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Extracted from:
 
''' THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA  '''
 
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
 
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
 
PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF HIS MAJESTY'S
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL
 
OXFORD
 
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
 
1909
 
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

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== The data of ethology==
THE modern science of ethnology endeavours to define and The data of 
classify the various physical types with reference to their ethnology, 
distinctive characteristics, in the hope that, when sufficient 
data have been accumulated, it may be possible in some 
measure to account for the types themselves, to determine the 
elements of which they are composed, and thus to establish 
their connexion with one or other of the great families of 
mankind. In India, where historical evidence can hardly be 
said to exist, the data ordinarily available are of three 
kinds : physical characters, linguistic characters, and religious 
and social usages. Of these the first are by far the most trust- 
worthy. 
==Physical characters==
For ethnological purposes, physical characters may be said Indefinite 
to be of two kinds : * indefinite/ which can only be described 
in more or less appropriate language ; and c definite/ which 
admit of being measured and reduced to numerical expression. 
The former class, usually called descriptive or secondary 
characters, includes such points as the colour and texture of the 
skin ; the colour, form, and position of the eyes ; the colour and 
character of the hair ; and the form of the face and features. 
Conspicuous as these traits are, the difficulty of observing, 
defining, and recording them is extreme. Colour, the most 
striking of all, is perhaps the most evasive. 

The skin of the Indian peoples exhibits extreme divergences Colour of 
of colouring. At one end of the scale we have the dead black 
of the Andamanese, and the somewhat brighter black of the 
Dravidians of Southern India. At the other end one may 
place the flushed ivory of the traditional Kashmiri beauty, and 
the very light transparent brown * wheat-coloured ' is the 
common vernacular description of the higher castes of 
Northern India, which is hardly darker than that met with in 

1 This chapter has been abridged, with the assistance of the author, from 
the chapter on 'Caste, Tribe and Race' contributed by Mr. H. H. Kisley, 
C.S.L, C.I.E., to the Re fort on (he Census of India, 1901. members of the swarthier races of Southern Europe. Between 
these extremes we find countless shades of brown, darker or 
lighter, transparent or opaque, frequently tending towards 
yellow, more rarely approaching a reddish tint, and occasionally 
degenerating into a sort of greyish black. 

It would be a hope- 
less task to register and classify these variations. Nor, if it 
were done, should we be in a position to evolve order out of 
the chaos of tints. For even in the individual, minute grada- 
tions of colour are comparatively unstable, and are liable to be 
affected not only by exposure to sun and wind, but by differ- 
ences of temperature and humidity. Natives of Bengal have 
stated that people of their race, one of the darkest in India, 
become appreciably fairer when domiciled in Hindustan or the 
Punjab, and the converse process may be observed in natives 
of Northern India living in the damp heat of the Ganges delta.
 
==Hair and Eyes==
Hair and Little variety is traceable in the character of the eyes and 
c>eSi hair. From one end of India to the other the hair of the great mass of the population is black or dark brown, while among 
the higher castes the latter colour is occasionally shot through 
by something approaching a tawny shade. Straight hair seems 
on the whole to predominate, but the wavy or curly character 
appears in much the same proportion as among the races of 
Europe. The Andamanese have woolly or frizzly hair, oval 
in section and curling on itself so tightly that it seems to grow 
in separate spiral tufts, while in fact it is quite evenly distri- 
buted over the scalp. 

Although the terms woolly and frizzly 
have been loosely applied to the wavy hair not uncommon 
among the Dravidians, no good observer has as yet found 
among any of the Indian races a head that could be correctly 
described as woolly. The eyes are almost invariably dark 
browrt Occasional instances of grey eyes are, however, found 
among the Konkanasth Brahmans of Bombay; and the com- 
bination of blue eyes, auburn hair, and reddish blonde 
complexion is met with on the north-western frontier. On the 
Malabar coast Mr. Thurston has noticed several instances of 
pale blue and grey eyes combined with a dark complexion. 

==Definite physical characters,Carniometry and anthropometry==
Definite When we turn to the definite, or anthropometric, characters, 

physical we fj n( j ourse lvcs upon firmer ground. In the early days of 
characters. . r . ? . . / , 

Cranio metry - anthropology, it was natural that the attention of students 

and should have been directed mainly to the examination of skulls. 

metryT" aniometry seemed to offer a solution of the problems regard- 
ing the origin and antiquity of the human race which then 
divided the scientific world. Its precise method promised to 
clear up the mystery of the prehistoric skulls discovered in the 
quaternary strata of Europe, and to connect them on the one 
side with a possible simian ancestor of mankind, and on the 
other with the races of the present day. 

