Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/21

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India the Land of Religions
fearing and sacrificing householder; contemplative
forest-dweller; and wandering, world-abandoning
ascetic. Such at least is the theory of their religious
law. Even though practice at all times fell short of
this mechanical and exacting arrangement, yet the
claim is allowed that life is an essentially solitary
religious pilgrimage, the goal being personal salva-
tion. There is no provision in such a scheme for
the interests of the State and the development
of the race. Unintentionally, but none the less
effectively, they are left out of account, leaving a
corresponding blank in India's national character.
Over this hovers, like a black cloud, another
institution, the system, or rather the chaos, of caste.
Its grotesque inconsistencies and bitter tyranny have
gone far to make the Hindu what he is. The corro-
sive properties of this single institution, more than
anything else whatsoever, have checked the develop-
ment of India into a nation. They have made
possible the spectacle of a country of nearly 300
millions of inhabitants, governed by the skill of
60,000 military and 60,000 civilian foreigners.
In olden times there were four castes: the Brah-
man, or priestly caste; the Kshatriya, or warrior
caste; the Vaiçya, or merchant and farmer caste;
and the Çūdra, or servitor caste. Then came many
cross-castes, the result of intermarriages between
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