste. Deferential bodily movements and speech patterns in the presence of members of the upper castes governed the appropriate conduct of untouchables in public, and had forbidden them the use of various markers of honor and status, from modes of transport such as elephants, horses, and palanquins to apparel and accessories such as upper-body garments, turbans, and shoes.
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