This line of research 
led on to the measurements of living subjects, which have 
since been undertaken by a number of inquirers. Anthropo- 
metry, which deals with living people, while craniometry is 
concerned exclusively with skulls, possesses certain advantages 
over the elder science. For reasons too technical to enter 
upon here, its procedure is in some respects less precise, and 
its results less minute and exhaustive, than those of cranio- 
metry. These minor shortcomings are, however, amply made 
up for by its incomparably wider range. 

The number of subjects 
available is practically unlimited; measurements can be under- 
taken on a scale large enough to eliminate not merely the 
personal equation of the measurer, but also the occasional 
variations of type arising from intermixture of blood ; and the 
investigation is not restricted to the characters of the head, 
but extends to the stature and the proportions of the limbs. 
A further advantage arises from the fact that no doubts can 
arise as to the identity of the individuals measured. In work- 
ing with skulls this last point has to be reckoned with. The 
same place of sepulture may have been used in succession by 
two different races ; and tne skulls of conquering chiefs may 
be mixed with those of alien slaves, or of prisoners slain to 
escort their captors to the world of the dead. The savage 
practice of head-hunting may equally bring about a deplorable 
confusion of cranial types ; skulls picked up in times of famine 
may belong to people who have wandered from no one knows 
where ; and even hospital specimens may lose their identity 
in the process of cleaning. 

==Anthropometry in india==
Scientific anthropometry was introduced into India on a Anthropo- 
large scale in 1886, in connexion with the Ethnographic? 1 ^ 111 
Survey of Bengal then in progress. The survey itself was a 
first attempt to apply to Indian ethnography the method of 
systematic research sanctioned by the authority of European 
anthropologists. Among these the measurement of physical 
characters occupies a prominent place ; and it seemed that the 
restrictions on intermarriage which are peculiar to the Indian 
social system would favour this method of observation, and 
would enable it to yield peculiarly clear and instructive results. 

A further reason for resorting to anthropometry was the fact 
that the wholesale borrowing of customs and ceremonies which 
goes on among the various social groups in India makes it 
practically impossible to arrive at any certain conclusions by 
examining these practices. Finally, the necessity of employing 
more precise methods was accentuated by Mr. Nesfield's l un- 
compromising denial of the truth of 'the modern doctrine 
which divides the population of India into Aryan and aborigi- 
nal'; and his assertion of the essential unity of the Indian 
race, enforced as it was by the specific statements that ' the 
great majority of Brahmans are not of lighter complexion, or 
of finer and better bred features, than any other caste/ and 
that a stranger walking through the class-rooms of the 
Sanskrit College at Benares ' would never dream of supposing ' 
that the high caste students of that exclusive institution ' were 
distinct in race and blood from the scavengers who swept the 
roads/ A theory which departed so widely from the current 
beliefs of the people, and from the opinions of most indepen- 
dent observers, called for the searching test which anthropo- 
metry promised to furnish, and the case was crucial enough to 
put the method itself on its trial. The experiment has been 
justified by its results. 

==The data now available ==
The data In 1890 Mr. H. H. Risley published in the Journal of rite now avail- Anthropological Institute*, under the title 'The Study of 
Ethnology in India,' a summary of the measurements of eighty- 
nine characteristic tribes and castes of Bengal, the United 
Provinces, and the Punjab. These measurements were taken 
in accordance with a scheme approved by the late Sir William 
Flower of the British Museum and Professor Topinard of 
Paris. Topinard's instruments were used and his instructions 
were closely followed throughout. Analysis of the data rendered 
it possible to distinguish, in the area covered by the experiment, 
three main types, which were named provisionally Aryan, 
Dravidian, and Mongoloid. The characteristics of these types 
will be discussed below. Here it is sufficient to remark that 
the classification was accepted by Flower, Beddoe, and Haddon 
in England; by Topinard in France; and by Virchow, Schmidt, 
and Kollmann in Germany. 

