re
humiliating restrictions. In Bombay a Mahar might not spit on the
ground lest a Hindu should be polluted by touching it with his foot,
but had to hang an earthen pot round his neck to hold his spittle. He
was made to drag a thorny branch with him to brush out his footsteps,
and when a Brahman came by had to lie at a distance on his face lest
his shadow might fall on the Brahman. [77] Even if the shadow of a
Mahar or Mang fell on a Brahman he was polluted and dare not taste
food and water until he had bathed and washed the impurity away. In
Madras a Paraiyan or Pariah pollutes a high-caste Hindu by approaching
within a distance of 64 feet of him. [78] The debased and servile
position of the impure castes corresponds to that which, as already
seen, attached to the Sudras of the classical period. The castes
usually regarded as impure are the tanners, bamboo-workers, sweepers,
hunters and fowlers, gipsies and vagrants, village musicians and
village weavers. These castes, the Chamars, Basors, Mahars, Koris,
Gandas and others are usually also employed as agricultural and
casual labourers. Formerly, as already seen, they were not allowed to
hold land. There is no reason to doubt that the status of impurity,
like that of the Sudra, was originally the mark of a subjugated and
inferior race, and was practically equivalent to slavery. This was the
position of the indigenous Indians who were subjugated by the Aryan
invaders and remained in the country occupied by them. Though they
were of different races, and the distinction was marked and brought
home to themselves by the contrast in the colour of their skins,
it seems probable that the real basis for their antagonism was not
social so much as religious. The Indians were hated and despised by
the immigrants as the worshippers of a hostile god. They could not join
in the sacrifices by which the Aryans held communion with their gods,
and the sacrifice itself could not even be held, in theory at least,
except in those parts of India which were thoroughly subdued and
held to have become the dwelling-place of the Aryan gods. The proper
course prescribed by religion towards the indigenous residents was
to exterminate them, as the Israelites should have exterminated the
inhabitants of Canaan. But as this could not be done, because their
numbers were too great or the conquerors not sufficiently ruthless,
they were reduced to the servile condition of impurity and made
the serfs of their