Mlecchas or Barbarians
Sanskrit mleccha and Pali/Prakrit milakkha were terms used to describe foreigners as well as indigenous tribes and peoples of the Indian subcontinent who were considered outsiders to a value system built around the concept of dharma initially understood as a universal natural order that later became the basis of social and political law. They were used in several contexts to define speech (vāc), language (bhāṣā), area of habitation or country (deśa), community (jāti), and a variety of cultural practices that hinged around how the literature of the Brahmans, Buddhists, and Jainas defined the dominant “self ” as the civilized, and edified the mleccha/milakkha as the barbarian “other.” As designations for specific peoples, they were used with a degree of flexibility and not always in an opprobrious manner.
Modern scholarly attempts to provide an Indo-European or Dravidian root draw on the above phonetic interchangeability to suggest a possible etymology for Sanskrit mleccha. A view propounding an Indo-European etymology provides a hypothetical reconstruction for mleccha as follows: “Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa mleccha maybe traced to older (recon.) mlekṣa. The -kṣ – was replaced by -kkh- or by retroflex -ch- or by palatalized -cch- in different dialects” (Bailey, 1973, 584). Thus -kṣa- in Sanskrit is seen as interchangeable with -ccha- to form the word mleccha or with -kkha- to form milakkha. A Dravidian root for these terms, influenced by research in proto-Dravidian linguistics, suggests a hypothesis that phonetically links mleccha to Meluhha, found frequently mentioned in Sumerian cuneiform texts, and its proto-Dravidian hypothetical form Mēlukku (Parpola, 1975, 205–238). In this postulate, "Sumerian Meluhha 'country of the Indus civilization' can be linked with Sanskrit mlēccha 'stranger of ill-pronounced speech,' and over Prakrit milakkha, further to an original Dravidian etymon that seems to have been preserved in Old Tamil designation of South India, Ta-mil-akam" (Parpola, 1975, 225).
If the Prakrit milakkha has to be given prominence in both these viewpoints, can one then conclude to suggest that mleccha of the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa – instead of being transformed to a hypothetical construct – was retained in its Prakrit form, since both -ccha- of mleccha and -kkha- of milakkha were originally Prakrit words that entered the Indo-Aryan vocabulary through contact with various non-Aryan languages, including Dravidian ones (Parasher, 1991, 53–69)?
The extended meanings of mleccha and milakkha, as elaborated in the Abhidhānacintāmaṇi (4.105–106) of Hemacandra dated to the 11th century CE, has given us mleccha and mlecchamukha as two of the 12 names for copper (tāmra), suggesting a copper-colored complexion of certain mlecchas. In Pali, milakkha (copper) occurs in the Theragāthā (Norman, 1969, 965) to define a banner dyed in the color of copper – milakkhurajanam. In the same vein, the Nighaṇṭuśeṣa (4.338) by Hemacandra has listed six alternatives by which laśuna (garlic) was known. One of them is mlecchakanda. A commentary on the same explains that this was so “because this root is dear to the mlecchas and it is called mlecchakanda (root)” (NiŚe. 4.338). The Prakrit miccha, a variant of milakkha in Ardhamagadhi, means “garlic” and “onion” (Sheth, 1963, 689).
In the Sūtrakṛtānga (1.1.2.15–16), one of the earliest Jaina canonical texts, the ignorance of the milakkhus was considered similar to that of heretics, as both repeated what the āriyas said without understanding its meaning. The Ācārāngasūtra (2.3.8–9) forbade monks and nuns to visit border areas or cross areas where milakkhus, robbers, and anāriya people lived. A later 5th-century CE text, the Prajñāpanā (1.37), in its list of countries and peoples, has differentiated clearly between the āriyas and the milakkhas. Here, for the first time, we get a long list of people designated specifically as milakkhas. In a rather formulaic way, both the Prajñāpanā (1.36–37) and the Praśnavyākaraṇa (sūtra 4) inform us that there were 24.5 countries inhabited by the ariyas and 32.5 inhabited by the milakkha peoples like the Saka (Śaka), Javaṇa (Yavana), Sabara (Śabara), Babvara (Barbara), Aṁdha (Andhra), Daviḷa (Drāviḍa), Billala (Bilavala), Pulimda (Pulindra), Cīṇa (Cīna), Kuhaṇa (Kuṣāṇa), Huṇa (Huṇa), Romaga (Romaka), and so on.
