CHAPTER XXIII INDIA Hitherto we have only on rare occasions made reference to India and the far east, since those regions have hardly come into touch with the story of the western nations. Now, however, we are approaching a point where influence and dominion in India become a prominent source of rivalry between European states, and we must trace the past history of the great peninsula. In one of the earliest chapters we recorded the great Aryan immigration, which in course of time dominated all but the most inaccessible regions between the sea and the 1.2000 B.C. mountains which cut India off from the rest of the tol00 ° A D « world. The Aryan invaders, disciplined and organised hosts, regarded their predecessors in the land with contempt, as an altogether inferior race, whom they forced into The Aryan servitude. They themselves were the ' twice- Conquest, born,' the rest were the 'once-born,' a caste apart, degraded and degrading. At a very early stage the twice-born themselves were divided into three castes : the Brahmans, the priesthood who held the keys of religious knowledge and culture in general ; the Kshatryas, the warriors and men of action whose war- leaders were the princes ; the Vaisyas or industrial class, inferior to the other two, yet having a great gulf fixed between them and the Sudras, the lower conquered race. At first the division was not altogether rigid. The older barbarians were occasionally strong enough to win temporary recognition, even to the extent of matrimonial strife of alliances. The blood of the twice-born was not Castes, kept altogether pure j in fact, it is probable that the ' religious 313
