11. Inter-caste Marriages

Owing to the rapid spread of co-education and the rise in the marriageable age of girls, love marriages have become somewhat frequent and the lovers do not stop to consider the

327 matters as caste-relationships and as a result in modern times the inter-caste marriages tend to cut across the caste-lines and undermine the caste-rigidity. Since the vedic times, the literature exemplifies the Br. inter-caste marriages. The Sat relates the marriage of Cyavana, a Bhargava with Sukanya, the daughter of king Saryata.57 The law-givers like Apastamba condemn such marriages out and out while liberal writers like Manu (III.12,13), Yajnavalkya (1.55 and 57), Vasistha (1.24), and Gautama prescribe the anuloma marriage, i.e. the marriage between the male of a higher varna with a woman of a lower varna 58, but there was a 59 difference of opinion about the approval of marriage of a twiceborn with a sudra woman. But Pratiloma marriage, i.e.the union of a woman of higher varna with a male of varna lower than her own was considered as reprehensible and not permitted. 60 The Brahma Purana provides the instances of both the anuloma The instances of the anuloma marriages and pratiloma marriages. are furnished by the marital relations of sage Samvarta and Samyata, king Marutta's daughter (13.143,144), the sage Rcika and 57 SB 4.1.5; Kane P.V., Op.Cit., Vol.II, PP.447 ff. 58 cf. BDS 1.8.e, VIDS 24.1-4 etc. 59 Kane P.V., Op.Cit., P. 449. 60 For the views of various law-givers on this vide Kane, Op.Cit., PP. 50-58.

328 Satyavati, king Gadhi's daughter (10.28,29), the sage Jamadagni and Renuka or Kamali, daughter of king Renu and of Iksvaku. dynasty(10.51), the sage Prabhakara and ten daughters of king Raudrasia (13.5-8), King Vasudeva and two maidservants (14.38) a sage Gautama and a Vrddha who was the daughter of a ksatriya (107.30). Again, the Brahma Purana notes one more instance which proves that caste-restrictions were not very rigid in case of marriage relationship. Thus king Mahabala declares that whosoever might he be a brahmin, ksatriya, vaisya or a sudra would be successful in rewarding the eye-sight to his daughter would be allowed to marry her. (227.72,73). Once it is said that in the family of the Pauravas or the Kausikas, the relationship between brahmins and ksatriyas took place (10.63). These examples show that there was no bar to Anuloma marriages. instance of the Pratiloma marriage is provided by the Brahma Purana in the case of the marriage of king Yayati with Devayani, the sage usanasas daughter (12.5), (Mat.P. 30.18). 1 The The case of conjugal relationship between king Yayati and Sarmistha, the demon Vrsaparvan's daughter, provides an example of inter-communal marriage (12-6), It may be suggested that the marriage of Yayati with Sermistha and Devayani may, probably, be an attempt to establish cordial relations between the belligerent Asuras and Aryans. 61 Many of the medieval digests and writers like the smrticandrika and Hemadri quote 61 Kantawala S.G., Op. Cit., P. 221.

329 verses from Brahma-Purana on matters forbidden in the kali age among which inter-caste marriages are included. But these passages are not found in the present edition.