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:: page 7 ::
And thus Manu Smriti went on to eternally condemn the shudras
in these amazingly inhuman lines:
चांडालश्व्पचानां तु बहिर्गामात प्रतिश्रय:
अपपात्राश्र्च कर्तव्या धनमेषां श्वगर्दभम्|५१|
कार्ष्णायसमलंकार्:परिव्रज्या च नित्यश:||५२||
न तै समयमनविच्छेत पुरुषो धर्ममाचरन्
व्यवहारो मितस्तैषां विवाह सदृशै ||५३||
Meaning: Chandala, Shwapaca etc should live on the
outskirt of village. They should not be allowed to keep
vessels with them. Dogs and donkeys alone can be their wealth.
Clothes on dead bodies are their reiments. They should eat out
of broken mud pots, wear iron ornaments and roam about
usually. Others should not keep contact with them. They should
have marriages among themselves.
One is amazed that any learned man called Manu should have
laid down these lines calmly in Sanskrit – the tongue of the
Gods- and thus defiled it with such patently inhuman
sentiments. The rules revel a amazingly perverse and diseased
mentality and that these injunctions should have been solemnly
sanctified and followed as the word of god-given laws through
centuries, shows the incredible capacity of the admittedly
capacious Hindu mind to swallow almost anything.
The utter vacuity, the unmatched stupidity and sheer
obscurantism of these customs is made clear when one sees that
if some of these untouchables are converted either as Muslims
of Christians they immediately become entitled to the
touchable presence of The Hindu! One need no longer be
surprised why Shahu reacted in categorical manner and why Dr.
Ambedkar apostatized from Hinduism and became a Buddhist.
Remarkable light is thrown in this context on the hidebound
casteist attitude held strangely by Lokmanya Tilak. As related
by Keer “ When Tilak told Shahu that as Chhatrapati he had the
right to Vedic ritual but not as a Maratha. Shahu asked Tilak
if a Mohammedan were to be ruler and called himself a
Chhatrapati, could he give him the right of the Vedic ritual.
Tilak replied that it was for the Brahmins of the time to
decide the point. The dodge was that if he ceased to be a
Chhatrapati he was not entitled to Vedic rituals, and that the
Ghatge family was a Shudra.”
Contradiction in Hindu Scriptures
But evidently there is a lot of confusion and contradiction in
the Hindu scriptures about who can be called a shudra and a
Brahmin because one finds the same Manu Smriti lying down:
जन्मना जायते शुद्र्:संस्कारात् द्विज उच्यते|
वेदाभ्यासि भवेद्विप्र: ब्रह्म जानाति ब्राह्मण:||
That is, one becomes a shudra by birth by culture dvija
(consider the etymological meaning of dvija as twice born in
the verse of from ignorance to enlightenment) one who studies
Vedas becomes a vipra or learned and a knower of Brahma,
brahmin.
... Continued
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