Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 2.djvu/51

 Chap. I.l ItESULTS OF CASTE. 15

institution of caste among the Hindu nations as the happiest effort of their a.d —

legislation ; and I am well convinced that if the people of India never sunk into a state of barbarism, and if, when almost all Asia was plunged in that AUeged

. favourable

dreary gulf, India kept up her head, preserved and extended the sciences, the results of arts, and civilization, it is wholly to the distinction of castes that she is indebted '^ ^ for that high celebrity."' Again, " I have found out no cause that can have prevented the Hindus from falling into the barbarous state in which all the nations bordering on them, as well as most others that are spread over the globe under the torrid zone remain, unless it be the division into castes, which, by assigning to every individual in the state his profession and employment, by perpetuating the system from father to son, from generation to generation, prevents the possibility of any member of the state or his descendants giving up the condition or pursuit which the law has assigned him for any other."" In this extravagant eulogy most readers will recognize the prejudices of the church to which Dubois belonged, and in which uniformity and perpetuity are too apt to be mistaken for perfection and infallibility. Mr. Ward, the Pro- testant missionary, spoke more wisely when he said, " The institution of the caste, Denied, so far from having contributed to the happiness of society, has been one of its greatest scourges. It is the formation of artificial orders, independently of merit or demerit, dooming nine-tenths of the people, before birth, to a state of mental and bodily degradation, in which they are for ever shut out from all the learning and honours of the country."^

It is impossible to believe that those doomed by the misfortune of their birth to the lowest castes can be satisfied with their social position, and yet it must be confessed that even in their estimation the loss of caste is the greatest calamity The loss of

caste.

that could befall them. By every individual, high and low, the very idea of becoming an outcast is regarded with horror. It amounts in fact to civil death, and not unfrequently where the loss of caste has been incurred, actual death, by suicide, has been resorted to as a relief from the frightful consequences. Were the penalty inflicted as the pmiishment of crime, it might liave operated as a kind of security for good behaviour, but unfortunately in the great majority of cases it is not crime that is thus punished, but acts perfectly innocent in themselves ; acts, too, done, it may be, not of express design but unintentionally, through mere inadvertence, or perhaps through sheer necessity. " What," asks Mr. Ward, " is the crime for which a person forfeits his caste, and becomes an exile and an outcast for ever? Perhaps he has been found eating with a virtuous friend ; or he has married the woman of his choice ; or he has resided m other countries on business, and has been compelled by the nature of his situation to eat food not cooked by persons of his o"svn caste. For these, or

' Dubois, Description of the Character, Planners, and Customs of India, 4to, page 14.

- Ibid, page 15.

^ Ward, Account of the Writings, Religion, and Manners of the Hindoos, Serampore, 4to, vol ii. p. 125,