It has recently been confirmed 
by the high authority of Sir William Turner, who has been led 
by the examination of a large number of skulls to the same 
conclusions that were suggested to Mr. Risley by measurements 
taken on living subjects. Similar confirmation is furnished by 
the craniometric researches of Colonel Havelock Charles in 
the Punjab. Great additions have been made to the number 
of measurements on living subjects by the exertions of 

1 Nesfield's Brief View of the Caste System of the North-Western 
Provinces and Oudh. 
==Condition favourable to anthropometery in india==
Mr. Edgar Thurston, Superintendent of Ethnography, Madras ; 
by Mr. T. H. Holland, Director of the Geological Survey of 
India, who has contributed important data for the Coorgs and 
Yeravas of Southern India, and the Kanets of Kulu and 
Lahul ; by Messrs. K. B. Samanta and B. A. Gupte, who have 
carried out under Mr. Risley's instructions an extensive series 
of measurements in Baluchistan, Rajputana, Bombay, and 
Orissa ; and by Colonel Waddell, of the Indian Medical 
Service, who has published some most valuable data for Assam 
and parts of Bengal in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of 
Bengal 1 . 

It must be added that the conclusions based on 
these investigations are necessarily provisional, and will be of 
use mainly as a guide to research and as an indication of the 
progress made up to date (1905) in this line of inquiry. During 
the next few years the data will be greatly added to by the 
Ethnographic Survey of India still in progress, and we may 
then hope to make some approach to a final classification of 
the people of India on the basis of their physical characters. 

It is easy enough to distinguish certain well-marked physical Conditions 

types. Our difficulties begin when we attempt to carry the pro- favourable 
to anthropometrycess farther, and to differentiate the minor types or sub-types pometry ia 
which have been formed by varying degrees of intermixture. India. 
The extremes of the series are sharply defined; but the inter- 
mediate types melt into each other, and it is hard to say where 
the dividing line should be drawn. Here measurements are of 
great assistance, especially if they are arranged in a series so as 
to bring out the relative preponderance of certain characters in 
a large number of the members of particular groups. We are 
further assisted by the remarkable correspondence that may be 
observed at the present day, in all parts of India except the 
Punjab, between variations of physical type and differences of 
grouping and social position. 

This, of course, is due to the 
operation of the caste system. Nowhere else in the world do 
we find the population of a large sub-continent broken up into 
an infinite number of mutually exclusive aggregates, the mem- 
bers of which are forbidden by an inexorable social law to marry 
outside the group to which they themselves belong. Whatever 
may have been the origin and the earlier developments of caste, 
this absolute prohibition of mixed marriages stands forth now 
as its essential and most prominent characteristic. In a society 
thus organized, a society putting an extravagant value on pride 
of blood and the idea of ceremonial purity, differences of phy- 
sical type, however produced in the first instance, may be ex- 
 
===Measure- ment of head=== 

Measure- ment of head form. Its value as a test of race. pected to manifest a high degree of persistence, while methods 
which seek to trace and express such differences find a pecu- 
liarly favourable field for their operations. In this respect 
India presents a remarkable contrast to most other parts of the 
world, where anthropometry has to confess itself hindered, if 
not baffled, by the constant intermixture of types, obscuring 
and confusing the data ascertained by measurements. 

All the 
recognized nations of Europe are the result of a process of un- 
restricted crossing, which has fused a number of distinct tribal 
types into a more or less definable national type. In India the 
process of fusion was long ago arrested, and the degree of 
progress which it had made up to the point at which it ceased 
to operate is expressed in the physical characteristics of the 
groups which have been left behind. There is consequently 
no national type, and no nation in the ordinary sense of the 
word. 

The measurements themselves require a few words of ex- 
planation. The form of the head is ascertained by measuring 
in a horizontal plane the greatest length from a definite point 
on the forehead (the glabella) to the back of the head, and the 
greatest breadth a little above the ears. The proportion of the 
breadth to the length is then expressed as a percentage called 
the cephalic index. Heads with a proportionate breadth of 
80 per cent, and over are classed as broad or brachy-cephalic ; 
those with an index under 80, but not under 75, are called 
medium heads (meso- or mesati-cephalic) ; long or dolicho- 
cephalic heads are those in which the ratio of breadth to length 
is below 75 per cent. 

It is not contended that these groupings correspond to the 
primary divisions of mankind. Long, broad, and medium heads 
are met with in varying degrees of preponderance among the 
white, black, and yellow races. But within these primary divi- 
sions the proportions of the head serve to mark off important 
groups. Topinard shows how the form expressed by the index 
separates the long-headed Scandinavian people from the broad- 
headed Celts and Slavs, while the Esquimaux are distinguished 
on similar grounds from the Asiatic Mongols, and the Austra- 
lians from the Negritos. 