The oppression perpetuated by these foreign rulers is usually put in the context of a general decline of morals that was the hallmark of the kaliyuga. At the end of the section on dynasties of the kaliyuga, each of the later Purāṇas – Matsyapurāṇa, Vāyupurāṇa, Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa, Bhāgavatapurāṇa, Viṣṇupurāṇa, and so on – describes the unsettled conditions of the country in rather gloomy and exaggerated terms using the future tense, thus
"[t]here will be Yavanas here by reason of religious feeling (dharma) or ambition or plunder; they will not be kings solemnly anointed, but will follow evil customs by reason of corruption of the age. Massacring women and children, and killing one another, kings will enjoy the earth at the end of the Kali Age. Kings of continual upstart races, falling as soon as they arise, will exist in succession, affection and wealth. Mingled with them will be Ārya and Mleccha folk everywhere: they prevail in turn; the population will perish" (MatP. 273.25–27; trans. Pargiter, 1913, 74).
Scholars (Sharma, 1958, 176–198, 211–218) suggest that these descriptions reflect a period of social crisis conditions and political instability during the early centuries of the Common Era.
Foreigners and foreign rulers had become part of a larger social and political reality of the subcontinent, as is known to us from sources of information like art-historical remains, inscriptions, coins, and so on. Since their presence impinged upon the stability of the dominant classes – both Kṣatriyas and Brahmans – in the Manusmṛti (8.16), people like the mlecchas who ostensibly opposed dharma or order were dubbed as vṛṣalas (those who are against dharma and Brahmanical norms and ceremonies). Indeed, in a well-known myth narrated in the Purāṇas and the Mahābhārata (12. 59; 101–3), the origin of the Niṣādas from the left thigh of King Veṇa identifies them as progenitors of the mlecchas, who reveled in adharma. From his right thigh emerged the righteous king Pṛthu, who is said to have established dharma and brought order to state and society.
The Manusmṛti (10.43–44) portrays such foreign and indigenous groups as degraded Kṣatriyas. It declares that the Kāmbojas, Yavanas, Śakas, Pāradas, Pahlavas, Cīnas, and some other tribes were originally Kṣatriyas but sank to the position of Śūdras (vṛṣalas) because of their neglect of the sacred rites and disrespect for Brahmans. Medhātithi’s commentary (10.44) explains that these people became “low born,” because in their countries as inhabitants of the borders of Āryavarta, there was no clear division of the four castes. The Mahābhārata asserts this sentiment twice: “These Kṣatriya tribes, that is, Śakas, Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Drāviḍas, Kalindas, Pulindas, Uśīnaras and Māhiṣikas have become vṛṣalas from seeing no Brāhmaṇas” (MBh. 8.33.19–21; 8 35.17–18). At one level, this account can be read as an attempt to accommodate foreign and some indigenous groups in relation to caste society. At another level, it was also meant to warn them to abide by the caste rules and not antagonize the Brahmans.
In drawing on Sanskrit inscriptions and texts for the period between the 8th and 14th centuries CE that saw the subcontinent’s contact with Islam, B. Chattopadhyaya (2007, 375) elaborates that the designation of the “other” as mleccha reflects a sort of contestation and negotiation between identities each known in the local and regional records by their generic names rather than through modern monolithized labels conveying only religious identity of “Hindu” and “Muslim.” Several scholars have pointed to the fact that the term “Musalmaan” to describe early adherents to Islam is absent in contemporary accounts before the 15th century and that the term “mleccha” or “Yavana” is used to refer to them (Thapar, 2007, 356; O’Connell, 2007, 408). As during earlier periods, apart from the horrors of conquest, the image of the Turuṣka (“Turks”)/Yavana and of his community as the destroyer of the existing social order was a significant part of these descriptions. At the same time, B. Chattopadhyaya (2007, 391–392) points to moments of shared religious and cultural space generating “contradictory images” reflecting “the Brahmanical ambivalence of inclusivity and exclusivity” obliterating a permanent catergory of mleccha/Yavana. Thus both representations reflect complex experiences to either legitimize the mlecchas in terms of appropriate symbols and motifs or distance them as the destroyers of the social order. C. Talbot too recognizes that a definite notion of “us” versus “them” was carried forward from earlier persistent notions of the mleccha and the myths and symbols attached to it. But while interrogating “Muslim” and “Hindu” identity in medieval South India, she highlights how at given points of time and regions, these identities were “historically constructed and hence constantly in flux” (Talbot, 1995, 694, 699).
