Intro
- Were the Brahmins of Southeast Asia Brahmins? by Dick van der Meij
The main evidence in support of the idea that the brahmins of Southeast Asia were brahmins is that they were called so. Filliozat (1972: vii ) was suitably cautious in putting both ‘brahmin’ and ‘Hindu’ within quotation marks: “En Thailande et au Cambodge il existe une communauté dite de ‘brahmanes’, spécialisée dans l’accomplissement de rites ‘hindous’ dans les cérémoni es officielles.”
Filliozat (1965 and 1972) refers to court brahmins who went to Thailand and Cambodia some time a fter the sixteenth century, taking with them some of the Agamie traditions of Southeast India discussed in Chapter v and referred to by Filliozat 1965: 243 as ‘Agama ou Tantra çivaītes.’ Filliozat has shown that these ritualists were successors to the domestic priests (purohita ) of earlier kings in the sense of being ritual specialists, but that they were not brahmins. Their direct predecessors in the Tamil country of Southwest India, the gurukkal, though sometimes regarded as brahmins there, were not brahmins either.
Gonda in his 1970 study on Siva in Indonesia emphasized the importance of Saiva ascetics as transmitters of Indi an mantras and rites to Indonesia at a much earlier period. As I mentioned before (page 45), these ‘Saiva’ ascetics turn out to be Tantrics and include Buddhists. Whatever their precise affiliation, they were not brahmins either as pointed out long ago by Kern (1920, IX:259) when he wrote about ’ brahmin monks, who should not be confounded with the Saivite for the latter as such are not brahmins’ (brahmaansche monikken, die men niet verwarren moet met Çiwaietische, want deze laatste zijn als zoodanig geen brahmanen) .
In theory, Bali adopted the triwangsa system th at incorporates the three highest castes of the so-caJled ‘Indian caste system’ of four castes: brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiṣya and śūdra. Balinese Brahmins are designated with special tities and names such as ‘Ida Bagus,’ and appropriate designations are similarly reserved for members of the ‘Satria’ and ‘Wesya’ castes. After referring to Lekkerkerker 1926 (a monograph devoted to a comparison of the caste systems of India and Bali), Goris (1929 = 1984: 293 - 294) surveyed what was known at the time of his writing about the historical background:
Up to the present no data have been found regarding a triwangsa structure on Bali before the Majapahit period, or at least before the beginning of Javanese influence during the reign of Erlangga in the early eleventh century. The Majapahit influence - which does not date merely from the fall of Majapahit, thus in the late fifteenth century, but was strong from the time of Ayam Wuruk’s reign, th at is to say around 1350 - transformed the direct Hindu-Balinism which had preceded it into a HinduJavanese Balinism.
In the triwangsa system the first caste was that of the Brahmins, from whose families the padandas came. The second caste was th at of the kastriyas, whence came the rulers and their punggawas (originally the punggawas were all of them relatives of the ruler) [punggawas were court nobles from whom the Dutch took their ‘district officers’: FS]. The third caste was that of the wesyas. Who were wesyas onJava and Bali (with the noble title of gusti ) is not clear. In India they were those merchant gentlemen and large landholders not belonging to the royal family. From around 1350 on, the other population groups were lumped together as śūdras.
Originally only a Javanese colonist could belong to the trivangsa. As are sult of rapid intermarriage with Balinese families, and perhaps of elevation of Balinese families to the nobility by Javanese-Balinese rulers, the number of triwangsa members, who were at the same time ‘men of Majapahit,’ expanded swiftly. Many Balinese who had attained something of a position for themselves attempted (and still attempt) to be elevated to the nobility, in most cases to the lowest rank, that of gusti.
That much of this information about the caste system is theoretical is dear from Korn’s handbook of Balinese Adat (1924: 70- 74): Balinese society continued to function in the same way as before the alleged introduction of the Indian caste system. In villages, especially, ‘members of the higher castes have no authority’ (hebben niets te zeggen ). Geertz and Geertz 1975, though often critical of Kom, are concerned to show the same, viz., that the Hindu concept of ‘caste’ is inappropriate and confusing when applied to Balinese status distinctions, adding that ’the Balinese themselves, less interested in precision, nonetheless use it to explain their own system to themselves’ (p.6) - all very true apart from the phrase ’less interested in precision’ unless it is also lack of precision that caused Christians to incorporate the ‘Christmas’ tree and ‘Easter’ eggs.