All authorities agree in regarding 
the form of the head as an extremely constant and persistent 
character, which resists the influence of climate and physical 
surroundings, and (having nothing to do with the personal ap- 
pearance of the individual) is not liable to be modified by the 
action of artificial selection. Men choose their wives mainly 
for their faces and figures, and a long-headed woman offers no 
greater attractions of external form and colouring than her 
short-headed sister. The intermixture of races with different 
head-forms will of course affect the index, but even here there 
is a tendency to revert to the original type when the influence 
of crossing is withdrawn. On the whole, therefore, the form of 
the head, especially when combined with other characters, is a 
good test of racial affinity. It may be added that neither the 
shape nor the size of the head seems to bear any direct relation 
to intellectual capacity. 

Compared with the rest of Asia, India may be described as Head-form 
mainly an area of long-headed people, separated by the Hima layas india. and its offshoots from the Mongolian country, where the 
broad-headed types are more numerous and more pronounced 
than anywhere else in the world. At either end of the moun- 
tain barrier broad heads are strongly represented, in Assam and 
Burma on the east, and in Baluchistan on the west; and the 
same character occurs in varying degrees in the Lower Hima- 
layas, and in a belt of country on the west of India, extending 
from Gujarat through the Deccan to Coorg, the precise limits 
of which it is not yet possible to define. 

In the Punjab, Raj- 
putana, and the United Provinces long heads predominate, but 
the type gradually changes as we travel eastward. In Bihar 
medium heads prevail on the whole, while in certain of the 
Bengal groups a distinct tendency towards brachy-cephaly may 
be observed, which shows itself in the Muhammadans and 
Chandals of Eastern Bengal, is more distinctly marked in the 
Kayasths, and reaches its maximum development among the 
Bengal Brahmans. South of the Vindhyas the prevalent type 
seems to be mainly long-headed or medium-headed, short heads 
appearing only in the western zone referred to above. The 
coast population has been much affected by foreign influence 
Malayan or Indo-Chinese on the east ; Arab, Persian, African, 
European, and Jewish on the west ; and the mixed types thus 
produced cannot be brought under any general formula. 

The proportions of the nose are determined on the same Measure- 
principle as those of the skull. The height and the breadth mentofthe 
arc measured from certain specified points, and the latter di- 
mension is expressed as a percentage of the former. The nasal 
index, therefore, is simply the relation of the breadth of the 
nose to its height. If a man's nose is as broad as it is high, 
no infrequent case among the Dravidians, his index is 100. 
The results thus obtained are grouped in three classes nar- 
row or fine noses (leptorrhine), in which the width is less than 
70 per cent, of the height ; medium noses (mesorrhine), with an

===Measurement of the nose===
index of from 70 to 85 ; and broad noses (platyrrhine), in which 
the proportion rises to 85 per cent, and over. Where races 
with different nasal proportions have intermingled, the index 
marks the degree of crossing that has taken place; it records 
a large range of variations ; and it enables us to group types in 
a serial order corresponding to that suggested by other charac- 
ters. For these reasons the nasal index is accepted by all 
anthropologists as one of the best tests of racial affinity. 

The nasal Speaking generally, it may be said that the broad type of 
index in nose j s most CO mrnon in Madras, the Central Provinces, and 
Chota Nagpur; that fine noses in the strict sense of the term 
are confined to the Punjab and Baluchistan; and that the 
population of the rest of India tends to fall within the medium 
class. But the range of the index is very great : it varies in 
individual cases from 122 to 53, and the mean indices of dif- 
ferent groups differ considerably in the same part of the coun- 
try. The average nasal proportions of the Mai Paharia tribe 
of Bengal are expressed by the figure 94-5, while the pastoral 
Gujars of the Punjab have an index of 66-9 and the Sikhs of 
68-8. In other words, the typical Dravidian, as represented 
by the Mai Paharia, has a nose as broad in proportion to* its 
length as the Negro, while this feature in the Indo-Aryan group 
can fairly bear comparison with the noses of sixty-eight Par 
isians, measured by Topinard, which gave an average of 69.4.
 
Even more striking is the curiously close correspondence be- 
tween the gradations of racial type indicated by the nasal index 
and certain of the social data ascertained by independent 
Its corre- inquiry. If we take a series of castes in Bengal, Bih;1r, the 
suondence Urrited Provinces, or Madras, and arrange them in the order of 
with .social it groupings, the average nasal index, so that the caste with the finest nose 
shall be at the top and that with the coarsest nose at the bot- 
tom of the list, it will be found that this order substantially 
corresponds with the accepted order of social precedence. 

