Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/108

78 When the Hindu revivalists began their task of reformation, they found the original caste-system shattered by the indiscriminate union of men and women. Society was in a thoroughly disorganised state. The children born of couples who came from different castes, were not owned by either of the original castes. The new builders of society classified them, and admitted them into the new order, allotting to each a fixed status in society. This accounts for the origin of so many sub-castes in India. They came into existence by the breaking of marriage rules.

Hindu society, after admitting this heterogeneous population, shut its portals against newcomers, and no breach of the hard-and-fast rules of marriage now enforced, was again to be tolerated. Regarding indiscriminate food, which had been taken in utter disregard of rules of health, minute details were now settled. But the vices to which human nature tends, cannot be checked by codes of law. A high ideal of spiritual life set before the people, keeps them in the right direction in these matters, and our society busied itself only in framing rules for the direction of the details of daily life. These rules hold their sway till now. If a person openly avows Jesus Christ to be the son of God, or Mahomet to be the only prophet of God, Hindu society will not war against him. Our toleration goes so far. But there are hundreds of petty rules in regard to eating—especially cooked foods the infringement of any one of which will render him liable to be excommunicated from society or make him undergo severe penances. Marriage rules again have been made so severe, that