Much of what Goris and Korn write applies, mutatis mutandis, to India. Here, too, we should distinguish between a largely theoretical varṇ-a system and the systcm of jāti, the term Indian anthropologists use to refer to the present-day system which comprises many thousands of castes, differing from region to region. In India, too, the varṇa system is invoked to provide the jāti system with a traditional foundation. The term varṇa means ‘colour’ which has inspired numerous hypotheses about the origin of caste, most of them predictabie without being persuasive. The term jāti means ‘birth’ which expresses th e defining characteristic of thc system in both of its forms , theoretical and actual. Detailed empirical evidence, most of it contemporary, exists only for the jāti systcm. The evidence for the varṇa system is literary: known from the later Vedic period, it is chiefly described in Manu and other law books composed by brahmins and is primarily concerned not with what existed but with what brahmins believed or wanted to exist.
The two systems overlap at the top and diverge increasingly when we move down the hierarchy. If the majority of present day Indian jātis had to be classified in terms of the varṇa system, they would have to be lumped together as śūdras, just as Goris noted of Bali . At the top of the pyramid, there is almost total agreement on who is and who is not a brahmin. There has never been much clarity about kṣatriyas. A prince or chieftain could employ a brahmin ritualist as a purōhita and obtain his gōtra, thereby confirming or acquiring kṣatriya status for himself. If we confine ourselves to the present century, many of the more than 600 former rulers of princely states claimed that title for themselves and their (often extended ) families, others did not (e.g., because they were Muslims ) and about others there continued and continues to be controversy or simple uncertainty. The varying relationships between brahmins and kṣatriyas constitute one of the enduring features of Indian social history and left their traces in Southeast Asia. The paradigm cases are that of the kṣatriya king, who wields political executive power, and his brahmin minister, whose expertise is ritual and legal (for Bali: cf. Geertz and Geertz 1975: 29); and the great kṣatriya systems of Mahavira and Buddha which challenged the traditional authority of the Vedas that had always been maintained and controlled by brahmins.
The position of the two highcst castes is reflected by caste legitimation:
- (I) there is no known process by which a non-brahmin can become a brahmin, unless he can prove that he actually is one, a rare but by no means non-existent occurrence since brahmins may be able to demonstrate, for example, that their ancestors had been brahmins who had become [18] Muslims or Christians.
- +++(18 - In Kerala, early in the century, controversy arose around a Saivite temple located within the large compound of a wealthy Muslim landow ner. Property acts of the temple were acce pted as evidence th at his a ncestors had bee n brahmins. Appropriate rites re-instituted him as a brahmin and enabled him to marry a brahmin girl. But the bridegroom and his bride were murdered , allegedly by his former co-religionists.)+++
- (2) there are processes by which non-kṣatriyas can become kṣatriyas: these are precisely the ritual means discussed by Kulke el al. by which brahmins provide legitimation to rul ers-already-in-power or aspiring to power.
In brief: non-brahmins cannot become brahmins, and non-kṣatriyas can become kṣatriyas but only with the help of brahmins. Why is there hardly any controversy about who is or is not a brahmin, and why do non-brahmins not become or pretend to be brahmins? The answer is threefold: (I) because brahmins are not isolated but part of their society; (2) because of the numerous details of ritual knowledge that a brahmin possesses; and (3) because of penalties, e.g., the death penalty (also in Bali: Korn 1924: 83). Of course, there are ignorant brahmins (Sanskrit art and literature is replete with them and they occurred already in Vedic ritual: Staal 1978): but they can only be brahmins if they are members of brahmin communities th at accept them as such and if they knowat least a minimum (e.g., the Gāyatrī mantra or the beginning lines of the Vedic school to which they belong by birth). India is replete with attempts, successful and unsuccessful, of castes raising their status or being forced to lower it, but it is not only theoretically but also practically almost impossible to become a brahmin. Uncertainty is another matter, as in the story of the Upaniṣadic teacher who asked a prospective pupil about his parents: the boy answered that his mother had told him th at she knew many men but did not know who was his father. The teacher declared: he who speaks thus truthfully is a brahmin: you are admitted. Go and collect the fire-sticks!