Within the gambit of limited studies on understanding exclusion of the “other” in Indian society, one can conclude that the dominant civilizational discourse on the subcontinent always had to contend with the political and economic realities of interaction with and incorporation of outsiders from time to time (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 3- 4, 290–291). In her study of the representations of mlecchas, C. Thapar argues that there was fluidity in expressing this difference, which varied in terms of language, territory, and culture, and suggests an assimilative conception of this process (Thapar, 1978, 174–181). More than assimilation, I submit that there was accommodation in the ordering and reordering of the varṇa/jāti society that took cognizance of the play of power in changing attitudes. Importantly, in any given period, there were distinguishable stages in the way that the Brahmans related to “outsiders.” Often, the first was one of ignoring their presence followed by one that recognized them only as invaders, raiders, and barbarians (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 279). There was, however, an evolving image of two paradoxical features in the following stage. One was of the fear of social breakdown and consequently an erosion of authority, and second, the fabrication of Indian origins for mleccha kings (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 282–283). In the third stage, a process of “interaction and incorporation of foreign groups into the mainstream of Indian life” (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 287) is usually observed that is concomitant with them eventually as “permanent residents of Āryavarta . . . [and they] are mentioned together with indigenous tribes, irrespective of the basic differences between them” (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 289). It is at this stage that positive images of select mleccha groups and their essential qualities and knowledge come to be recognized (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 288). Here it would be interesting to draw attention to an exhaustive debate held during the early medieval period in the Pūrvamīmāṁsāsūtra to validate the Veda as a system of knowledge between its foremost commentators Śabara (5th cent. CE) and Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (8th cent. CE) on the efficacy and use of mleccha words indicating clearly that they were conversant with the life and language of the mlecchas. Taking into account various limitations of the dominant discourse that theoretically forbade contact with mleccha, Kumārila Bhaṭṭa in his Tantravārttika aptly sums up pointing to the triumph of pragmatism, namely, that
"the superior authority of the āryas has been laid down only in matters relation to Dharma directly; as for the ordinary worldly things, such as agriculture and the like, all usages are equally authoritative. Consequently, in matters relating to menial service, house building and the like, we can freely admit the superior authority of the mleccha" (TVā. 1.3.6.10; trans. Jha, 1998).
Mlecchas, as completely the “other” in all spatial and temporal landscapes, was clearly defined by the limits and potentialities of how exclusion/inclusion in the varṇa/jāti-oriented hierarchical social order was conceived and adapted from time to time. Thus to suggest that the ārya or mleccha were constructed “identities” is problematic, since as part of a larger discursive system, their meanings are determined by difference and not in essence. Historical evidence, however, shows that variations in power and socioeconomic realities pressured particular, regional, and local groups to redefine this so-called essential difference between the “self” and “other,” ārya and mleccha, in more pragmatic ways. Thus an element of timelessness in this perception,
"the perpetual existence of mlecchas as a theoretical category co-existed easily with conscious attempts made by the brāhmaṇas to use it as a designating for particular groups sparingly, and with a flexibility" (Parasher, 1991, 273).
Mleccha – A Sanskrit Word?