Nor is this the only point in which the two sets of observa- 
tions, the social and the physical, bear out and illustrate each 
other. The character of the curious matrimonial groupings for 
which the late Mr. J. F. Mclx?nnan devised the useful term 
exogamous also varies in a definite relation to the gradations 
of physical type. Within a certain range of nasal proportions, 
these subdivisions are based almost exclusively on the totem. 
Along with a somewhat finer form of nose, groups called after 
villages and larger territorial areas, or bearing the name of cer- 
tain tribal or communal officials, begin to appear; and above 
these again we reach the eponymous saints and heroes who in 
India, as in Greece and Rome, are associated with a certain 
stage of Aryan progress. 

The comparative flatness of the Mongolian face is a pecu- Theorbito- 
liarity which cannot fail to strike the most casual observer. ? a * al % 
On closer examination this characteristic will be seen to be test of 
closely connected with the formation of the cheek-bones, the Mongolian 
margins of the bony sockets of the eyes, and the root of the 
nose. No precise measurements can be made of the cheek- 
bones on the living subject, for it is impossible to fix any 
definite points from which the dimensions can be taken. 

Some years ago, however, Mr. Oldfield Thomas devised a 
method of measuring the relative projection of the root of the 
nose above the level of the eye-sockets, which expresses very 
accurately the degree of flatness of face met with in different 
types. It was used by him for skulls ; but it has the great 
advantage of being equally applicable to living persons, and, 
at Sir William Flower's suggestion, it has been extensively used 
in India, especially among hill tribes and wherever there was 
reason to suspect an intermixture of Mongolian blood. 

The 
procedure adopted is to mark a point on the front surface of 
the outer edge of each orbit, and a third point on the centre 
of the root of the nose where it is lowest. The distance 
between the two orbital dots is then measured in a direct line, 
and also the distance from each of these to the dot on the 
bridge of the nose. The former dimension represents the base 
of a triangle, the latter its two sides. The index is formed by 
calculating the percentage of the latter breadth on the former. 
If, as is sometimes the case, the bridge of the nose is let down 
so low that it does not project at all beyond the level of the 
orbits, tha two dimensions will obviously be of equal length 
and the index will be 100. If, on the other hand, the elevation 
of the bridge of the nose is marked, the index may be as high 
as 127 or 130. Experience gained in India, which extends 
to a large number of castes and tribes in all parts of the 
country, has led Mr. Risley to adopt, on the indices thus 
obtained, the following grouping for the living subject: 

Platyopic ..... below no, 

Mosopic no to 112. 9. 

Pro-opic 1 13 and over. 

This brings the Mongoloid people of Assam and the Eastern 
Himalayas within the platyopic group, and effectually differen- 
tiates them from the broad-headed races of Baluchistan, 
Bombay, and Coorg. It also separates the Indo Aryans from 
the Aryo-Dravidians. 

==The nasal index Data==
 
Stature in Topinard's classification of stature, which is generally ac- 
k aro F* . cepted, comprises four groups whose height in feet and inches 
is as below : 

Tall statures . . 5' 7" and over. 

Above average . . between 5' sf f and 5' 7". 

Below average between 5' 3" and 5' 5". 

Short statures less than 5' 3". 

Much has been written on the subject of the causes which 
affect the stature. The general conclusion seems to be that 
in Europe the influence of race is to a great extent obscured 
by other factors, such as climate, soil, elevation, food-supply, 
habits of life, occupation, and natural or artificial selection. 
Most of these causes also come into play in India, but not 
necessarily to the same extent as in Europe. The influence 
of city life, which in civilized countries tends to reduce the 
stature and to produce physical degeneracy, is relatively small 
in India, where the great majority of the population are en- 
gaged in agriculture. Nor are the conditions of factory indus- 
tries so trying, or so likely to affect growth, as in Europe.
 
Some of the indigenous hand-loom weavers, however, show 
the lowest mean stature yet recorded, a fact which is probably 
due to the unwholesome conditions in which they live. In 
India, as in Europe, dwellers in the hills are generally shorter 
than the people of the plains ; and within the hill region it 
may in both countries be observed that the stature is often 
greater at high than at moderate altitudes, a fact which has 
been ascribed to the influence of rigorous climate in killing off 
all but vigorous individuals. In India, too, the prevalence of 
malaria at the lower levels would probably tend to bring about 
the same result. On the whole, however, the distribution of 
stature in India seems to suggest that race differences play 
a larger part here than they do in Europe. 