It is difficult to become a brahmin not only because of context, penalties and expert knowiedge, but also on account of the details of ritual affiliation. A brahmin belongs by birth to a particular school or branch (śākhā) of a Veda and to a particular ritual sūtra within that branch. Many South Indian brahmins, for example, belong to the āpastamba sūtra of the Taittirīya śākhā of the kr̥ṣṇa Yajurveda. Of greater social significance is the gōtra or exogamic unit that determines which brahmin a brahmin may not marry (i.e., one of the same gotra). A brahmin possesses such information about ritual affiliation because it has to be recited on numerous ritual occasions. The most important of these and the first is initiation into the brahmin caste or upanayana, the ‘second birth’ when a boy becomes a brahmin (and analogously, at least in theory, for kṣatriya and vaiśya ). During this ceremony, the officiating priest whispers into his ear the Gāyatrī mantra which he has to continu e to recite daily during sandhya-vandana for the rest of his life (or until he ‘renounces,’ a rare event to which we shall return ). At the time of upanayana, the boy receives the yajñopavīta or ‘sacred thread,’ the primary mark by which one recognizes members of the brahmin community who continue to be shirtless, especially in rural areas and not only because of the climate.
At present, there are many brahmins, especially in cities and in North India, who do not know their Vedic affiliations. But there are few who have not undergone some kind of upanayana, without which they would not be brahmins, who do not wear the sacred thread or observe the gōtra rules insofar as they marry within the caste at all. Since upanayana is, like all rituals, are latively costly affair and many brahmins are poor, group upanayana perform a nces have been introduced recently.
Whether this rough sketch correctly portrays the present situation or needs qualification, it is safe to assume that the further we go back in time, the stronger were brahmin ties and traditions and the more commonly available such types of information must have been among them.
The learning of brahmins pertains primarily to the Vedas and is mostly confined to features of ritual. The Vedānta, or ’end of the Vedas,’ and similar philosophies with the exception of the Mīmāṁsā (cf. note I), are not confined to brahmins, and neither is the bulk of Sanskrit literature and classical Indian civilization, to which, along with brahmins, important contributions were m ade by members of other castes, Jainas, Buddhists, Tantrics, Saivites, Vaiṣṇavites and other sectarians, and in more recent times even Muslims and Christians. brahmins are not agents of Sanskritization and Sanskrit culture is not their exclusive property (cf. Staal 1963).
This is important in our context: that Sanskrit grammar was known in Indonesia, where Chinese Buddhist monks took language courses on their way to India, or that the inscriptions from Cambodia are in excellent Sanskrit, better than many from India, for example, does not impl y that Southeast Asian experts or authors of Sanskrit must have been brahmins.
Apart from not being the exclusive agents of Sanskritization, brahmins are also not lilerale specialists as at least one anthropologist has claimed (Goody 1987) - a far-fetched supposition in view of the fact that the transmission of the Vedas and most of the brahmin’s specialised knowledge is exclusively oral (Staal 1986c, 1989). In sum, brahmins are not Sanskritic or literate experts; they are ritual experts.
During recent centuries, Vedic traditions have been much stronger in South than in North India where all South Indian brahmins originally came from. That holds true of Tamilnadu as it does of Andhra, Karnataka and Kerala. It is true that the Southern ‘Vaidikas’ form small, often tiny minorities, but they are linked through ritual, marriage and other social links to the brahmin majorities. Even isolated communities (such as the Chor̥iya of Tamilnadu) often preserve rare Vedic schools and traditions (such as theJaiminīya of the Samaveda).
The brahmin traditions are very largely oral and of such complexity that it is unlikely that there has at any time been anything like a large-scale adoption of Vedic traditions by non-brahmins. Adoption by individuals could have taken place more easily and Vedic traditions could have been transmitted to an adopted son who was educated in a brahmin household practically from birth. The continued existence of Vedic traditions can only be accounted for by the assumption that there was a continuous transmission of knowIedge, from teacher to pupil, often from father to son, into which the young were initiated at an early age and which they continued to cultivate throughout much of their adult lives.
The diffusion of Vedic ritual knowledge is confined to brahmins but is subject to further restrictions within the brahmin caste. A recent illustration comes from the performance tradition of large Vedic rituals, which have always required sixteen officiants including four brahmins from the Samaveda. The Samaveda is rare in all parts of India and in Kerala, about half a century ago, there was serious concern about the paucity of trained Samavedins since it was difficult to find even these four. The more numerous Rigvedins suggested that some of their sons undergo Samaveda training; but the Samavedins refused to teach Samaveda to other brahmins, not out of ill-will but because the Rigvedins had not undergone the particular Samavedic form of upanayana.
