Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/280

 CASTE IN THE AGE OF LAWS AND PHILOSOPHY

N trying to reduce the caste-system into a code of rigid rules, the Sutrakaras of the period met with difficulty from the very first. They firmly believed that there were originally but four castes among men, Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras; but they actually found around them various other castes, formed by tribes of non-Aryans, who had gradually entered into the Hindu fold and formed low Hindu castes. Believing that all mankind was originally divided into only four castes, the Sutrakaras tried to evolve the new castes from the four parent castes. The fiction was then conceived that the new castes were formed by intermarriages among the parent castes. Thus Vasishtha, from whom other Sanskrit authorities vary but in detail, says:—

"The offspring of a Sudra and a Brahman woman becomes a Chandala.

"That of a Sudra and Kshatriya woman, a Vaina.

"That of a Sudra and Vaisya woman, an Antyavasayi.

"The son begotten by a Vaisya on a Brahman woman becomes a Bamaka. Rh