66 Myor-General Sir J. Malcolm on the Bhills. 



though contemned by the higher classes of Hindus, might in course of 

 time be expected to amalgamate, in some degree, with those impure tribes, 

 who, though sprung from the four privileged classes, have been subse- 

 quently degraded, on account of their spurious birth. 



As we have no distinct account of the estabhshment of the Brahmenical 

 institutions, we are ignorant of the origin of the pre-existing tribes, to 

 which I have alluded; but of the illegitimate races, descended from the four 

 primitive classes, we find frequent mention in the Hindu records. The 

 Chanddla, which includes many of the spurious classes, is stated hy Menu * 

 to have sprung from a Sudra father and a Brahyneni mother ; while a A7- 

 shdda or Pdrasava (both of which terms mean an outcast) is descended 

 from a Brahmen and a Sudrd mother. Menu calls the Chanddla the 

 lowest of mortals, because he seems to have considered it a greater crime 

 for a woman of rank to debase herself, by an impure connection, than a 

 man. 



Other authors f have noticed these general classes of outcasts ; all of 

 whom, though degraded, have continued to observe the rites, and to che- 

 rish the superstitious faith, of those from whom they are descended. 



The chief difficulty in distinguishing, at this period, the tribes and families, 

 which never formed a part of the Hindu system, from those which its tem- 

 porary rulers have degraded or ejected, arises from the mixture which time, 

 and the similarity of situation and habits, have produced between these two 

 classes, whose original usages and rites were probably not very remote ; for, 

 from the construction of the Brahmenical system, it is evident, that the at- 

 tainment and preservation of worldly power must have been the primary 

 object of those, by whom it was established, and such motives would pre- 

 vent them making any great change in the polytiieism of India. 



But even supposing this change was effected, men driven into a base or 

 savage condition of society, deprived of all instruction, and born and bred 

 in habits of toil and warfare, would naturally adopt and imitate the super- 

 stitions of tribes, which appeared to their rude imagination so far above them, 

 in all intellectual attainments, as well as worldly enjoyments. 



Menu terms the forbidden or spurious offspring of the four primitive 

 classes of society " Dasyu " (or plunderers), a term which implies tiieir 



* Menu's Institutes, BookX. v 12. 



f Mr. Colebrooke, on the authority of the Jdtimala, assigns the same origin for the Nishdda 

 or Pdrasava, as has been quoted from Menu. 