Leaving India and barring details to which we shall return, the overall picture is clear: in Bali, the entire ritual edifice erected by the brahmins of India is conspicuous by its absence.
It is conceivable that brahmins lost Vedic paraphernalia that in India might be regarded as essential but overseas as superfluous. After all, many Indian brahmins have lost their Vedic heritage and become cooks, taxi drivers, administrators, stenographers and scientists without ceasing to be brahmins. However, there is a difference. None of these modern specialists need ritual in their profession. The brahmins of Southeast Asia, on the other hand, went there allegedly as ritual specialists. It would have made little sense for them to cut off the ritual roots from which they derived their position, authority and influence.
It is always assumed that the brahmin settlers of Southeast Asia, after crossing the ocean, married indigenous women. Both crossing the ocean and marrying non-brahmins seem to conflict with the classical rules and laws of brahmin society. Bernet Kempers (193T 6- 7) glosses over the first problem but faces the second squarely:
The fact that Brāhmaṇs have come to Indonesia has puzzled m a ny historians as we know from the sacred texts that Hindus are not allowed to travel by sea. But ‘men are always caught by historians in the very act of belying their principles by their actions.’ … the supposition is upon the surface that the Indians married the daughters of the soil. We must, however, keep in mind, that we know nothing about this earliest evolution.
Wheatley (1982: 20) has referred to theories about what happened without specifying how it happened on the assumpti on that evidence is no longer available, as black box models. It is a n apt ch arac terization of a common scientific procedure, but Wheatley’s own illustra tions of ’ first intimations’ and ‘first glimpses’ inside the box are unpersuasive: Bosch’s discussion of Saiva Siddhānta overemphasized the philosophic, and Wolters’ ‘men of prowess’ arose from a confusion between Saiva-āgamas and devotional bhakti movements that extol the grace of Viṣṇu (if supermen were needed it would be easier to locate them in Tantrism where the practitioner is often referred to as vīra, litterally, ‘male hero’ ). Bosch and Wolters paid insufficient a ttention to the fact that the Saiva āgam as and Tantrism in ge neral deal primarily with ritual.
And yet, without mentioning it, both Bosch and Wolters pointed in the right direction: Ta ntra and āgama help to explain that South and Southeast Asians looked in new directions. M oreover, the black box contains not only unsolved marriages and sea voyages but also a third difficulty that logically precedes them: for if we can solve it we may be able to solve the others. Though the French anthropologist Louis Dumont has expressed it perhaps most clearl y, it is well known that the brahmins of India are (or were until recently) the people mos t comfortably placed in their society. Our first question must therefore be, why would a bra hmin leave India and engage in prohibited acts? Were there specific reasons at home? Could there have bee n particularly attractive offers from overseas?
As for specific reasons at home, several may be imagined. They include caste exclusion because of crimes or misdeeds of individuals, as weil as structural reasons. I am familiar with only one case of groups of Indian brahmins being excluded from the Vedic tradition. Among the Nambudiri brahmins of Kerala, two sub-castes have been excluded (they are called, in Malayalam , otlillatla ’non-chanting’ ) because they were polluted by being in contact with blood. The first sub-caste consists of brahmins who became warriors. The second comprises eight families of traditional physicians (aṣṭavaidyan ). In Bali, brahmins similarly ’embraced Satria ideals’ and some were warnors (Rubinstein 1991: 61, 69); but they were not similarly excluded. Marriage alliances with non-brahmins are not absent from Sanskrit literature and they are recognized by the law books provided they are in accordance with the one principle that governs mixed marriage: they must be anuloma, ‘moving along with the growth of the hair’, i.e., the male must belong to the higher caste. Intercaste marriages especially of a brahmin male with a kṣatriya or vaiśya female are known from the Vedas onward and anuloma marriages in general were freely allowed until the ninth century A.D. (Kane 1941, VOl.II, Part I, 447 sq.). Inscriptions from Kerala first prohibited such marriage alliances with wives of tenants, but later recognized the system that is still unique there (Narayanan and Veluthat 1983:261 - 263): in that system, only the oldest son of a brahmin is allowed to marry within his caste through the traditional Vedic marriage ritual referred to as vivaha; the younger sons are only permitted alliances with non-brahmin women through what are called sambandham relationships. This system works because it is in accordance with a special feature of the Kerala caste system: if we exclude some of the allegedly kṣatriya nobles and a few rare ‘intermediate’ castes to which I shall return in a moment, the highest and most important non-brahmin castes of Kerala, specifically the Nayars, are matrilinear - that is, children inherit from the mother, including her caste. In the case of a sambandham alliance of a brahmin man with a Nayar woman, the offspring are not brahmins but Nayars - a resuIt that accords with the non-identical caste rules of both parents. In Kerala, therefore, only the oldest son of a brahmin preserves the Vedic traditions characteristic of the brahmin caste.
