Religious Endowments in Ancient India and the Institutionalization of Brahmin Caste Status

Abstract

Giving to worthy recipients has been meritorious public piety in India at least since the Mauryan empire. Most consequential were grants in perpetuity of land or capital as a ‘religious foundation’ for monks or Brahmins, conferred by means of a charter (śāsana). Grants to Brahmins typically created or supported an agrahāra, a residential enclave with attached farmland and villages, on terms analogous to those of grants to Buddhist or Jaina mendicants or monasteries. In these records (attested since the beginning of the Common Era), rulers cede their claims to certain normal obligations of subjects, such as tax revenue, compulsory labor, billeting or provisions for officers of the state, and often give the beneficiaries authority over internal legal administration. This article examines the implications of the fiscal and juridical autonomy conferred in such grants in providing state recognition and institutional support of Brahmins’ sacred status as a religious profession and a privileged caste.

Keywords: status, caste, hierarchy, religious endowments, charters, foundations, legal history, South Asia, India, Hindu law, comparative law, law and religion, Brahmin, Brahman, ancient, medieval, tax exemption

JEL Classification: B11, K00, K11, K40, Z12