December 19, 1884.] 



SCIENCE 



557 



we do not undertake to explain, that he nowhere 

 alludes by name to those writers whose works 

 have preceded his, and which we have men- 

 tioned in the earlier paragraphs of this notice. 



CASTE IN INDIA IN 1881. 



Outlines of Punjab ethnography. By Denzil 

 Charles Jelf Ibbetson of her Majesty's Ben- 

 gal civil .service. Calcutta, Gooernment, 1883. 

 4°. 



Imperial census of 1881. Digest of the results in 

 the presidency of Bombay, including Sind. By 

 order of government. Bombay, Government, 

 1882. 



Report of the census of Bengal, 1881. By J. A. 

 Bourdillox of the Bengal civil service. Cal- 

 cutta, Secretariat pr., 1883. 



These reports treat of about 109,000,000 of 

 the 198,000,000 people of India. The Punjab 

 (near 23,000,000) has about 41% Hindus, 

 51% Mahometans, 7% Sikhs. Bomba3 T and 

 Sind (16,500,000) have 73% Hindus ; Bombay 

 alone, 84%. Bengal (69,500,000) has 64% 

 Hindus. The chief strength of the Sikhs in 

 India is in the Punjab. The preponderance 

 of other races and religions in the Punjab gives 

 a special field for inquhy how far caste is a 

 Hindu institution. 



Mr. Ibbetson deems the treatment of caste 

 hitherto, including his own work, inadequate 

 and unsatisfactory, and he recognizes that 

 contradictory statements regarding the same 

 people may be true in different localities. He 

 sa3*s, — 



The popular and currently received theory of caste 

 I take to consist of three main articles: 



1°. That caste is an institution of the Hindu reli- 

 gion, and peculiar to that religion alone; 



2°. That it consists primarily of a fourfold classifi- 

 cation of people in general, under the heads of Brah- 

 man, Kshatriya, Yaisya, and Sudra; 



3°. That caste is perpetual and immutable, and 

 has been transmitted from generation to generation, 

 throughout the ages of Hindu history and myth, with- 

 out the possibility of change. 



Now. I should probably be exaggerating in the op- 

 posite direction, but I think that I should still be far 

 nearer the truth, if, in opposition to the popular con- 

 ception thus defined, I were to say, — 



1°. That caste is a social far more than a religious 

 institution ; that it has no necessary connection what- 

 ever with the Hindu religion, further than that under 

 that religion certain ideas and customs common to all 

 primitive nations have been developed and perpetu- 

 ated in an unusual degree; and that conversion from 

 Hinduism to Islam has not necessarily the slightest 

 effect upon caste : 



2°. That there are Brahmans who are looked upon 

 as outcasts by those who, under the fourfold classifi- 

 cation, would be classed as Siidras; that there is no 

 such tbing as a Vaisya now existing; that it is very 

 doubtful indeed whether there is such a thing as a 



Kshatriya, and, if there is, no two people are agreed 

 as to where we shall look for him; and that Sudra has 

 no present signification save as a convenient term of 

 abuse to apply to somebody else whom you consider 

 lower than yourself; while the number of castes which 

 can be classed under any one or under no one of the 

 four heads, according as private opinion may vary, 

 is almost innumerable: 



3°. That nothing can be more variable or difficult 

 to define than caste; and that the fact that a genera- 

 tion is descended from ancestors of any given caste, 

 creates a presumption, and nothing more, that that 

 generation also is of the same caste, — a presumption 

 liable to be defeated by an infinite variety of circum- 

 stances. 



Mr. Ibbetson gives 275 pages to the consid- 

 eration of religions, races, castes, and tribes 

 of the people of the Punjab, and justice to his 

 work is hardly possible in a brief space. Sum- 

 ming up as to evolution of caste, he says : — 



Thus, if my theory be correct, we have the follow- 

 ing steps by which caste has been evolved in the 

 Punjab: 



1°. The tribal division common to all primitive 

 societies; 



2°. The guilds based upon hereditary occupation 

 common to the middle life of all communities; 



3°. The exaltation of the priestly office to a degree 

 unexampled in other countries; 



4°. The exaltation of Levitical blood by a special 

 insistence upon the necessarily hereditary nature of 

 occupation ; 



5°. The preservation and support of this principle 

 by the elaboration from the theories of the Hindu 

 creed or cosmogony of a purely artificial set of rules, 

 regulating marriage and intermarriage, declaring cer- 

 tain occupations and foods to be impure and pollut- 

 ing, and prescribing the conditions and degree of 

 social intercourse permitted between the several 

 castes. Add to these the pride of social rank and 

 the pride of blood, which are natural to man, . . . 

 and it is hardly to be wondered at that caste should 

 have assumed the rigidity which distinguishes it in 

 India. 



He holds that caste in the Punjab is primarily 

 based on occupation, and, with the masses own- 

 ing and cultivating land, upon political position, 

 which brings in the tribal element. The trades- 

 guild type of caste, found chiefly in the large 

 cities, owes its existence largely to the preva- 

 lence of Mahometan ideas. "The people are 

 bound by social and tribal custom far more 

 than by any rules of religion. . . . The differ- 

 ence [between Hindu and Mussulman] is na- 

 tional rather than religious." In some cases 

 Mahometanism has here strengthened the caste 

 bonds of its adherents. The four castes lead- 

 ing in number in the Punjab are Jats, proba- 

 bly of Indo-Scythian stock (agriculturists and 

 ploughmen) ; Rajputs,' Sons of Rajas ' (largely 

 land-owners, preferably pastoral, and avoiding 

 personal ploughing); Brahmans, priestly and 

 Levitical ; Chuhras ; the scavengers ; number- 

 ing respectively about 4,500,000, 1,500,000, 

 1,000,000, and 1,000,000. 



