Page:The history of caste in India.pdf/120

 even a very slight superiority over their neighbors. To-day in India a number of castes are called Shūdras by the Brāhmanas, but these castes are by no means on the same level. Among Shūdras themselves the various castes are very variously rated as high or low or intermediate. The lower castes try to adopt manners (āchāra) of the higher castes, and thus they would raise their heads above others and disown any sort of connection with their former brothers. Such phenomena are seen to-day and probably were seen in the time of our writer. Our writer has made mention of pretenders to a higher caste more than once and commended the imitation of higher castes very highly (x, 127). Again, it seems improbable that the tribes which followed occupations that are characteristic of low civilization, the races which may have been once dominant, the peoples engaged in more or less skilled occupations, and peoples differing from each other in cleanliness and