ABSTRACT
The point of controversy which proved the starting point of the Vaishnava reform sects related to the period of impurity (aśōc) to be observed by non-Brahman castes on a death in the family. Traditionally in Assam Brahmans observe ten days’ ritual impurity on a death, performing the first śrāddha (ādya śrāddha) on the eleventh day, and non-Brahmans observe thirty days’ ritual impurity, performing the first śrāddha (kāj) on the thirty-first day. In the 1930s, in Nowgong district, a number of prominent non-Brahmans began to challenge this distinction on the grounds that they were not inferior to Brahmans and that it was a matter of presumption only that the soul of a Brahman, being superior to the soul of a Shudra, reached heaven more quickly. The movement proliferated and the Shudra population is now divided into the following groups: (1) the monthly people (māhakiyā), who continue in the old custom of one month; (2) the Eleven-day people (eghāradinlyā), who serve ten days’ ritual impurity on the model of the Brahmans; (3) the Thirteen-day people (teradinlyā), who observe twelve days’ ritual impurity as an assertion of Kshatriya status; (4) an extreme group of Haridhaniyas, who do not observe ritual impurity and have ceased to employ Brahman priests for the performance of śrāddha and other Brahminical rites.
