civilization and prestige would fraternize freely simply because they all have received no sacraments. We may or may not find references to such phenomena in the literature of the period, but a society with doctrines of purity and pollution so monstrously developed (as it will be shown in the next chapter) and so highly specialized as it is to-day could hardly be imagined without a process so closely allied with the doctrine.
4. The occupational castes.
Let us now venture to inquire whether occupational castes existed in the third century.[1] Before answering this question in the affirmative or negative we should be sure that we understand what are meant by occupational castes. Not finding the names of goldsmith, tailor, oil-man, barber, and blacksmith among the castes mentioned in the text, one is very likely hastily to conclude that occupational castes did not exist; that the Vaishya caste existed as a whole body, and that from this united caste the occupational castes split up later. Such conclusions are due simply to carelessness in interpreting our author. Scholars who hold them make no attempt to find out how the various occupational castes did develop or could develop nor to ascertain whether guilds only degenerated into castes or there were any other influences working in the land which ultimately developed the occupational castes.
We may define an occupational caste either as a caste the bulk of the people of which regard a particular oc-
- ↑ I intend to make the growth of occupational caste a special field of inquiry, but here I make only such remarks as bear on the question in hand.
