Page:The tribes and castes of the Central Provinces of India (IA tribescastesofce01russ).pdf/38

8 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON CASTE PART some extent a distinct social organism, which retained until quite recently many remnants of primitive custom. The middle basin of the Mahanadi to the cast of Chhattisgarh, comprising the Sambalpur District and adjoining States, was peopled by Uriyas from Orissa, and though this area has now been restored to its parent proviiec, notices of its principal castes have been included in these volumes. Finally, the population contains a large element of the primitive or enon-Aryan tribes, rich in variety, who have retired before the pressure of Hindu cultivators to its extensive hills and forests. The people of the Central Provinces may therefore not unjustly be considered as a microcosm of a great part of India, and conclusions drawn from a consideration of their caste rules and status may claim with considerable probability of success to be applicable to those of the Hindus generally. For the same reason the standard ethnological works of other Provinces necessarily rank as the best authorities on the castes of the Central Provinces, and this fact may explain and excuse the copious resort which has been made to them in these volumes.

The word ‘Caste, Dr. Wilson states,’ is not of Indian origin, but is derived from the Portuguese caste, signifying race, mould or quality. The Indian word for caste is ja? or Jjati, which has the original meaning of birth or. production of a child, and hence denotes good birth or lineage, respectability and rank. (/at/a means well-born. Thus j@ now signifies a caste, as every Hindu is born into a caste, and his caste determines his social position through life.

The two main ideas denoted by a caste are a community or persons following a common occupation, and a community whose members marry only among themselves. <A third distinctive feature is that the members of a caste do not as a rule eat with outsiders with the exception of other Hindu castes of a much higher social position than their own. None of these will, however, serve as a definition of a caste. In a number of castes the majority of members have abandoned their traditional occupation and taken to others, Less than a fifth of the Brahmans of the Central Provinces are performing any priestly or religious functions, and

1 Jniian Custe, p. 12.