or BHAHATAVARSA OH INDIA. 
89 
The division of the population into right -hand and left- 
hand castes occurred most likely simultaneously with the 
religious agitation which introduced into Southern India the 
now prevailing Brahmanical supremacy. The imminent decay 
of the Jaina power opened a fair prospect to the Brahmans 
of whicli they were not slow to take advantage. They 
gathered round them their followers, while their opponents, 
who represented in certain respects the national party, did 
the same. This movement seems to have been originally 
ever interfere, if it should not appear to be necessary for the peace of the 
country. It appears that marriages celebrated by Gurus of the plaintiffs 
own sect have been for a long period at least admitted by a very great body 
(if not perhaps by the whole) of them, and at all events are now by them 
acknowledged to be good and proper and valid, and according to their inter- 
pretation of the Sastra perfectly conformable thereto. No other sects there- 
fore have any right to interfere, especially a sect (namely that of the defend- 
ants or Smarta Brahmins) which the plaintiffs do not acknowledge to be 
superior to them ; for the plaintiffs' rejection of them (the defendants, the 
Smarta Brahmins) as their spiritual guides or Gurus is what the defendants 
themselves acknowledge that any Hindu is at liberty to do. Thousands 
among themselves (the Smarta Brahmins) have of late years left them and 
from being Siva bhaktars have become Vishnu bhaktars, and have conse- 
quently chosen the Gurus of another sect to be their Gurus. Had the 
plaintiffs introduced ever so many innovations into their ceremonies (which 
they do not appear to have done), as they do not admit that the defendants 
have any more concern with them (the plaintiffs) than they (the plaintiffs) 
have -with the defendants (Brahmins), the latter had no business to go near 
them on the occasion of the celebration of their marriage. They (the 
defendants) have no right to force themselves as Purohitas upon any tribe 
who do not acknowledge them, as their superiors, and Purohitas. In the 
opinion of the Courts the plaintiffs were, and are, fully entitled to perform 
(the marriage in question or any other) their religious ceremonies in such 
a manner as the tribe to which they belong may from time to time establish 
to be the rule and form of their caste, and it is so decreed accordingly . . . 
Given under my hand and the seal of the Court this twenty-eighth day of 
June in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty. 
(Signed) Joseph Dacre, 
Judge. ^' 
In 1843 a similar case was tried in Salem before a Brahman, N. Krish- 
namacharyulu ... A Faticalan, Ramalingachari, for claiming certain rights, 
had been insulted and severely beaten by some persons, and his sacred thread 
had also been torn to pieces. The defendants pleaded that Ramalingachari, 
as belonging to the Goldsmith caste (or Kamsalajdti in Tclugu) had no right to 
study the Vsda and to undertake any Praya§citta, or any other religious cere- 