The tallest 
statures are found in Baluchistan, the Punjab, and Kajputana ; 
and a progressive decline may be traced down the valley of 
the Ganges, until the lowest limit is reached among the Mongo- 
loid people of the hills bordering on Assam. In the south of 
India the stature is generally lower than in the plains of the 
north. The minimum is found among the Negritos of the 
Andaman islands, whose mean stature is given by Dcniker as 
4 feet io| inches. 
==The seven main physical types  of India==
The seven The physical data above discussed enable us to divide the 

main phy- people of the Indian Empire into seven main physical types. 

of India. If we include the Andamanese, the number of types would be 

eight, but for our present purpose this tiny group of Negritos may 
be disregarded. Counting from the north-western frontier, the 
main types are as follows : 

I. The Turko- Iranian, represented by the Baloch, Brahui, 
and Afghans of Baluchistan and the North-west Frontier 
Province. Probably formed by a fusion of Turkl and Persian 
elements, in which the former predominate. Stature above 
mean; complexion fair; eyes mostly dark, but occasionally 
grey ; hair on face plentiful ; head broad ; nose moderately 
narrow, prominent, and very long. The feature in these 
people that strikes one most prominently is the portentous 
length of their noses, and it is probably this peculiarity that 
has given rise to the tradition of the Jewish origin of the 
Afghans. 

=== Limitation of the type scheme===
II. The Indo-Aryan, occupying the Punjab, Rajputana, and 
Kashmir, and having as its characteristic members the Rajputs, 
Khattris, and Jcats. This type, which is readily distinguishable 
from the Turko-Iranian, approaches most closely to that 
ascribed to the traditional Aryan colonists of India. The 
stature is mostly tall; complexion fair; eyes dark; hair on 
face plentiful; head long; nose narrow and prominent, but not 
specially long. 

The most important points to observe in the Indo-Aryan 
measurements are the great uniformity of type, and the very 
slight differences between the higher and the lower groups. 
Socially no gulf can be wider than that which divides the 
Rajput of Udaipur from the scavenging Chuhra of the Punjab. 
Physically the one is cast in much the same mould as the 
other; and the difference in mean height which the seriations 
disclose is no greater than might easily be accounted for by 
the fact that, in respect of food, occupation, and habits of life, 
the Rajput has for many generations enjoyed advantages 
denied to the Chuhr3L Stature we know to be peculiarly 
sensitive to external influences of this kind. Other and more 
subtle influences react upon environment and tend to modify 
the type : thus Sikhism has transformed the despised Chuhra 
into the soldierly Mazhabi.
 
===The Dravidian  type===
III. The Scytho-Dravidian, comprising the MarnthS Brah- 
mans, the Kunbls, and the Coorgs of Western India. Probably 
formed by a mixture of Scythian and Dravidian elements. 
This type is clearly distinguished from the Turko-Iranian by 
a lower stature, a greater length of head, a higher nasal index, 
a shorter nose, and a lower orbito-nasal index. All of these 
characters, except perhaps the last, may be due to a varying 
degree of intermixture with the Dravidians. In the higher 
groups the amount of crossing seems to have been slight ; in 
the lower the Dravidian elements are more pronounced. 

IV. The Aryo-Dravidian y or Hindustani, found in the 
United Provinces, in parts of Rnjputana, and in Bihar, and 
represented in its upper strata by the Hindustani Brahman and 
in its lower by the Chamar. Probably the result of the inter- 
mixture, in varying proportions, of the Indo-Aryan and 
Dravidian types. The head-form is long, with a tendency 
to medium ; the complexion varies from lightish brown to 
black ; the nose ranges from medium to broad, being always 
broader than among the Indo-Aryans ; the stature is lower 
than in the latter group, and usually below the average accord- 
ing to the scale given on p. 292. The higher representatives 
of this type approach the Indo-Aryans, while the lower members 
are in many respects not very far removed from the Dravidians. 

==The indo Aryan type==
The type is essentially a mixed one, yet its characteristics are 
readily definable, and no one would take even an upper-class 
Hindustani for a pure Indo-Aryan, or a Chamar for a genuine 
Dravidian. The distinctive feature of the type, the character 
which gives the real clue to its origin and stamps the Aryo- 
Dravidian as racially different from the Indo-Aryan, is to be 
found in the proportions of the nose. The average index runs 
in an unbroken series from 73-0 in the Bhuinhar of Hindustan, 
and 73-2 in the Brahman of Bihar, to 86 in the Hindustani 
Chamar and 88-7 in the Musahar of Bihar. The order thus 
established corresponds substantially with the scale of social 
precedence independently ascertained, 

