W
INSTANCES OF CASTE VIOLATION
arranged, and, in the presence of the family concerned, certain ceremonies which were equivalent to betrothal amongst ourselves had taken place. Before the actual celebration of the marriage, which was fixed for a considerable time afterwards, the bridegroom died. The parents of the girl, who was very young and pretty, thereupon married her to another man. This was in direct
violation of the custom of the caste, which condemns to perpetual widowhood girls thus betrothed, even when, as
in this case, the future bridegroom dies before marriage has been consummated. The consequence was that all the persons who had taken part in the second ceremony were expelled from caste, and nobody would contract marriage or have any intercourse whatever with them.
A long time afterwards I met several of them, well advanced in age, who had been for this reason alone unable to obtain
husbands or wives, as the case might be.
Let me relate another instance. Eleven Brahmins
travelling in company were obliged to cross a district devastated by war. They arrived hungry and tired in a village, which, contrary to their expectations, they found deserted. They had with them a small quantity of rice, but they could find no other pots to boil it in than some which had been left in the house of the village washerman.
To touch these would constitute in the case of Brahmins an almost ineffaceable defilement. Nevertheless, suffering from hunger as they were, they swore mutual secrecy, and after washing and scouring the pots a hundred times they
prepared their food in them. The rice was served and the repast consumed by all but one, who refused to partake
of it, and who had no sooner returned home than he proceeded to denounce the ten others to the chief Brahmins of the village. The news of such a scandal spread quickly, and gave rise to a great commotion amongst all classes of
the inhabitants. An assembly was held. The delinquents were summoned and forced to appear. Warned beforehand, however, of the proceedings that were to be instituted against them, they took counsel together and agreed to answer unanimously, when called upon to explain, that it was the accuser himself who had committed the heinous sin and who had imputed it to them falsely and