The etymological origin of mleccha/milakkha in Old Indo-Aryan remains obscure. The first occurrence of mleccha in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa (3.2.1.24) denotes linguistic peculiarity. The oldest extant Dhātupāṭha of Pāṇini (1.220; 10.121) has listed its verbal base as mlech-, “to speak indistinctly.” The past participle passive mliṣṭa and mlecchita in the Aṣṭādhyāyī (7.2.18) also mean the same. By the 2nd century BCE, in Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya (1.1.1) the infinitive form mlecchaitavai alongside apabhāṣitavai indicates that it had come to connote any unintelligible speech. Equivalent Pali forms like milakkha, milakkhu, and milakkhuka find frequent mention in Buddhist and Jaina literature. First attested to in the Vinayapiṭaka (III.28), it appears in a context that refers to an unintelligent and ignorant people. In the Jātakas and the Dīghanikāya, the word milāca, a variant of milakkha, occurs to mean “forest dweller” alluding to indigenous peoples of the subcontinent. In Prakrit, forms like miliccha, mileccha, miccha, and so on indicate that there was a frequent interchangeability between the suffixes “kkha” and “ccha” (Pischel, 1957, § 17) in Middle Indo-Aryan.Modern scholarly attempts to provide an Indo-European or Dravidian root draw on the above phonetic interchangeability to suggest a possible etymology for Sanskrit mleccha. A view propounding an Indo-European etymology provides a hypothetical reconstruction for mleccha as follows: “Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa mleccha maybe traced to older (recon.) mlekṣa. The -kṣ – was replaced by -kkh- or by retroflex -ch- or by palatalized -cch- in different dialects” (Bailey, 1973, 584). Thus -kṣa- in Sanskrit is seen as interchangeable with -ccha- to form the word mleccha or with -kkha- to form milakkha. A Dravidian root for these terms, influenced by research in proto-Dravidian linguistics, suggests a hypothesis that phonetically links mleccha to Meluhha, found frequently mentioned in Sumerian cuneiform texts, and its proto-Dravidian hypothetical form Mēlukku (Parpola, 1975, 205–238). In this postulate, "Sumerian Meluhha 'country of the Indus civilization' can be linked with Sanskrit mlēccha 'stranger of ill-pronounced speech,' and over Prakrit milakkha, further to an original Dravidian etymon that seems to have been preserved in Old Tamil designation of South India, Ta-mil-akam" (Parpola, 1975, 225).
If the Prakrit milakkha has to be given prominence in both these viewpoints, can one then conclude to suggest that mleccha of the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa – instead of being transformed to a hypothetical construct – was retained in its Prakrit form, since both -ccha- of mleccha and -kkha- of milakkha were originally Prakrit words that entered the Indo-Aryan vocabulary through contact with various non-Aryan languages, including Dravidian ones (Parasher, 1991, 53–69)?
Early Brahmanic Context
It is in the literature of the Indo-Aryan–speaking people that mleccha is first (c. 880 BCE) attested to in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa (3.2.1.24). Here it alluded to an unintelligible utterance he ’lavo he ’lava, which the asura s mispronounced, and therefore, concomitantly, it is highlighted that devas as upholders of correct speech (vāc) attained victory. Sāyana’s commentary elaborates that the inability of the asuras was in their pronunciation of the intended words he’ aryo he’ arya (“O spiteful enemies”). The speech of the asuras is compared to a similar inability of the mlecchas, and thus it is inferred that in order to avoid defeat, such speech must be avoided. It is noted that the rich cultural content of this text “marks a phase of transition from the Vedic to the post-Vedic culture” (Sharma, 1983, 160–170) between 800 and 500 BCE. Contact between Aryans and various groups of non-Aryans during this period of continuous migration probably highlighted an anxiety among the Aryans to assert their superiority through control of language. The avoidance of mleccha speech continued to be stressed for young Brahman students (snātakas) in the Gautamadharmasūtra (1.9.17) and for all Brahmans in Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya (1.1.1). In the former case, they were equated with impure and wicked men, and in the latter the use of corrupt words had to be avoided through study of grammar. By the early centuries of the Common Era in the Manusmṛti (10.45), we see that speech is no longer considered the primary distinguishing factor between the āryas and mlecchas. The emphasis in the Viṣṇusmṛti (84.4) shifts to identifying Mlecchadeśa (Mleccha country) as one where the system of four varṇas was not established and one where sacrifice was not performed as mentioned in the Manusmṛti (2.23). The Manusmṛti also differentiated among various categories of pure land, and Mlecchadeśa was considered the most impure and located beyond Āryāvarta (2.17–24). In ultimate essence, those outside the varṇa/jāti system ultimately came to be dubbed as mlecchas from the orthodox Brahmanic perspective. Hierarchy, heredity, endogamy, commensality, and connubiality characterized the varṇa/jāti system (Jha, 1997, 19–30). Of these, endogamy ensured the continuance of the group to give shape to a hierarchical social ordering in the midst of diversity both within and outside the system (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 7).Designation and Extended Meaning
In the Arthaśāstra (7.10.16; 7.14.27; 12.4.27; ), forest tribes were frequently and collectively referred to as mlecchajātis. A single reference (3.13.3–4) possibly suggests foreigners when it specifies a rule that, unlike mlecchas, members of the four varṇas were not allowed to sell their offspring. This probably alluded to the system of slavery among the early Greeks who had settled in parts of northwestern India after Alexander’s invasion in 326 BCE. The Bṛhatsaṃhitā (2.15), an astronomical text of the 5th century CE, clearly refers to the Greeks, now referred to as Yavana, as mlecchas. The Amarakośa (2.10.20) of the same period, however, has defined the mlecchajātis as the Bhedas, Kirātas, Śabaras, and Pulindas, which were generic names of autochthonous tribes well entrenched in different parts of the subcontinent. In contrast, around the same time, in the drama Mudrārākṣasa (1.20), the character of Malyaketu was designated a mleccha king, and his allies were referred to as mleccha princes, probably alluding to rulers of kingdoms on the border.The extended meanings of mleccha and milakkha, as elaborated in the Abhidhānacintāmaṇi (4.105–106) of Hemacandra dated to the 11th century CE, has given us mleccha and mlecchamukha as two of the 12 names for copper (tāmra), suggesting a copper-colored complexion of certain mlecchas. In Pali, milakkha (copper) occurs in the Theragāthā (Norman, 1969, 965) to define a banner dyed in the color of copper – milakkhurajanam. In the same vein, the Nighaṇṭuśeṣa (4.338) by Hemacandra has listed six alternatives by which laśuna (garlic) was known. One of them is mlecchakanda. A commentary on the same explains that this was so “because this root is dear to the mlecchas and it is called mlecchakanda (root)” (NiŚe. 4.338). The Prakrit miccha, a variant of milakkha in Ardhamagadhi, means “garlic” and “onion” (Sheth, 1963, 689).
Early Buddhist and Jaina Context
Milakkhas came to be culturally defined from a different ideological perspective in the Buddhist and Jaina texts. The particularity of their exclusion was primarily seen in their behavior and way of life that were not conducive to attainment of nirvāṇa (enlightenment). In the Anguttaranikāya (I.35) and the Samyuttanikāya (V.466), they were seen as inhabitants of border (paccantimā) areas, and they were considered unintelligent and ignorant. In the Vinayapiṭaka (III.28), the āriya could disavow his training in the presence of a milakkha. The Samantapāsādika (1.255) commentary on this by Buddhaghosa, written in the 5th century CE, has explained that the milakkhas were non-Aryan (anāriya) people, the Andha, Damila, and so on. In the Manorathapūraṇī (2.289), Buddhaghosa’s commentary on the Anguttaranikāya, the Damila, Yavana, and other languages have been listed as milakkha bhāsas (foreign languages).In the Sūtrakṛtānga (1.1.2.15–16), one of the earliest Jaina canonical texts, the ignorance of the milakkhus was considered similar to that of heretics, as both repeated what the āriyas said without understanding its meaning. The Ācārāngasūtra (2.3.8–9) forbade monks and nuns to visit border areas or cross areas where milakkhus, robbers, and anāriya people lived. A later 5th-century CE text, the Prajñāpanā (1.37), in its list of countries and peoples, has differentiated clearly between the āriyas and the milakkhas. Here, for the first time, we get a long list of people designated specifically as milakkhas. In a rather formulaic way, both the Prajñāpanā (1.36–37) and the Praśnavyākaraṇa (sūtra 4) inform us that there were 24.5 countries inhabited by the ariyas and 32.5 inhabited by the milakkha peoples like the Saka (Śaka), Javaṇa (Yavana), Sabara (Śabara), Babvara (Barbara), Aṁdha (Andhra), Daviḷa (Drāviḍa), Billala (Bilavala), Pulimda (Pulindra), Cīṇa (Cīna), Kuhaṇa (Kuṣāṇa), Huṇa (Huṇa), Romaga (Romaka), and so on.