=== its non origin===
V. The Mongols Dravidian or Bengali type of Lower 
Bengal and Orissa, comprising the Bengal Brahmans and 
Kayasths, the Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal, and other 
groups peculiar to this part of India. Probably a blend of 
Dravidian and Mongoloid elements, with a strain of Indo- 
Aryan blood in the higher groups. The head is broad ; com- 
plexion dark ; hair on face usually plentiful ; stature medium ; 
nose medium, with a tendency to broad. 
===Mood of its entry into india===
This is one of the most distinctive types in India, and its 
members may be recognized at a glance throughout the wide 
area where their remarkable aptitude for clerical pursuits has 
procured them employment. Within its own habitat the type 
extends to the Himalayas on the north and to Assam on the 
east, and probably includes the bulk of the population of Orissa; 
the western limit coincides approximately with the hilly country 
of Chota Ndgpur and Western Bengal. The broad head of 
the Bengali, of which the mean index varies from 79-0 in the 
BrShman to 83*0 in the Rajbansi Magh, effectually differentiates 
the type from the Indo-Aryan or Aryo-Dravidian. 


The seria- 
tion of the cephalic index for the Brahmans of Eastern Bengal 
is very regular in its gradations, and it presents a striking 
contrast with the corresponding diagrams for the Hindustani 
Brahmans and the Rajput. Here, as elsewhere, the inferences 
as to racial affinity suggested by the measurements are in entire 
accord with the evidence afforded by features and general 
appearance. For example, it is a matter of common know- 
ledge that the Rajbansi Magh of Chittagong, who is in great 
demand as a cook in European households in India, resembles 
the upper-class Bengali of Eastern Bengal so closely that it 
takes an acute observer to tell the difference between the two. 
In the Brahman seriation the finer nasal forms predominate; 
and it is open to any one to argue that, notwithstanding the 
uncompromising breadth of the head, the nose-form may in 
their case be due to the remote strain of Indo-Aryan ancestry 
to which their traditions bear witness. 

VI. The Mongoloid type of the Himalayas, Nepal, Assam, 
anil Burma, represented by the Kanets of Lahul and KulQ; 
the Lepchas of Darjeeling and Sikkim ; the Li m bus, Murmls, 
and (iiirungs of Nepal: the Bodo of Assam; and the Burmese. 
The head is broad; complexion dark, with a yellowish tinge; hair 
on face scanty ; stature short or below average ; nose fine to 
broad ; face characteristically flat ; eyelids often oblique. 

On its northern and eastern frontier India marches with 
the great Mongolian region of the earth, and a glance at the 
ethnographic map in the Gazetteer Atlas will show how the 
Indian area on which this particular foreign influence has 
impressed itself widens gradually from west to east. The 
Punjab and Hindustan are left virtually untouched ; the 
Bengalis exhibit a type sensibly modified in the direction of 
Mongolian characters; the Assamese are unmistakably Mon- 
goloid; and in Burma the only non-Mongolian elements are 
the result of recent immigration from India. 

This condition of 
things is of course mainly due to the intervention of the great 
physical barrier of the Himalayas, which obstructed the south- 
ward extension of the Mongolian races. But other causes also 
enter in. No one who is acquainted with the population of 
the Lower Himalayas can have failed to observe that in the 
west there has been a substantial intermixture of Indo-Aryan 
elements, while in the east the prevailing type down to the 
verge of the plains is exclusively Mongoloid. The reason 
seems to be that the warlike races of the Punjab and Hindustan 
invaded the pleasant places of the hills, and conquered for 
themselves the little kingdoms which once extended from the 
Kashmir valley to the eastern border of Nepal. 

The hill 
Rajputs of Kangra and the Khas of Nepal form the living 
records of these forgotten enterprises. Farther east the con- 
ditions were reversed. Neither Bengalis nor Assamese have 
any stomach for fighting; they submitted tamely to the 
periodical raids of the hill people ; and the only check upon 
the incursions of the latter was their inability to stand the heat 
of the plains. They occupied, however, the whole of the 
lower ranges, and held the Duars, or gates, of Bhutan until 
dispossessed by us. Thus, in the Eastern Himalayas none of 
the plains people made good a footing within the hills, which 
remain to this day in the exclusive possession of races of the 
Mongoloid type. 

