Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/203

Rh theless found it necessary, when his king touched him, to wash from head to foot. Alexander the Great found no castes in the Punjab, but Megasthenes has left an account of the ryots and tradesmen, the military order and the gymnosophists (including the Buddhist Germanes) whom he found in the country of the Ganges. From his use of the word gymnosophist it is probable that Megasthenes confounded the Brahmans with the hermits or fakeers ; and this explains his statement that any Hindu might become a Brahman. Megasthenes spent some time at the court of Sandracottus, a contemporary of Seleucus Nicator. All the later Greeks follow his statement and concur in enumerating seven Indian castes, sophists, agriculturists, herdsmen, artisans, warriors, inspectors, councillors. On the revival of Brahmanism it was found that the second and third castes had disappeared, and that the field was now occupied by the Brahmans, the Sudras, and a host of mixed castes, sprung from the original twelve, Unooloom and Pruteeloom, left-hand and right-hand, which were formed by the crossing of the four original castes. Manu himself gives a list of these impure castes, and the Ayeen Akberi (1556-1605) makes the positive statement that there were then 500 tribes bearing the name of Kshatriya, while the real caste no longer existed. Most of these sub divisions are really trade-organizations, many of them living in village-communities, which trace descent from a pure caste. Thus in Bengal there are the Vaidya or Baidya, the physicians, who, Manu says, originated in the marriage of a Brahman father and a Vaisya mother. In Mysore alone Major Puckle reports that there are 110 different castes : and the varieties of custom in the Deccan are well brought out in the book of Mr Steele, to which we have already referred. As Colebrooke said, Brahmans and Sudras enter into all trades, but Brahmans (who are profoundly ignorant even of their own scriptures) have succeeded in maintaining their monopoly of Vedic learning, which really means a superficial acquaintance with the Puranas and Manu. Though they have succeeded in excluding others from sacred employment, only a portion of the caste are actually engaged in religious ceremonies, in sacred study, or even in religious begging. Many are privates in the army, many water-carriers, many domestic servants. And they have like other castes many sub-divisions which prevent intimate association and intermarriage. The ideal Brahman is gone. Instead of a priest &quot; with his hair and beard clipped, his passions subdued, his mantle white, his body pure, golden rings in his ear,&quot; you have a mean, selfish, often extremely dirty, person, whose remaining power lies in extortion by dishonesty. But the hold which caste has on the Hindu minds may, perhaps, be most clearly seen in the history of the Christian missions and in comparatively recent times. The Jesuits Xavier and Fra dei Nobili did everything but become Brahmans in order to convert the South of India, they put on a dress of cavy or yellow colour, they made frequent ablutions, they lived on vegetables and milk, they put on their foreheads the sandal-wood paste used by the Brahmans, and Gregory XV. published a bull sanctioning caste regulations in the Christian churches of India. The Danish mission of Tranquebar, the German mission of the heroic Schwarz, whose headquarters were Tanjore, also permitted caste to be retained by their followers. Even the priests of Buddha, whose life was a protest against caste, re-erected the system in the island of Ceylon, where the radis or radias were reduced to much the same state as the Pariahs. At the present day the progress of Protestant missions amounts almost to nothing. In Dr Mullen s report down to 1871 the whole force of 579 English missionaries, 323 native ordained ministers, and 1993 other native preachers had produced a native Christian community of only 280,600. There was pro bably a mueh larger Roman Catholic population in the south of India about the middle of the 18th century. It is still the general law that to constitute a good marriage the parties must belong to the same caste, but to unconnected families. Undoubtedly, however, the three higher castes were always permitted to intermarry with the caste next below their own, the issue taking the lower caste or sometimes forming a new class. A Sudra need not marry a wife of the same caste or sect as himself. So recently as 1871 it was decided by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that a marriage between a Zemindar of the Malavar class, a sub-division of the Sudra caste, with a woman of the Vellala class of Sudras is lawful. Generally also a woman may not marry beneath her own caste. The feeling is not so strong against a man marry ing even in the lowest caste, for Manu permits the son of a Brahman and a Sudra mother to raise his family to the highest caste in the seventh generation. The illegitimacy resulting from an invalid marriage does not render incapable of caste ; at least it does not so disqualify the lawful children of the bastard. On a forfeiture of caste by either spouse intercourse ceases between the spouses : if the out-caste be a sonless woman, she is accounted dead, and funeral rites are performed for her ; if she have a son, he is bound to maintain her. It is remarkable that the professional concubinage of the dancing-girl does not involve degradation, if it be with a person of the same caste. This suggests that whatever may be the function of caste, it is not a safe guardian of public morality. The rules as to prohibited degrees in marriage used to be very strict, but they are now relaxed. An act of 1856 legalized re-marriage by widows in all the castes, with a conditional forfeiture of the deceased husband s estate, unless the husband has expressly sanctioned the second marriage. The recent Marriage Act was directed against the iniquitous child marriages ; it requires a minimum age. In many ways the theoretical inferiority of the Sudra absolves him from the restraints which the letter of the law lays on the higher castes. Thus, a Sudra may adopt a daughter s or sister s son, though this is contrary to the general rule that the adopter should be able to marry the mother of the adopted person. The rule requiring the person adopted to be of the same caste and gotra or family as the adopter is also dispensed with in the case of Sudras. In fact, it is only a married person whom a Sudra may not adopt. As regards inheritance the Sudra does not come off so well in competi tion with the other castes. &quot; The sons of a Brahamana in the several tribes have four shares or three or two or one ; the children of a Kshatriya have three portions or two or one ; and those of a Vaisya take two parts or one.&quot; This refers to the case permitted by law, and not unknown in practice, of a Brahman having four wives of different castes, a Kshatriya three, and so on. But all sons of inferior caste are excluded from property coming by gift to the father ; and a Sudra son is also excluded from land acquired by purchase. It must be recollected, however, that under an Act of 1850, loss of caste no longer affects the capacity to inherit or to be adopted. In cases of succession ab intestato on failure of the preceptor, pupil, and fellow- student (heirs called by the Hindu law after relatives), a priest, or any Brahman, may succeed. Where a Sudra is the only son of a Brahman, the Sapinda, or next of kin, would take two- thirds of the inheritance ; where he is the only son of any 