Mlecchas and the Decline of Order
From this dominant perspective of the civilized, indigenous peoples, tribal peoples and foreign groups all came to be designated as mleccha/milakkha. Over time, foreign groups came to be perceived as responsible for the disruption of the old established order. The first extant text that implicates foreigners with the destruction of the old order so is the Yugapurāṇa, dated to around 50 BCE. The description of the Yavana attack on Pāṭaliputra is followed by a description of the evil doings of the Yavana and Śaka kings, thus “[t]hey will eat up [that is, oppress] the people [and] will burn [alive] five rulers at Nagara [Pātaliputra]” (Sircar, 1963, 17–18). Following this, the destruction of the varṇa/jāti or caste system is alluded to. The portrayal of a king Āmlāṭa as “[t]he red-eyed foreigner (mleccha) [who] will destroy the four castes by making all old established castes low placed” (Jayaswal, 1928, 419) exemplifies this anxiety.The oppression perpetuated by these foreign rulers is usually put in the context of a general decline of morals that was the hallmark of the kaliyuga. At the end of the section on dynasties of the kaliyuga, each of the later Purāṇas – Matsyapurāṇa, Vāyupurāṇa, Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa, Bhāgavatapurāṇa, Viṣṇupurāṇa, and so on – describes the unsettled conditions of the country in rather gloomy and exaggerated terms using the future tense, thus
"[t]here will be Yavanas here by reason of religious feeling (dharma) or ambition or plunder; they will not be kings solemnly anointed, but will follow evil customs by reason of corruption of the age. Massacring women and children, and killing one another, kings will enjoy the earth at the end of the Kali Age. Kings of continual upstart races, falling as soon as they arise, will exist in succession, affection and wealth. Mingled with them will be Ārya and Mleccha folk everywhere: they prevail in turn; the population will perish" (MatP. 273.25–27; trans. Pargiter, 1913, 74).
Scholars (Sharma, 1958, 176–198, 211–218) suggest that these descriptions reflect a period of social crisis conditions and political instability during the early centuries of the Common Era.
Foreigners and foreign rulers had become part of a larger social and political reality of the subcontinent, as is known to us from sources of information like art-historical remains, inscriptions, coins, and so on. Since their presence impinged upon the stability of the dominant classes – both Kṣatriyas and Brahmans – in the Manusmṛti (8.16), people like the mlecchas who ostensibly opposed dharma or order were dubbed as vṛṣalas (those who are against dharma and Brahmanical norms and ceremonies). Indeed, in a well-known myth narrated in the Purāṇas and the Mahābhārata (12. 59; 101–3), the origin of the Niṣādas from the left thigh of King Veṇa identifies them as progenitors of the mlecchas, who reveled in adharma. From his right thigh emerged the righteous king Pṛthu, who is said to have established dharma and brought order to state and society.
