"jati" in a very comprehensive sense. For example he calls Brāhmana a jāti, and Shūdra a jāti. Thus, though many jātis together form one varna, the whole varna may be a jāti. This use clearly shows the fact, that the use of the word "jāti" to denote both smaller and larger groups prevailed at the period of our writer as it prevails now, and I suppose that this confusion existed at a period still more remote.
But what did he mean by the word "jāti." Jäti means the form of existence as it is determined by birth. Use of the word "jāti" in a sense very similar to this belongs to a much older date and can be traced in Vedic literature. In Nyaya and Vaishieshika philosophy it developed the meaning of "species." In popular usage Brāhmana was a jāti, Chandāla was a jāti, horse was a jāti, and man was a jāti.
Whether our writer used the word "varna" in that sense in which the Americans use the word "color," is a question which must be settled.[1] Our writer used the words "ārya varna" and Shūdra varna" and if we really wish to understand him and not misunderstand him we should try to translate these words, not with
- ↑ Great confusion has been created by vain analogies. White races came in contact with dark races in America as they did four thousand years ago in India, and attempts are made to discover the "color prejudice" in every document of this ancient land. Still more confusion is created by the various meanings which the word "ārya" acquired in India and which the word "Aryan" acquired in the Western World. The word "ārya" was never used in India in the sense of the word "race" (if we take the word "race" in its larger sense). The conception of race is a very modern one if it exists in any definite form at all. Ethnologists with all their labor do not yet know what the word really means, and if we interpret the Indian documents with modern or foreign ideas in our minds, the result will be a mischief to science and social institutions.
