Page:Myths of the Hindus & Buddhists.djvu/29

Vālmīki's Ideal Society discipline of a higher Colour, is what the present writer would also desire. Transference of caste, or the acquiring of Colour, is continually going on even now, by the absorption of aboriginal tribes into the Hindu system; but stories like those of Vishvāmitra illustrate the immense theoretical difficulty of such promotions. Against this extreme exclusiveness many protests have arisen in India, the most notable being that of Buddha, who, so far from accepting the divine right of a Brāhman by birth, taught that—

Not by birth does one become a Brāhman: By his actions alone one becomes a Brāhman.

The strength of the hereditary principle has always prevailed against such reactions, and the most that reformers have actually accomplished is to create new caste groups.

Vālmīki's Ideal Society

Let us now examine very briefly the nature of Vālmīki's ideal society. From the first we are impressed with its complexity and with the high degree of differentiation of the interdependent parts of which it is constituted. It is founded on the conception of gradation of rank, but that rank is dependent, not upon wealth, but upon mental qualities only. The doctrine of reincarnation is taken for granted; and the conception of karma (that the fruit of actions bears inevitable fruit in another life) being combined with this, the theory logically followed that rank must be determined solely by heredity. He who deserved to be born as a Brāhman was born as a Brāhman, and he who deserved to be born as a Shūdra was born as a Shūdra.

This is the theory which finds practical expression in the caste system, or, as it is known to Indians, the system of "Colour" (varna), in modern vernacular, "birth" (jāti). Fundamentally, there are four Colours: Brāhmans, the 9