Page:The history of caste in India.pdf/39

 Caste and tribe.— When a wild tribe of India got itself adopted into Hindu society by becoming endogamous and by accepting Brahmins as its priests and by worshipping Hindu gods, then it became a caste. When the tribe is in process of transition the rule of endogamy is very lax.

Caste and occupation.— To-day a man can take to any occupation without changing his caste. The only exceptions are that nobody of a good caste would like to take to the occupation of shoemaker or scavenger, and no man who is not born a Brahmin would be accepted as a priest in the community.

I have used this expression so as to include not only the principles on which precedence is based, and which are observed by Hindu society when questions of caste are decided, but also the axioms which are regarded as true. In this chapter I shall try to state those principles and to explain them if necessary, but shall refrain from any comment or criticism.

Hindus believe that all men in the world are divided into four castes: Brāhmanas (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (common people), and Shûdras (servants). The precedence of these castes is in the order of enumeration. All other castes are produced by intermarriage either with pure or the mixed. These differences in the castes are innate and can not be obliterated or concealed.

If there are any tribes or communities or nations like the old Greeks and English people where caste is not found, it is because those people neglected the rules of