There is some similarity between this Kerala system and what in Bali has been called the ‘Principle of Sinking Status’ (Geertz and Geertz 1975: 124- (31 ). The rule of anuloma occurs in Bali: ‘Although the texts do not mention it, a Brahmana man may marry women from other descent groups … However, if Brahmana women marry into other descent groups, they cease to be Brahmana’ (Rubinstein: 1991: 59 - 60). Hooykaas (1964: 35 - 36) writes about brahmin women: ‘The craft of offering making forms for them a suitable means of livelihood when they remain unmarried, for whereas brahmins may, and often do, marry non-brahmins, this is still virtually impossible for the brahmin women, who then have to earn their own living. Their function, as the makers of offerings and as intermediaries between the griya and the pura, the tempie, is probably very ancient.’
In Kerala such functions are not open to brahmin women, but a group of sub-castes is specifically concerned with occupations relating to the temple. Its members are referred to as ambalavasi, ’ temple dwellers’ or antarala, ‘in-betweeners’ since some were the offspring of mixed marriages with brahmin fathers. One of these sub-castes deals with the preparation of flower offerings and garlands; their members are call ed puṣpakan from Puṣpa, ‘flower’ (Thurston 1909: 28 - 29; Anantha Krishna lyer 1912, I: 133- 134).
I mention these Kerala specifics not because I feel that there are special connections between lndonesia and Kerala but because I happen to be familiar with them. However, Levi (1933: XIX ) mentioned that he found mantras similar to the Balinese in the īsanasivagurudeva -paddhati, the Tantrasamuccaya (’ Tattvasamuccaya’ must be a misprint ) and the Parasuramakalpa, all Tantric works from Kerala. These connections should be pursued further when Kerala Tantrism becomes better known. 19
(19 A project on Kerala Tantrism is presently underway and involves study of the living tradition as well as texts such as Tantrasamuccaya , īsanaśivagurudevapaddhati and śēṣamuccaya.)
The structure of the caste system in a particular region may explain why some sons of brahmin fathers cease to be brahmins. But why should an individual brahmin give up his caste willingly? There is a general answer to this question: because of the desire for renunciation, an option especially attractive to non-brahmins but nevertheless adopted by brahmins throughout Indian history. Dumont (1959, 1966) has argued that the reason for renunciation is that it enables caste-members to become individuals. The underlying assumption is that ‘individuality,’ allegedly a characte ri stic feature of Europeans, is absent from members of a traditional caste hi erarchy.
I don’t know whether this intriguing idea is correct: I know many Indian individuals and they do not seem to be rare in classical Sanskrit literature. Be this as it may, there is little doubt th at the idea of renunciation is an important feature of Indian thought. Beginning during the end of the Vedas, or Upaniṣads, it has become increasingly common to denounce ritual and caste and recommend renunciation ‘from the world,’ i. e., from the society of fa mily, vil age and caste with their concomitant rituals. This goal was advocated by Jainism and Buddhism and invaded the Vedic traditions. And yet, ritual and caste were often not rej ected but merely transformed as the renouncers created new ‘parallel societies’ (as Romila Thapar called them ; see also Heesterman 1985: 42 sq.). Buddhists and Jainas introduced rites for becoming a monk that are reminiscent of upanayana. The monks themselves officiated at funeral rites for the members of the higher castes whereas brahmin ritual experts co ntinued to do so at all other life-cycle rites. The anti-ritual act of renunciation itself came to be celebrated by a rite modeled after funeral ritual.
Caste and ritual continued in some form or other through most innovations. The majority of ea rly Buddhists themselves came from the higher castes, especially the brahmin. One of the first important brahmins who became a Buddhist was Mahākasyapa, a direct pupil of Buddha and an important conservative voice in early Buddhism . Yoga, in its many forms, also appealed to brahmins. According to legend, the famous philosopher Saṅkara celebrated the rite of renunciation when he was still young, possibly having fallen under the spell of a Yogin (cf. Staal ‘995). With the development of Tantrism, new alternatives became available and a brahmin might feel that Tantric methods were more effective than the traditional, whatever the tradition (cf. Gupta et al. ‘979: 30). Tantrism introduced new or partly new rites such as dīkṣā initiation, a term used in Vedic ritual for the initiation of the ritual patron or yajamtina.
