[7] Life and Essays of H.T. Colebrooke, i. p. 104.
[8] History of India.
[9] “The crudities and cruelties of the caste system need not blind us to its other aspects. There is no doubt that it is the main cause of the fundamental stability and contentment by which Indian society has been braced up for centuries against the shocks of politics and the cataclysms of Nature. It provides every man with his place, his career, his occupation, his circle of friends. It makes him, at the outset, a member of a corporate body: it protects him through life from the canker of social jealousy and unfulfilled aspirations; it ensures him companionship and a sense of community with others in like case with himself. The caste organization is to the Hindu his club, his trade union, his benefit society, his philanthropic society. An Indian without caste, as things stand at present, is not quite easy to imagine.” (Sidney Low, Vision of India, 1906, ch. xv. p. 263).
[10] Muir’s Sanskrit Texts, vol. i. (1868).
[11] Ideen, i. 610.
[12] The idea of a conquering white race is strangely repeated in the later history of India. The Rajputs and Brahmans are succeeded by the Mussulmans, the Turks, the Afghans. There was an aristocracy of colour under the Mogul dynasty. But under an Indian climate it could not last many generations. The Brahmans of southern India were as black as the lowest castes; the Chandalas are said to be descended from Brahmans. According to Manu the Chandala must not dwell within town; his sole wealth must be dogs and asses; his clothes must consist of the mantles of deceased persons; his dishes must be broken pots. Surely this vituperative description must apply to an aboriginal race.
[13] Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Band i. (quoted by Muir, ubi supra).
[14] De Origine Castarum (Göttingen).
[15] History of India, vol. i. (1867-1871).
[16] For a characteristic appreciation of caste see Comte, Cours de philosophic positive, vi. c. 8. He regards the hereditary transmission of functions under the rule of a sacerdotal class as a necessary and universal stage of social progress, greatly modified by war and colonization. The morality of caste was, he contends, an improvement on what preceded; but its permanence was impossible, because “the political rule of intelligence is hostile to human progress.” The seclusion of women and the preservation of industrial inventions were features of caste; and the higher priests were also magistrates, philosophers, artists, engineers, and physicians.