Who in the c. seventh-century observed that executioners and scavengers were forced to live outside the city?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Xuan Zang
The Brahmanical texts placed the chandalas, who handled corpses and dead animals, at the very bottom of the social order and made them live outside the village. Foreign visitors noticed the same practice. The Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang (c. seventh century) observed that executioners and scavengers were forced to live outside the city.
Fa Xian, another Chinese pilgrim, came two centuries earlier (c. fifth century CE). He wrote that ‘untouchables’ had to sound a clapper in the streets so that people could avoid seeing them.
NCERT (2025-26): “Subordination and conflict … The Manusmriti laid down the ‘duties’ of the chandalas. They had to live outside the village, use discarded utensils, and wear clothes of the dead and ornaments of iron. They could not walk about in villages and cities at night. They had to dispose of the bodies of those who had no relatives and serve as executioners. Much later, the Chinese Buddhist monk Fa Xian (c. fifth century CE) wrote that ‘untouchables’ had to sound a clapper in the streets so that people could avoid seeing them. Another Chinese pilgrim, Xuan Zang (c. seventh century), observed that executioners and scavengers were forced to live outside the city.…” |