to the silly identification of Kshatriyas and Rajputs, and consequently the undue appreciation of the latter. This appreciation of Rajputs has led to the creation of pseudo Rajput castes and determined assertion on the part of Marathas of connection with and descent from Rajputs, though the Rajputs themselves were doubtless inferior to the Marathas in the vocations proper for a Kshatriya, namely, fighting and ruling.
What was the constitution of the Vaishya varna? Our writer has not given much direct information on this matter nor made allusions from which we could make helpful inferences. The occupations assigned to the Vaishya were to tend cattle, to trade, to lend money, and to cultivate land. He advises a Vaishya to follow up his business (vārtā) or to tend cattle (ix, 326). Here again he says that as long as a Vaishya is willing to keep cattle, cattle must not be kept by any other people. He advises him to learn the values of precious stones and metals and other commodities; to know different countries, profit and loss, scale of wages, languages, storing, purchase and sale. But it is significant that he does not advise a Vaishya to learn any of the trades like those of carpenter, shoemaker, barber, goldsmith, coppersmith, blacksmith, weaver, oil-presser, etc. It is very likely that all this was the work of Shūdras. He regarded all these as menial services, Some writers of bright imagination have conceived of a united Vaishya caste, a caste consisting of all people excepting Brāhmanas and Kshatriyas and low aboriginal castes, which, splitting itself, has produced the occupational castes of to-day. To justify this belief there is not a single reference in the text. Our writer classes
