order, there seems no reason to believe that the other two upper classes were not equally interested in seeing their hereditary privileges thus perpetuated by divine sanction. Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable in the whole development of the caste-system than the jealous pride which every caste, from the highest to the lowest, takes in its own peculiar occupation and sphere of life. The distinctive badge of a member of the three upper castes was the sacred triple cord or thread (sūtra)—made of cotton, hemp or wool, according to the respective caste—with which he was invested at the upanayana ceremony, or initiation into the use of the sacred sāvitri, or prayer to the sun (also called gāyatrī), constituting his second birth. Whilst the Arya was thus a dvi-ja, or twice-born, the Sudra remained unregenerate during his lifetime, his consolation being the hope that, on the faithful performance of his duties in this life, he might hereafter be born again into a higher grade of life. In later times, the strict adherence to caste duties would naturally receive considerable support from the belief in the transmigration of souls, already prevalent before Buddha’s time, and from the very general acceptance of the doctrine of karma (“deed”), or retribution, according to which a man’s present station and manner of life are the result of the sum-total of his actions and thoughts in his former existence; as his actions here will again, by the same automatic process of retribution, determine his status and condition in his next existence. Though this doctrine is especially insisted upon in Buddhism, and its designation as a specific term (Pali, Kamma) may be due to that creed, the notion itself was doubtless already prevalent in pre-Buddhist times. It would even seem to be necessarily and naturally implied in Brahmanical belief in metempsychosis; whilst in the doctrine of Buddha, who admits no soul, the theory of the net result or fruit of a man’s actions serving hereafter to form or condition the existence of some new individual who will have no conscious identity with himself, seems of a peculiarly artificial and mystic character. But, be this as it may, “the doctrine of karma is certainly one of the firmest beliefs of all classes of Hindus, and the fear that a man shall reap as he has sown is an appreciable element in the average morality ... the idea of forgiveness is absolutely wanting; evil done may indeed be outweighed by meritorious deeds so far as to ensure a better existence in the future, but it is not effaced, and must be atoned for” (Census Report, i. 364).
In spite, however, of the artificial restrictions placed on the intermarrying of the castes, the mingling of the two races seems to have proceeded at a tolerably rapid rate. Indeed, the paucity of women of the Aryan stock would probably render these mixed unions almost a necessity from the very outset; and the vaunted purity of blood which the caste rules were calculated to perpetuate can scarcely have remained of more than a relative degree even in the case of the Brahman caste. Certain it is that mixed castes are found referred to at a comparatively early period; and at the time of Buddha—some five or six centuries before the Christian era—the social organization would seem to have presented an appearance not so very unlike that of modern times. It must be confessed, however, that our information regarding the development of the caste-system is far from complete, especially in its earlier stages. Thus, we are almost entirely left to conjecture on the important point as to the original social organization of the subject race. Though doubtless divided into different tribes scattered over an extensive tract of land, the subjected aborigines were slumped together under the designation of Sudras, whose duty it was to serve the upper classes in all the various departments of manual labour, save those of a downright sordid and degrading character which it was left to vratyas or outcasts to perform. How, then, was the distribution of crafts and habitual occupations of all kinds brought about? Was the process one of spontaneous growth adapting an already existing social organization to a new order of things; or was it originated and perpetuated by regulation from above? Or was it rather that the status and duties of existing offices and trades came to be determined and made hereditary by some such artificial system as that by which the Theodosian Code succeeded for a time in organizing the Roman society in the 5th century of our era? “It is well known” (says Professor Dill) “that the tendency of the later Empire was to stereotype society, by compelling men to follow the occupation of their fathers, and preventing a free circulation among different callings and grades of life. The man who brought the grain from Africa to the public stores at Ostia, the baker who made it into loaves for distribution, the butchers who brought pigs from Samnium, Lucania or Bruttium, the purveyors of wine and oil, the men who fed the furnaces of the public baths, were bound to their callings from one generation to another. It was the principle of rural serfdom applied to social functions. Every avenue of escape was closed. A man was bound to his calling not only by his father’s but also by his mother’s condition. Men were not permitted to marry out of their gild. If the daughter of one of the baker caste married a man not belonging to it, her husband was bound to her father’s calling. Not even a dispensation obtained by some means from the imperial chancery, not even the power of the Church could avail to break the chain of servitude.” It can hardly be gainsaid that these artificial arrangements bear a very striking analogy to those of the Indian caste-system; and if these class restrictions were comparatively short-lived on Italian ground, it was not perhaps so much that so strange a plant found there an ethnic soil less congenial to its permanent growth, but because it was not allowed sufficient time to become firmly rooted; for already great political events were impending which within a few decades were to lay the mighty empire in ruins. In India, on the other hand, the institution of caste—even if artificially contrived and imposed by the Indo-Aryan priest and ruler—had at least ample time allowed it to become firmly established in the social habits, and even in the affections, of the people. At the same time, one could more easily understand how such a system could have found general acceptance all over the Dravidian region of southern India, with its merest sprinkling of Aryan blood, if it were possible to assume that class arrangements of a similar kind must have already been prevalent amongst the aboriginal tribes prior to the advent of the Aryan. Whether a more intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of those rude tribes that have hitherto kept themselves comparatively free from Hindu influences may yet throw some light on this question, remains to be seen. But, by this as it may, the institution of caste, when once established, certainly appears to have gone on steadily developing; and not even the long period of Buddhist ascendancy, with its uncompromising resistance to the Brahman’s claim to being the sole arbiter in matters of faith, seems to have had any very appreciable retardant effect upon the progress of the movement. It was not only by the formation of ever new endogamous castes and sub-castes that the system gained in extent and intricacy, but even more so by the constant subdivision of the castes into numerous exogamous groups or septs, themselves often involving gradations of social status important enough to seriously affect the possibility of intermarriage, already hampered by various other restrictions. Thus a man wishing to marry his son or daughter had to look for a suitable match outside his sept, but within his caste. But whilst for his son he might choose a wife from a lower sept than his own, for his daughter, on the other hand, the law of hypergamy compelled him, if at all possible, to find a husband in a higher sept. This would naturally lead to an excess of women over men in the higher septs, and would render it difficult for a man to get his daughter respectably married without paying a high price for a suitable bridegroom and incurring other heavy marriage expenses. It can hardly be doubted that this custom has been largely responsible for the crime of female infanticide, formerly so prevalent in India; as it also probably is to some extent for infant marriages, still too common in some parts of India, especially Bengal; and even for the all but universal repugnance to the re-marriage of widows, even when these had been married in early childhood and had never joined their husbands. Yet violations of these
