Evolution of the figure of the Brahmin in early Muslim writings

Abstract

When we talk about the caste system today, among other things, we talk about the wily, crafty, and ostentatious Brahmins who founded and maintained a set of self-serving rules that effectively took the form of the caste system. How do social scientists know about these Brahmins? As a set of new scholars are demonstrating today, the ancient Indian texts – such as the Vedas or the Mahabharata – do not talk about the caste system or the domineering priestly class of Brahmins. These texts do not even exhibit an impulse to put into place a system that even remotely resembles the so-called caste system. From where does this idea of the Brahmin emerge then? This paper sifts through the earliest available Islamic writings on India, from the early 8th century to Al-Biruni’s time, to chart a genealogy of the figure of the law-making, crafty Brahmin that emerges in 11th-century Muslim writings.