Chandala ( sa, चांडाल, caṇḍāla) is a Sanskrit word for someone who deals with disposal of

corpses A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Stu ...

, and is a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

lower

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

, traditionally considered to be

untouchable Untouchable or The Untouchable may refer to: People * Untouchability, the practice of socially ostracizing a minority group of very low social status ** A word for the Dalits or Scheduled Caste of India, a group that experiences untouchability * ...

. A female member of this caste is known as a ''Caṇḍālī''.

History

Varṇa was a hierarchical social order in ancient India, based on the Vedas. Since the Vedic corpus constitute the earliest literary source, it came to be seen as the origin of caste society. In this view of caste, ''varṇas'' were created on a particular occasion and have remained virtually unchanged. In this ordering of society, notions of purity and pollution were central, and activities were delineated in this context. ''Varṇa'' divides the society into four groups ordered in a hierarchy; beyond these, outside the system, lies a fifth group known as the ''untouchables'', of which the Chandala became a constituent part. The first mention of the fourfold ''varṇa'' division is found in the later ''Rigveda''. Vedic literature also mentions some groups, such as Ayogava, Chandala, Nishada and Paulkasa, which were outside the four-''varṇa'' classification. They were referred to as belonging to the "panchama varṇa" or ''panchamas'', meaning fifth. The ''Yajur-veda'' mentions their degradation from the ''varṇa'' classes, mentioning the Chandala group in particular, who were said to be the untouchable class of people born of the union between a Shudra male and a Brahmin female. There are frequent references to the forest-dwellers in the post-Rigvedic literature; the Chandalas were one of these primitive people, who belonged to the fringes of the society. In India, except Bengal, ''Chandal'' is also used as a pejorative reference to a mean or low person.

History

See also

References

Further reading