திண்ணை

நரேன்

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இந்தப் பொய்யிலும்கூட ஒரு விஷயம் பாருங்கள்: வல்லுறவு கொண்ட பொறுக்கிகள் மேல்குலத்தவர்களாம். வல்லுறவுக்காட்பட்ட பெண்கள் பெற்றுப்போட்ட குழந்தைகள் சாதி கெட்டவர்களாம். இந்தச் சடங்குத்தனமான வகைப்பாட்டை நம்புகிறவர்கள்தாம் மேன்மக்கள் எனில் மேன்மையின் கீழ்மை எவ்வளவு கோரமானது அதைத்தான் கால்டுவெல் வலுவாக நிறுவுகிறார். அதைச் சகித்துக்கொள்ள மறுத்தவர்கள்தாம் அவர் நூலைச் சிதைத்தவர்கள்.
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நான் தற்போது கால்டுவெல் புத்தகத்தை படித்து கொண்டு இருக்கிறேன். அதை படிக்கும்போது நீங்கள் சொல்வது போல் கால்டுவெல் “வல்லுறவு” என்றெல்லாம் கூறியது போல் தெரியவில்லை. அவர் சொல்லி இருப்பது இது தான். பக்கம் 543 -544

Europeans were generall led to suppose, on their arrival in India several generations ago, that the Pareiyas were either the illegitimate offspring of adulterous intercoure, or were persons who had been excluded from caste for their crimes. This notion appears to have been invented and propagated by the Brahmans and the higher castes, and must have originated, in part, in their wish to justify their exclusive, unsocial behavior towards the Pareiyas, on principles which they supposed that Europeans would approve. In part, also, it may have originated in an error arising from the uncritical habit of the Hindu mind-viz., the error of transferring to Southern India and to the Dravidian tribes, the fictions which were devised in Northern India to account for the origin of the new castes, or so called mixed classes, of the North. Those northern castes or classes seem to have come into being through the operation of two causes; first, through the subdivision of the original castes of Vaisyas and servile or Sudra Aryans, in accordance with the progressive subdivision of labor ; and secondly through the introduction of one aboriginal tribe after another within the pale of Aryan civilisation, as the religion and civil polity of the Sanskrit-speaking race spread throughout the country, and as the primitive inhabitants were transformed from Dasyus, Nishadas and Mlechas, into Sudras. In Manu and similar Sastras, no mention is made of either of these causes; but the new or mixed castes are attributed exclusively to fictitious mixtured of the older castes. The more respectable of the new castes are attributed to the legal intermarriage of persons belonging to different castes of recognised respectability; another and inferior set of castes are attributed to the adulterous intercourse of persons of equal respectability, ut of different caste, or high-caste men with low-caste women; whilst the lowest castes of all are represented to have sprung from the adulterous intercourse of high-caste women with low-caste men, and are said also to constitute the receptacle of persons who had been socially excommunicated for offences against their caste.
Whatever amount of truth may be contained in this representation of the origin of the castes of Northern India (and I think it most probably a fiction throughout), it may confidently be affirmed that the Dravidian castes had no such origin. The only ‘mixed caste’ known in Southern India, is that which consists of the children of the dancing girls attached to the temples. Of this class the female children are brought up in the profession of their mothers, the males as temple florists and musicians. In all ordinary cases, when children are born out of wedlock, if there is no great disparity in rank or caste between the parents, the rules is that the caste of the child is that of the less honourable of the two castes to which its parents belong. Where considerable disparity exists, and where the dereliction of rank is on the woman’s side – as, for example, where a high-caste woman, or even a woman belonging to the middling castes, has formed an intimacy with a Pareiya man, neither the caste of the father nor any other caste has much chance of being recruited or polluted by the addition of the woman’s illegitimate offspring. The child rarely sees the light; the mother either procures an abortion or commits suicide. To suppose, therefore, as Europeans have sometimes been led to suppos, that the entire caste of Pareiyas (including its subdivisions, and the ‘left hand castes corresponding to it) has come into existence in the surreptitious manner described above, or that it is composed of persons who have been excluded from other castes for their crimes, is a baseless dream, which seems too preposterous for serious refutation.
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On the whole, therefore, the supposition that the lower castes in the Dravidian provinces belong to a different race from the higher , appears to be untenable. It seems safer to hold, that all the indigenous tribes who were found by the Aryans in Southern India, belonged to substantially to one and same race. It is probable enough that the Dravidians were broken up into tribes before the Aryan immigration, and that the distinctions, not only richer and poorer, but also of master and slave, had already come into existence amongst them. Those distinctions may have formed the foundation of the caste system, which their Brahmanical civilisers built up, and which was moulded by degrees into an exact counterpart of the caste system of Northern India.
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அது மட்டும் அல்ல. பக்கம் 558 – 579 வரை திராவிடனுடைய உருவ அமைப்பை விளக்கி இருக்கிறாரே .. என்ன அருமை.. 🙂

நேரம் இருந்தால் நீங்களே படித்து பாருங்கள். கவிதாசரன் மொழி பெயர்ப்பில் சில விட்டு போயிருக்கலாம், அல்லது கால்டுவெல் சொன்னதற்கு கண், காது, மூக்கு பொருத்தி அழகு பார்த்திருக்கலாம் “வல்லுறவு” என்று சொன்னதை போல.