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