Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/49

 Chaf. I.] FORMATION OF NEW CASTES. 13

to him, by whom can he be divested?" This interminable bondage, however, ad. —

lias happily passed away, and the modern Sudra is no longer a slave. If in ser- vice, his master, even thoucrh a Brahmin, must pay him stipulated wages, and Condition of if he prefers a different mode of life other occupations are open to him. He improved in

_, ^ modern

may engage in agriculture, which seems to be regarded as his appropriate call- times. ing; if of a more martial temper he becomes a soldier; even intellectual em- plo3Tiient is no longer beyond his reach, and individuals of his class, known by the name of Cayets, have long been successful rivals of the Brahmins in all kinds of business requiring the use of the pen.

Though the number of original castes was only fom", it was impossible in the natural course of things that others should not be formed by intermarriages or less legitimate connections. The arrangements made for maintaining purity of descent, how minute soever they might be, could not provide for every imagin- able case, and therefore even from the very first concessions were made, from which a mixture of castes necessarily followed. A Brahmin could only have the introduction daughter of a Brahmin for his first wife, but he might choose to have a second. In that case a greater latitude was allowed, and a selection from either of the two next classes was held to be legitimate. In like manner a Cshatriya might • marry a Vaisya, and a Vaisya a Sudra ; but in these cases the offspring did not take the full rank of the father, but were held to be degraded to a middle rank between that of both parents. In regard to females the prohibitions were more rigid, for a woman could never marry beneath her own rank, and a low man making " love to a damsel of high birth" was to be punished corporally. StiU, however severe the penalty, inclination and passion would often disregard it, and thus while even from legitimate connections degraded races were produced, others in almost endless variety resulted from connections which the law refused to recognize. "A Brahmin," says Menu, "if he takes a Sudi'a to his bed, sinks to the regions of torment ;" and a Brahmini or female Brahmin cohabiting with a Sudra could give birth only to Chandalas, stigmatized as "the lowest of mortals." Such connections, however, were in fact formed, and childi-en were produced, who, in their turn, became the parents of " very many despicable and abject races, even more foul than their begetters."

The variety of castes originating in these and similar connections has in caste now course of time been almost indefinitely multiplied. At first difference of caste with profes served only to indicate difference of race; but now, though this object is not trades!"' overlooked, the great purpose which it serves is to regulate the kind of emplo}"- ment which each individual is destined to follow. To every caste a particular occupation is exclusively assigned; and thus, all trades and professions being regarded as hereditary, are transmitted without inten*uption from father to son in the same tribes or families. It is hence easy to see that the number of castes being as unlimited as that of the modes of employment, an enumeration of them is as difficult as it would be superfluous. Mr. Ward, speaking only of those of