Being Mlecchas – Explaining Difference
In Ṛgveda 10.90.12, members of “caste” (varṇa) were ostensibly created out of the limbs of the cosmic being or Puruṣa. Mlecchas are attributed a distinctly different origin. A popular myth in the Mahābhārata (1.165.30–38) describes their creation by Nandinī, the magical cow of sage Vasiṣṭha. To combat the army of Viśvamitra, Nandinī created a strong mleccha army of the Yavanas, Śakas, Pahlavas, Daradas, Kirātas, Puṇḍras, Dramiḍas, Siṃhalas, and Barbaras in their manifold armor and brandishing arms. Their miraculous creation from different parts of Nandinī’s body apart, this myth actually dwells on the presence of these ethnic groups in the society of the times that were noted for their military might. In another account the Yavanas, Śakas, and Pahlavas, along with the Haihayas, had militarily challenged the authority of the preeminent Ikṣavāku family. Thus, in the context of the latter’s vicissitudes of defeat and recovery as described in the Viṣṇupurāṇa (4.3.26; 88.122) and Brahmāṇdapurāṇa (3.48. 22–6; 43–9), it is noted that the Śakas, Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Pahlavas, and Pāradas would have been destroyed had they not appealed to Vasiṣṭha, the family priest of the Ikṣavāku king Sagara, for protection. Vasiṣtha absolved them from the duties of their castes, to offer sacrifices and to study the Vedas, while Sagara contented himself with making the Yavanas shave the upper half of their heads, the Pāradas wear long hair, and the Pahlavas let their beards grow in obedience to his commands. Here the emphasis is on their distinct physical appearance and as contesters of power whose presence had nonetheless to be legitimized. Historical evidence indicates that later “tribal” rulers went on to claim full Kṣatriya status and had Brahmans create genealogies to support these claims, thus leading R. Thapar to observe that “the distinction between ārya and mleccha had become blurred” (Thapar, 1978, 173).The Manusmṛti (10.43–44) portrays such foreign and indigenous groups as degraded Kṣatriyas. It declares that the Kāmbojas, Yavanas, Śakas, Pāradas, Pahlavas, Cīnas, and some other tribes were originally Kṣatriyas but sank to the position of Śūdras (vṛṣalas) because of their neglect of the sacred rites and disrespect for Brahmans. Medhātithi’s commentary (10.44) explains that these people became “low born,” because in their countries as inhabitants of the borders of Āryavarta, there was no clear division of the four castes. The Mahābhārata asserts this sentiment twice: “These Kṣatriya tribes, that is, Śakas, Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Drāviḍas, Kalindas, Pulindas, Uśīnaras and Māhiṣikas have become vṛṣalas from seeing no Brāhmaṇas” (MBh. 8.33.19–21; 8 35.17–18). At one level, this account can be read as an attempt to accommodate foreign and some indigenous groups in relation to caste society. At another level, it was also meant to warn them to abide by the caste rules and not antagonize the Brahmans.
Mlecchas – The Permanent “Other”?
Under diverse spellings but with no significant change in meaning, the term and concept of mleccha percolated into various modern Indian languages as mich for a “non-Hindu” in Kashmiri; mech for a “Tibeto-Burman tribe” in Bengali; mlech for a “Muslim,” one who is “unclean,” a “wretch,” and an “outcaste” in Punjabi; malich for “dirty” in Pahari; and so on (Turner, 1966). In accepting it as a designation for foreigners, the well-known historian A.L. Basham prefaced his exploration of India’s ancient past by candidly styling himself “a friendly mleccha” (Basham, 1954, ch. 7). Historically in North India, the concept of the mleccha became an integral part of the way outsiders and foreigners came to be defined. The perspective from the far South was different. There is an apparent transfer of mleccha in early Tamil literature as “milīccar,” but, as opined by D. Hellman-Rajanayagam, it does not seem to have the particularly negative connotation that became associated with it in Sanskrit texts (Hellman-Rajanayagam, 2007, 330). The early Tamils were not ignorant of foreigners, but rather than “milīccar,” their “others” were referred to by their ethnic names – “the Vatavar (“Northerners”), Moriyar (Mauryas), Yavanar” (Yavanas or Greeks; Hellman-Rajanayagam, 2007, 329) – explicitly indicating that people from the North pertinently were considered outsiders by them.In drawing on Sanskrit inscriptions and texts for the period between the 8th and 14th centuries CE that saw the subcontinent’s contact with Islam, B. Chattopadhyaya (2007, 375) elaborates that the designation of the “other” as mleccha reflects a sort of contestation and negotiation between identities each known in the local and regional records by their generic names rather than through modern monolithized labels conveying only religious identity of “Hindu” and “Muslim.” Several scholars have pointed to the fact that the term “Musalmaan” to describe early adherents to Islam is absent in contemporary accounts before the 15th century and that the term “mleccha” or “Yavana” is used to refer to them (Thapar, 2007, 356; O’Connell, 2007, 408). As during earlier periods, apart from the horrors of conquest, the image of the Turuṣka (“Turks”)/Yavana and of his community as the destroyer of the existing social order was a significant part of these descriptions. At the same time, B. Chattopadhyaya (2007, 391–392) points to moments of shared religious and cultural space generating “contradictory images” reflecting “the Brahmanical ambivalence of inclusivity and exclusivity” obliterating a permanent catergory of mleccha/Yavana. Thus both representations reflect complex experiences to either legitimize the mlecchas in terms of appropriate symbols and motifs or distance them as the destroyers of the social order. C. Talbot too recognizes that a definite notion of “us” versus “them” was carried forward from earlier persistent notions of the mleccha and the myths and symbols attached to it. But while interrogating “Muslim” and “Hindu” identity in medieval South India, she highlights how at given points of time and regions, these identities were “historically constructed and hence constantly in flux” (Talbot, 1995, 694, 699).
