Chap. III.j 



CASTE. 



157 



guage of Sir Eobert Peel as the " brazen wheels of the 

 executive which keep the golden hands in motion." 



Amongst the pm^e Singhalese, the ascendency of caste 

 still exercises a baneful influence over the intellectual 

 as well as the material prosperity of the nation. Its 

 origin has been elsewhere alluded to ^ as directly trace- 

 able to the Brahmanical conquerors of Ceylon under 

 Wijayo, by whom the system was introduced from the 

 continent of India. It was unknown amongst the abori- 

 gines of the island, and although condemned by the 

 precepts of Buddlia-, and the example of his ^niesthood, 

 so attractive were the distinctions of civil rank which it 

 conferred, that in later times, in spite of rehgious in- 

 junction, and in defiance of the efforts of every Euro- 

 pean government, Portuguese, Dutch, and British, to 

 discountenance and extinguish it, no appreciable pro- 

 gress has yet been made towards its modification or 

 abandonment. 



A reluctant conformity is exhibited on the part of 

 high-caste persons placed ofiicially under the orders of 

 low-caste headmen ; but tlieu^ obedience is constrained, 

 with no efibrt to conceal impatience ; and in the relations 

 of private life the impassable barrier is still maintained. 

 There is no familiar intercourse between individuals 

 of incongruous castes, no friendly domestic meetings, 

 and no association even in the formal festivities of wed- 



^ See Part iv. cli. i. p. 425. 



^ A paper by TuKNOTJH in the Asiat. 

 Soc. Journ. Bene/., vol. ii. p. 093, con- 

 tains a ti'anslation of the discourse 

 in which Biitldha exposes and de- 

 nounces the folly and evils of caste. 

 It is taken from the Ayc/dnna Suttan 

 in the liuihunikmja section of the 

 PittdJias ; and enforces the eligibility 

 of all castes, however low, to the 

 office of the priesthood, which com- 

 mands the homage of the highest. 

 The same doctrine is repeated in the 

 Madhura Suttan ; and the Waaala 

 Suttan contains the stanza, beginning 



with " Majachcha wasalo hoti/' &c., 

 which runs thus, 



" A man does noc become low caste by birth. 

 Nor by birth does one become high caste ; 

 High caste is tlie result of high actions — 

 And by actions does a man degrade himself to 

 caste that is low."' 



Still Buddhism, even when in the 

 zenith of its power, had not the in- 

 fluence, or perhaps the inclination, 

 to extinguish these distinctions ; and 

 caste continued to be tolerated under 

 the Singhalese kings as a social insti- 

 tution. In other Buddhist countries 

 Bunnah, Siam, and Thibet, caste 

 does not exist in any similar form. 



