Social Consciences of PIcredity. 365 



The Brahman has for his inheritance science, contemplation, the 

 meditation of the mysteries, the care for divine worship, and the 

 reading of the sacred books. He is recognized by his staff, by the 

 cord he wears over his shoulder, by the girdle around his loins, 

 but still more by his complexion, which differs from that of the 

 other castes ; for as travellers tell us, a Brahman who is a some- 

 what black, and a Pariah a somewhat white, are regarded as mon- 

 strosities, and in no other caste are there handsomer women or 

 prettier children. 



The Kshatriya is destined for active life, he is soldier or king ; 

 but he owes submission to the lord of all castes, the Brahman, a 

 duty which he has not always discharged. 



The Vaishyas practise the manual arts, agriculture and com- 

 merce; they support the priest and the noble, who pray for them 

 or fight for them. 



In the lowest grade, the only virtue of the Sudr is resignation. 

 Devoted to servile labour, and treated with contumely, he knows 

 no life but that of privations, but he has a faint glimpse of salva- 

 tion in the distant future. 



Thus each has his place, his environment, to which he is im- 

 prisoned by his birth. He may not aspire higher, neither may he 

 marry outside his own caste. The time, however, had to come 

 when these four primitive divisions would no longer suffice. 

 Though the law proscribes and anathematizes extra-caste marriage, 

 still passion and the chances of life were necessarily stronger than 

 the law; hence, besides the four pure castes, others have arisen, 

 and these the laws of Manu, while pronouncing them impure, still 

 condescends to regulate. It would be tedious to enumerate these 

 hybrid classes ; for as was to be expected, the development of insti- 

 tutions and the progress of civilization have produced an endless 

 variety of crossings. Thus, half a century ago there were no less 

 than four classes, subdivided into twenty others and this simply 

 among the Brahmans of the south. Among the Sudr there are 

 about a hundred and twenty, which may be reduced to eighteen 



who aspired to the Nirvana, but who, like any other person, had to obey his 

 law, and to give up the practice of the austerities by means of which he was 

 striving to obtain the miracle of a transformation impossible in the case of a 

 Kshatriya. 



