THEME Kinship, Caste and Class THEME TWO THREE )))

1 53In the previous chapter we saw that there were severalchanges in economic and political life between c. 600 BCE and 600 CE. Some of these changes influenced societiesas well. For instance, the extension of agriculture intoforested areas transformed the lives of forest dwellers;craft specialists often emerged as distinct social groups;the unequal distribution of wealth sharpened often use textualtraditions to understand theseprocesses. Some texts lay downnorms of social behaviour; othersdescribe and occasionally commenton a wide range of social situationsand practices. We can also catch aglimpse of some social actors frominscriptions. As we will see, eachtext (and inscription) was writtenfrom the perspective of specificsocial categories.

2 So we need tokeep in mind who composed whatand for whom. We also need toconsider the language used, andthe ways in which the textcirculated. Used carefully, texts allow us to piece togetherattitudes and practices that shaped social focusing on the Mahabharata, a colossal epic runningin its present form into over 100,000 verses with depictionsof a wide range of social categories and situations, we drawon one of the richest texts of the subcontinent. It wascomposed over a period of about 1,000 years (c. 500 BCEonwards), and some of the stories it contains may havebeen in circulation even earlier. The central story is abouttwo sets of warring cousins.

3 The text also contains sectionslaying down norms of behaviour for various social (though not always), the principal charactersseem to follow these norms. What does conformity withnorms and deviations from them signify? THEME TWOK inship, Caste and ClassEarEarEarEarEarllllly Sociey Sociey Sociey Sociey Societiestiestiestiesties(((((CCCCC. 600 . 600 . 600 . 600 . 600 BCEBCEBCEBCEBCE-600 600 600 600 600 CECECECECE)))))THEMETHREEFig. terracotta sculpturedepicting a scene fromthe Mahabharata(West Bengal),c. seventeenth century2021 22 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY541. The Critical Edition of theMahabharataOne of the most ambitious projects of scholarshipbegan in 1919, under the leadership of a noted IndianSanskritist, Sukthankar.

4 A team comprisingdozens of scholars initiated the task of preparing acritical edition of the Mahabharata. What exactly didthis involve? Initially, it meant collecting Sanskritmanuscripts of the text, written in a variety ofscripts, from different parts of the team worked out a method of comparingverses from each manuscript. Ultimately, theyselected the verses that appeared common to mostversions and published these in several volumes,running into over 13,000 pages. The project took 47years to complete. Two things became apparent: therewere several common elements in the Sanskritversions of the story, evident in manuscripts foundall over the subcontinent, from Kashmir and Nepalin the north to Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the evident were enormous regional variations inthe ways in which the text had been transmittedover the centuries.

5 These variations weredocumented in footnotes and appendices to the maintext. Taken together, more than half the 13,000 pagesare devoted to these variations. In a sense, these variations are reflective of thecomplex processes that shaped early (and later)social histories through dialogues betweendominant traditions and resilient local ideas andpractices. These dialogues are characterised bymoments of conflict as well as understanding of these processes is derivedprimarily from texts written in Sanskrit by and forBrahmanas. When issues of social history wereexplored for the first time by historians in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries, they tended totake these texts at face value believing thateverything that was laid down in these texts wasactually practised.

6 Subsequently, scholars beganstudying other traditions, from works in Pali, Prakritand Tamil. These studies indicated that the ideascontained in normative Sanskrit texts were on thewhole recognised as authoritative: they were alsoquestioned and occasionally even rejected. It isimportant to keep this in mind as we examine howhistorians reconstruct social section of a page from the CriticalEditionThe section printed in large boldletters is part of the main smaller print lists variationsin different manuscripts, whichwere carefully 22552. Kinship and MarriageMany Rules and Varied Finding out about familiesWe often take family life for granted.

7 However, youmay have noticed that not all families are identical:they vary in terms of numbers of members, theirrelationship with one another as well as the kindsof activities they share. Often people belonging tothe same family share food and other resources,and live, work and perform rituals together. Familiesare usually parts of larger networks of peopledefined as relatives, or to use a more technical term,kinfolk. While familial ties are often regarded as natural and based on blood, they are defined inmany different ways. For instance, some societiesregard cousins as being blood relations, whereasothers do early societies, historians can retrieveinformation about elite families fairly easily; it is,however, far more difficult to reconstruct the familialrelationships of ordinary people.

8 Historians alsoinvestigate and analyse attitudes towards family andkinship. These are important, because they providean insight into people s thinking; it is likely thatsome of these ideas would have shaped their actions,just as actions may have led to changes in The ideal of patrilinyCan we identify points when kinship relationschanged? At one level, the Mahabharata is a storyabout this. It describes a feud over land and powerbetween two groups of cousins, the Kauravas andthe Pandavas, who belonged to a single ruling family,that of the Kurus, a lineage dominating one of thejanapadas (Chapter 2, Map 1). Ultimately, theconflict ended in a battle, in which the Pandavasemerged victorious.

9 After that, patrilineal successionwas proclaimed. While patriliny had existed prior tothe composition of the epic, the central story of theMahabharata reinforced the idea that it was patriliny, sons could claim the resources(including the throne in the case of kings) of theirfathers when the latter ruling dynasties (c. sixth century BCE onwards)claimed to follow this system, although there werevariations in practice: sometimes there were no sons,Terms for familyand kinSanskrit texts use the term kulato designate families and jnatifor the larger network of term vamsha is used means tracing descentfrom father to son, grandsonand so is the term used whendescent is traced through , Caste AND CLASS2021 22 THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY56in some situations brothers succeeded one another,sometimes other kinsmen claimed the throne, and,in very exceptional circumstances, women such asPrabhavati Gupta (Chapter 2) exercised concern with patriliny was not unique to rulingfamilies.

10 It is evident in mantras in ritual texts suchas the Rigveda. It is possible that these attitudeswere shared by wealthy men and those who claimedhigh status, including fine sons Here is an excerpt of a mantra from the Rigveda, which was probably insertedin the text c. 1000 BCE, to be chanted by the priest while conducting the marriageritual. It is used in many Hindu weddings even today:I free her from here, but not from there. I have bound her firmly there, sothat through the grace of Indra she will have fine sons and be fortunate inher husband s was one of the principal deities, a god of valour, warfare and rain. Here and there refer to the father s and husband s house respectively.