History · Ch 3 — Kinship, Caste and Class — Early Societies
Beyond the four varnas: Subordination and conflict
Beyond the four varnas: Subordination and conflict
The Brahmanical social order did not stop at the four varnas. It also created a category of people considered so impure that they were placed entirely outside the system — the "untouchables." This was not a fifth varna; it was a status of subordination based on the idea of purity and pollution.
The logic was simple: activities connected with rituals were sacred and therefore "pure." Those who considered themselves pure avoided sharing food with those they labelled untouchable. At the other extreme, certain tasks were regarded as "polluting" — handling corpses, disposing of dead animals, or acting as executioners. People who performed these tasks, called chandalas, were placed at the very bottom of the hierarchy. Their touch, and in some cases even their sight, was considered polluting by those at the top.
The Manusmriti laid down specific "duties" for chandalas. They had to live outside the village, use discarded utensils, wear clothes taken from the dead, and ornaments made of iron. They could not walk about in villages or cities at night. They were required to dispose of bodies that had no relatives and to serve as executioners.
Centuries later, Chinese Buddhist monks recorded similar practices. Fa Xian (c. fifth century CE) wrote that untouchables had to sound a clapper in the streets so that people could avoid seeing them. Xuan Zang (c. seventh century) observed that executioners and scavengers were forced to live outside the city.
Historians have tried to find out whether chandalas actually accepted this degraded life. They examine non-Brahmanical texts that depict the lives of chandalas. Sometimes these depictions match the Brahmanical Shastras. But occasionally, they hint at different social realities — including resistance.
A story of resistance: the Matanga Jataka
This story comes from a Pali text, the Matanga Jataka, where the Bodhisattva (the Buddha in a previous birth) is born as a chandala named Matanga.
- Matanga was born outside the city of Banaras as a chandala's son.
- One day, he went into the city and encountered Dittha Mangalika, a merchant's daughter. When she saw him, she exclaimed, "I have seen something inauspicious," and washed her eyes. Her attendants beat him up.
- In protest, Matanga lay down at the door of her father's house. On the seventh day, the family gave Dittha Mangalika to him in marriage. She carried the starving Matanga back to the chandala settlement.
- Matanga renounced the world and attained spiritual powers. He returned to Banaras and married her. They had a son, Mandavya Kumara.
- Mandavya grew up learning the three Vedas and began to feed 16,000 Brahmanas every day.
- One day, Matanga — dressed in rags, with a clay alms bowl — arrived at his son's doorstep and begged for food. Mandavya replied that he looked like an outcaste and was unworthy of alms; the food was meant for Brahmanas.
- Matanga said: "Those who are proud of their birth and are ignorant do not deserve gifts. On the contrary, those who are free from vices are worthy of offerings." …
The stone sculpture from Gandhara, dated to around the third century CE, shows a single figure: a mendicant, or wandering ascetic, holding an alms bowl. The mendicant is depicted in a simple, unadorned manner, with a cloth wrapped around his body and a bowl extended, presumably to receive food from householders. There are no other figures, no elaborate background, and no labels or inscriptions on the sculpture itself.
What makes this image significant for the chapter is its context. Gandhara, in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, was a region where Buddhism flourished, and this sculpture is a product of that tradition. The mendicant is not a Brahmana or a Kshatriya performing a ritual; he is a renouncer who has stepped outside the varna order entirely. The alms bowl is the key object — it signals that he depends on the generosity of others for his survival, a practice that directly contradicts the Brahmanical emphasis on ritual purity and self-sufficiency.
The textbook places this figure in the section "Beyond the four varnas," which discusses groups like the chandalas who were considered "untouchable" and forced to live on the margins. But the mendicant is different. He is not an outcaste by birth or occupation; he has chosen to leave society. His presence in the sculpture reminds us that the varna system, however rigidly it was prescribed in texts like the Manusmriti, was not the only way to organise life. There were always people — renouncers, ascetics, monks — who rejected its hierarchy altogether. …
Source 10 — A Story of Bodhisattva from the Matanga Jataka. In this Pali text the Bodhisattva (the Buddha in a previous birth) is born a chandala named Matanga:
Matanga married Dittha Mangalika, the daughter of a merchant, and renounced the world; after attaining spiritual powers he returned to Banaras. Their son, Mandavya, learnt the three Vedas and fed 16,000 Brahmanas every day. One day Matanga, dressed in rags with a clay alms bowl, came begging at his son's door; Mandavya turned him away, saying the food was meant for Brahmanas. Matanga replied: "Those who are proud of their birth and are ignorant do not deserve gifts. On the contrary, those who are free from vices are worthy of offerings." …