. Hocart’s Interpretation of Caste The main core of Hocart’s theory is in essence that all societies are communities of persons organised for ritual purposes, and their primary aim is to secure and procure life in its broadest sense. This has to be seen in relation to the divine king who was both God and human. Everything in service of him was a ritual service. Accordingly, the caste system is a distribution system of rights and duties connected to the royal ritual and the king’s service (Raglan 1950). The caste system is a sacrificial organisation where the aristocracy are feudal lords performing rites by which they need vassals and serfs because some activities involve pollution, and the lords cannot become defiled (Hocart 1950:17). Hubert and Mauss (1964) distinguish between the ”sacrifier” – those who perform the sacrifice, and “sacrificer” – the ritual specialist sometimes employed to perform the sacrifice for the sacrifier. The sacrificial basis of the caste system is religious purity of those worthy and excellent castes which are allowed to participate in the sacrifice. The main object of these sacrifices is immortality in the form of freedom from death and diseases, it is to becoming a god and ascending to the world of gods. Or in the words of a sage, “The sacrificer [sacrifier] passes from men to gods” ([Hocart 1950:18] – Hocart builds parts of his theory on the differences between sacrifier and sacrificer, but he does not distinguish these ritual roles by the terminology developed by Hubert and Mauss. I will use Hubert and Mauss’ terminology when discussing Hocart even though he does not use this distinction himself, and when quoting Hocart, Hubert and Mauss’ terminology is added in brackets and written in italics). Obtaining immortality and eternal presence with gods is the main goal and idealised outcome of the sacrifice. Corpses are vehicles which can be used to move from this world to the other world. The recent dead cling to this world although the spirit is being transformed into other spheres. The dead are truly liminal beings, and as such are highly polluted (Kinsley 1997:237-238). The funeral aims to give the deceased to the gods whereby he can attain the divine and eternal sphere by becoming a god. Cremation is a transformation and a medium to change and to transmute. The king was “the sacrifier” in the state sacrifices in the earliest texts. This means not necessarily that the king controlled the total ritual, but he was the chief actor and the sacrifice was his responsibility whereby he supplied the offerings and covered the expenses. In Rig-Veda (X, 90) it is expressed directly that castes are made from sacrifice. The skeleton of the ancient caste system is based on four groups of the population: 1) brahman, 2) kshatriya, 3) vaisya, and 4) sudra. This model is based around the king, which comes from the kshatriyas. The priests cannot form a caste themselves due to the practice of celibacy, and thus the priests are derived from the farmer caste or the aristocracy. They hold the same place in the hierarchy and in ritual as the Brahmans when priesthood became hereditary (Hocart 1950:23-26). Later tradition has stressed that the kshatriya caste is a warrior caste, and the Chhetris are commonly ranked as second after the Brahmins in the fourfold caste system. In the earliest prose writing the kshatriya caste was nevertheless the royal caste, and only later the stress was put on the warrior aspect. Therefore, the first caste is the one that provides the king, and as such the royal one or the nobility. The difference between the king and the priest is their roles in the sacrifice; “A nobleman gives but does not solicit; offers sacrifice, but does not perform it, studies, but does not teach” (Hocart 1950:34-35). The second caste supplies the priests, namely the Brahmans. They perform the ritual for the king. The priest may perform the sacrifice himself, but he is mainly the person that officiates for the sacrifier, and therefore the priests are more closely related to the royal family than the farmers since it is the king that normally is the chief sacrifier (ibid:37). The main function of the third caste is to support the king and the priests, and to feed the sacrifice from their lands and cattle (ibid:39-40). According to Hocart then, the caste system is basically a sacrificial organisation where everything is structured around the king and his sacrificial role. The other groups in the society have different obligations in relation to the sacrifices .