In sum, both brahmins and non-brahmins were interested in the many other options that existed outside the traditional cas te system, including those that could be combined with the adherence to (some form of) caste. The teachings of the Bhagavad GHa, for example, have to be primarily understood in such a context: they advocate the performance of traditional caste duties (varṇa-dharma ) without attachment to their alleged fruits - a cautious attack not on the system of caste itself but on some of its inherent values. Tantrics went much further, metaphorically and actually: they were not tied to caste or the Indian soil and could travel as they pleased. If either brahmins or Tantrics transmitted Indian knowledge beyond Indian borders, marriages or marriage-like alliances with non-Indians are likely to have taken place. Not necessarily so, for the more orthodox (non Tantric) forms of Buddhism were transmitted by non-marrying monks and Tantrics such as Gonda’s Saivite ascetics need not have been married either. There are non-Buddhist, including brahmin parallels from India, the latter Buddhist inspired : the Advaita Vedanta tradition is transmitted through lineages of originally brahmin Sankaracaryas who never married and became renouncers at an early stage of life, indicating their successor by simple choice when they feit the time was right.
Many of these facts about the Indian caste system provide no more than circumstantial evidence concerning the general question of the brahmins of Southeast Asia. However, as far as Bali is concerned, we can now be more specific: there is no evidence there of the upanayana initiation into brahminhood , the sacred thread, exogamic gotras or marriage restrictions and, above all, an almost total absence of Vedic mantras or anything else pertaining to Vedic traditions. The mantras found in Bali are largely Tantric as is the consecration of the padanda insofar as it is not Balinese. That latter ceremony has several names, including mediksa (cf. Korn ‘928 = ‘984: ‘3’ - 153) which again is Tantric. Balinese ceremonies display a mixture of ritual and yoga-like meditation which is, as we have seen, a characteristic feature ofTantrism. Many of the specifically brahmin terms - upanayana, gotra , śākhā, etc. - do not occur in Indonesia or occur in other senses (Gonda ‘952; Ensink and van Buitenen 1964). The term yajñopavīta does occur in mantras (SuSe 126, 180; cf. Gonda 1952: 167) but this is typical and does not imply that the ritualists used at any time the ‘sacred thread’ of the upanayana - unlike the śirōvastra ‘head-band ’ which does not only occur in mantras but which the padanda uses although it does not occur in any brahmanic rite. These facts suggest th at most of the so-called Balinese brahmins were Tāntrics of various affiliations and persuasions, Buddhist as well as non-Buddhist. They may have included a few of partial and more or less distant brahmin origins and others pretending to be brahmins or later looked upon as such. The position they occupied was and still is similar to the position of brahmins (at least, until recently ) in a : they continue to be patrilinear ritual experts with knowledge of mantras and a high ritual and social status, advisers of princes and others and comfortably placed in their society. They were a lso concerned with their status as brahmins (kabrahmanan; cf. Rubinstein 1991 ); but they were not brahmins.
Between India and the mainland of Southeast Asia the prohibited seatravel would not have been necessary. Even so, the court or ‘Buddhist brahmins’ of Thailand and Cambodia, already m entioned , crossed the sea from Southeast India though it happened only a few centuries ago. Like the brahmins of Bali, they lack Vedic mantras, upanayana, the sacred thread and gotras, not to mention more exotic Vedic paraphernalia. Unlike their Balinese counterparts, they possess not only Sanskrit but also Tamil tex ts (Sarma 1972). As we have already seen, it is likely that neither they nor the Saivite ascetics of Indon esia were brahmins. Earlier and on the mainland of Southeast Asia, a brahmin presence may have been more probable. The South Indian brahmin who belonged to the taittirīya school according to a seventh century Cambodian inscription (Bha ttacharya 1961: 131 note I) is likely to have been a brahmin. The use of Vedic ritual terms and the reference to a (post-Vedic) brahmayajña during which allegedly Vedic and other texts were recited (ibid. 148- 150), on the other hand, prove little and Bhattacharya comments that ’les rites proprement védiques n’ontjoué aucun rale au Cambodge.’ It see ms safe to conclude that the large majority of the so-called brahmins of Southeast Asia were not brahmins.