Page:The history of caste in India.pdf/28

 observance of that method. That method becomes advisable only when the proportion of facts which a writer may incorporate in the work without going into demonstration is sufficiently large. Unfortunately such is not the case. The number of positive misconceptions on the subject among the general readers as well as among scholars is great, and controversies are inevitable at every step. Moreover, caste is an institution extremely complex, having component elements with a long history. From the standpoints of both convenience to the writer and justice to the subject those elements deserve independent treatment. There are also questions like the relation of Buddhism to caste, which are important in the eyes of the public and demand laborious research and special treatment. Again, works like Mānava dharma-shāstra, or the so-called Laws of Manu, claim our special attention, not only because they give us some important data for the study of the period in which they were written, but also because they represent the attitude of an important class toward the question of caste.

Under these conditions I find it advisable to write different monographs treating different topics. Each of these works would still represent a certain definite period in the history of caste. One of them would illustrate the rise of the priesthood, and it would represent more or less the Vedic period. The work on Buddhism would represent a period posterior to the Vedic but prior to that period which produced the Laws of Manu. The study of the Laws of Manu which I am now presenting to the public represents the conditions in the valley of the Ganges during the third century A. D. The work