Page:The history of caste in India.pdf/44

 The theory of purity and pollution would require a whole volume to treat at length; but what I have already said will enable the reader to understand the justice of some of the rules which can be inferred, in order to understand the status of the caste. The rules are as follows:

(a) Where a certain caste cannot eat food cooked by another caste, while the latter permits food to be eaten which was cooked by the first caste, then the first caste is superior to the second.

(b) If a Brahmin or other high-caste Hindu keeps more connection with one caste than another, then the former is superior to the latter. For example:

(c) The amount of pollution that a caste carries with it makes the caste low or high. If a caste pollutes some substances, but not the rest, that caste is better than one which pollutes all substances. All three classes of castes stated under (b) are clean castes, which do not pollute water; but below them are castes who pollute water, and below them there are the following castes in the descending order of status: