Uma Chakravarty [I lost the name of this book by Chakaravarthy. I couldn’t find it in my documents. AI also couldn’t help.—db]
In this well-documented article, Uma Chakravarty provides a clear academic and textual analysis of the tussle between the Brahmins and Kshatriyas over their respective claims to supremacy. While the Brahmins used their spiritual authority to perform yajnas and virtually controlled the Kshatriyas, the latter sought to establish their own dominance by leveraging the Brahmins’ monetary needs. Chakravarty surveys Vedic literature to describe this “apparently friendly relationship,” where the two groups “contended against each other, giving rise to tension between the temporal authority and spiritual power” (p. 2). She presents a nuanced picture of the competing ideas of ‘brahmana above ksatra,’ ‘ksatra above brahmana,’ and the role honorarium played in this struggle. In her concslusion, Chakravarty emphasizes how honorarium remained “a tug of war between brahmana and ksatra,” (p. 10) exposing “the material greed of the priest” (p. 11). However, she also notes the Mimamsakas’ view that it would be wrong to call daksina “greed,” as it represents the salary for services rendered by the priest. She ends her paper with a pointed question: If daksina was truly a salary for services, “why did the priest have to plead so much for his salary?” (p. 11)
The author provides no answer to this question. However, from personal experience (not based on textual research), it is evident that Hindu priests, like other professionals, provide their services for a fee. Yet, unlike other professionals, priests often find themselves in a position where they cannot directly demand payment. In many cases, while the daksina is agreed upon before the ritual, the exact amount or even the decision to give more is left to the discretion of the employer. This dynamic explains why “the priest has to plead so much for his salary,” as observed today. Despite the textual evidence from Vedic literature regarding the relationship between Brahmins and Kshatriyas, in reality, priests have often found themselves on the receiving end, with real power resting with the ruling class. In practice, it is not the Brahmin priest but the temple trustees—usually from the ruling class—who dominate religious affairs. As Nirad Chaudhuri remarked, the owners of religion in Hinduism are the princes and the landed and commercial aristocracy, not the Brahmin priests:
“They [Princes, landed, and commercial aristocracy (Brahmins could be included)] made gifts of money and goods to the priests on all ceremonial occasions, bestowed rent-free land on them, and also provided regular salaried employment to the lower priests for the performance of all routine worship and rites in their homes.”
“They were, in a figurative sense, the owners of the religion, which the Brahmins were not…. All the monetary gains from Hinduism, though immense, were diffused and mostly benefited the Brahmin priests. The secular patrons of the religion regarded it as a heritage and trust to preserve, even if they could not augment it. Their religious function was akin to the political function of a feudal aristocracy. As the entrepreneurs of festivals, these classes never reserved them for private enjoyment. The temples they owned were open to the general public. In this way, the aristocracy maintained the hold of the highest existing form of Hinduism over the common people, who would otherwise have had no share in it”.1
This notion is further reinforced by Yung:
“The Saivite of true esprit was almost always a Vellala, a consecrated individual who had undergone diksa, and a conscientious, well-informed layman. He attended puja punctually, listened to piracankam [religious discourse], and read revivalist literature. Although his ritual status as a Vellala was lower than that of the Brahmins, he kept them in their place, made them accountable to him, and let them know that he was their master, not only in worldly affairs but also inside the temple itself”.2
Two additional points are worth mentioning in this paper. First, Chakravarty discusses the “unattractive daksinas,” quoting the prescribed fee for a funeral ceremony as “an old ox, old barley, an old armchair with a head cushion. If one so desires, one may, of course, give more” (Sat. Br., XIII, 8.4.10, p. 9). This highlights how academic analysis often fails to reflect the reality of Hindu practices. From personal observation, priests often receive significantly more for conducting funeral rites than other rituals. While a priest may receive between ₹2,000 to ₹5,000 for a wedding ceremony, he might receive ten times more for funeral rites. For example, my own brother spent nearly ₹30,000 solely on dakshina for the priests during my father’s funeral, with the main priest receiving gifts and cash worth ₹20,000. Even today in North India, the Mahapatra Brahmins receive substantial fees in both cash and kind, including cows, trees, and land. This often puts financial strain on families, who may go into debt to perform the rites for their deceased parents. On the tenth day of the funeral, valuable items used by the deceased, such as gold rings or silver vessels, are often given as dana to the priest, ensuring the deceased’s safe passage in Yama’s region.
The second point is Chakravarty’s comparison between the priesthood in India and other ancient civilizations, such as Egypt, Sumer, and China, where “the supreme religious functions were vested in the Sovereign,” (p. 11) making the priests “ritual specialists subordinate to him” (ibid.). In India, however, “the king depends on the priests for religious functions; he cannot be his own sacrificer and instead puts a priest in front of himself.” As a result, “he loses the hierarchical pre-eminence in favor of the priests, retaining only his power”3 (p. 11). While this comparison holds in some respects, the term “secular” needs careful explanation in the Indian context. The king in India, while not performing sacrifices himself, was expected to use his temporal power to guide and control the religious life of his people. He would gain one-sixth of the merit if his subjects followed their dharma or one-sixth of their sin if they failed to do so. Thus, in the dharmic civilization of India (to use Badrinath Chaturvedi’s term in Dharma, India, and the World Order, Saint Andrew Press, Pahl-Rugenstein, 1993), the king was entrusted with both temporal and spiritual power, as seen in Nepal, where the king was worshipped as a religious authority.
Dayanand Bharati, Chennai, October 26, 2002
Notes
1. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Hinduism: A Religion to Live By, Delhi, Oxford University Press, (1979), 1996,pp.139-40 Cf. further:
…the priests themselves were dependent on what might be regarded as unorganized social service. But neither the givers nor the receivers ever regarded the money and goods given to the priests as charity, for the relations between the two were like the relations between any non-professional member of a society and persons exercising a special function, such as lawyers, doctors, business agents, mechanics, etc….—ibid. p.167
2.THE BIBLE TREMBLED: THE HINDU-CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSIES OF NINETEENT-CENTURY CEYLON by R.F.Young and S. Jebanesan, Vienna 1995. Publications of the De Nobili Research Library, Edited by Gerhard Oberhammer, Institute of Indology, University of Vienna, Volume XXII, p.173
3 Cf. S.J. Sabourin Leopold, Priesthood: A Comparative Study (1973), 47,]p.11
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