Within the gambit of limited studies on understanding exclusion of the “other” in Indian society, one can conclude that the dominant civilizational discourse on the subcontinent always had to contend with the political and economic realities of interaction with and incorporation of outsiders from time to time (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 3- 4, 290–291). In her study of the representations of mlecchas, C. Thapar argues that there was fluidity in expressing this difference, which varied in terms of language, territory, and culture, and suggests an assimilative conception of this process (Thapar, 1978, 174–181). More than assimilation, I submit that there was accommodation in the ordering and reordering of the varṇa/jāti society that took cognizance of the play of power in changing attitudes. Importantly, in any given period, there were distinguishable stages in the way that the Brahmans related to “outsiders.” Often, the first was one of ignoring their presence followed by one that recognized them only as invaders, raiders, and barbarians (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 279). There was, however, an evolving image of two paradoxical features in the following stage. One was of the fear of social breakdown and consequently an erosion of authority, and second, the fabrication of Indian origins for mleccha kings (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 282–283). In the third stage, a process of “interaction and incorporation of foreign groups into the mainstream of Indian life” (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 287) is usually observed that is concomitant with them eventually as “permanent residents of Āryavarta . . . [and they] are mentioned together with indigenous tribes, irrespective of the basic differences between them” (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 289). It is at this stage that positive images of select mleccha groups and their essential qualities and knowledge come to be recognized (Parasher-Sen, 2007, 288). Here it would be interesting to draw attention to an exhaustive debate held during the early medieval period in the Pūrvamīmāṁsāsūtra to validate the Veda as a system of knowledge between its foremost commentators Śabara (5th cent. CE) and Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (8th cent. CE) on the efficacy and use of mleccha words indicating clearly that they were conversant with the life and language of the mlecchas. Taking into account various limitations of the dominant discourse that theoretically forbade contact with mleccha, Kumārila Bhaṭṭa in his Tantravārttika aptly sums up pointing to the triumph of pragmatism, namely, that
"the superior authority of the āryas has been laid down only in matters relation to Dharma directly; as for the ordinary worldly things, such as agriculture and the like, all usages are equally authoritative. Consequently, in matters relating to menial service, house building and the like, we can freely admit the superior authority of the mleccha" (TVā. 1.3.6.10; trans. Jha, 1998).
Mlecchas, as completely the “other” in all spatial and temporal landscapes, was clearly defined by the limits and potentialities of how exclusion/inclusion in the varṇa/jāti-oriented hierarchical social order was conceived and adapted from time to time. Thus to suggest that the ārya or mleccha were constructed “identities” is problematic, since as part of a larger discursive system, their meanings are determined by difference and not in essence. Historical evidence, however, shows that variations in power and socioeconomic realities pressured particular, regional, and local groups to redefine this so-called essential difference between the “self” and “other,” ārya and mleccha, in more pragmatic ways. Thus an element of timelessness in this perception,
"the perpetual existence of mlecchas as a theoretical category co-existed easily with conscious attempts made by the brāhmaṇas to use it as a designating for particular groups sparingly, and with a flexibility" (Parasher, 1991, 273).
Comments
Post a Comment