VII. The Dravidian type, extending from Ceylon to the valley 
of the Ganges, and pervading Madras, Hyderabad, the Central 
Provinces, most of Central India, and Chota Nagpur. Its 
most characteristic representatives are the Paniyans of Malabar 
and the Santals of Chota Nagpur. Probably the original type 
of the population of India, now modified to a varying extent 
by the admixture of Aryan, Scythian, and Mongoloid elements. 
In typical specimens the stature is short or below mean ; the 
complexion very dark, approaching black ; hair plentiful, with 
an occasional tendency to curl; ejes dark; head long; nose 
very broad, sometimes depressed at the root, but not so as to 
make the face appear flat. 

This race, the most primitive of 
the Indian types, occupies the oldest geological formation in 
India, the medley of forest-clad ranges, terraced plateaux, and 
undulating plains which stretches, roughly speaking, from the 
Vindhyas to Cape Comorin. On the east and west of the 
peninsular area the domain of the Dravidian is conterminous 
with the Ghats, while farther north it reaches on one side to 
the Aravallis, and on the other to the Rajmahal Hills. 

Where 
the original characteristics have been unchanged by contact 
with Indo- Aryan or Mongoloid people, the type is remarkably 
uniform and distinctive. Labour is the birthright of the pure 
whether hoeing tea in Assam, the Du5rs, or Ceylon, 
cutting rice in the swamps of Eastern Bengal, or doing 
scavenger's work in the streets of Calcutta, Rangoon, and 
Singapore, he is recognizable at a glance by his black skin, 
his squat figure, and the negro-like proportions of his nose. 
In the upper strata of the vast social deposit which is here 
treated as Dravidian these typical characteristics tend to thin 
out and disappear, but even among them traces of the original 
stock survive in varying degrees. 

It must, however, be clearly understood that the areas Limita- 
occupied by these various types do not admit of being defined JJ^ 
as sharply as they must be shown on an ethnographic map. scheme. 
They melt into each other insensibly ; and, although at the 
close of a day's journey from one ethnic tract to another, an 
observer whose attention had been directed to the subject 
would realize clearly enough that the physical characteristics 
of the peoplp had undergone an appreciable change, he would 
certainly be unable to say at what particular stage in his 
progress the transformation had taken place. Secondly, it 
must not be imagined that any type is alleged to be in 
exclusive possession of the locality to which it is assigned.
 
When, for example, Madras is described as a Dravidian and 
Bengal as a Mongolo-Dravidian tract, this does not mean that 
all the people of Madras or Bengal must of necessity belong 
to the predominant type. From time immemorial in India 
a stream of movement has been setting from west to east and 
from north to south, a tendency impelling the higher types 
towards the territories occupied by the lower. In the course 
of this movement representatives of the Indo-Aryan type have 
spread themselves all over India, as conquerors, traders, land- 
owners, or priests, preserving their original characteristics in 
varying degrees, and receiving a measure of social recognition 
dependent in the main on the supposed purity of their descent 
from the original immigrants. 

Family and caste traditions 
record countless instances of such incursions, and in many 
cases the tradition is confirmed by the concurrent testimony 
of historical documents and physical characteristics. Even in 
the Provinces farthest removed from the Indo-Aryan settle- 
ments in North western India, members of the upper castes 
are still readily distinguishable by their features and complexion 
from the mass of the population, and their claims to represent 
a different race are thrown into relief by the definition now 
for the first time attempted of the predominant type of the 
Province. 

Thirdly, it may be said that the names assigned 
to the types beg the highly speculative question of the elements 
which have contributed to their formation. The criticism is 
unanswerable. But we must have some distinctive names for 
our types ; names based solely on physical characters are 
practically mere bundles of formulae ; and if hypotheses of 
origin are worth constructing at all, one should not shrink 
from expressing them in their most telling form. The origins 
of these types are hidden in the mist which veils the remote 
era of the Aryan advance into India. Our only guides are 
tradition and conjecture, aided by the assumption, which the 
history of the East warrants us in making, that in those distant 
ages types were formed by much the same processes as those 
that we find in operation to-day. 

==The Dravidians  tribes ==
The Dravidians probably constitute the oldest of the seven 
types. Their low stature, black skin, long heads, broad noses, and relatively long forearm distinguish them from the rest of 
the population of India, and appear at first sight to confirm 
Huxley's surmise that they may be related to the aborigines of 
Australia. Linguistic affinities, especially the resemblance 
between the numerals in Mundari and in certain Australian 
dialects, and the survival of some abortive forms of the 
boomerang in Southern India, have been cited in support 
of this view ; and an appeal has also been made to Sclater's 
hypothesis of a submerged continent of Lemuria, extending 
from Madagascar to the Malay Archipelago, and linking India 
with Africa on the one side and with Australia on the other.
 
But Sir William Turner's comparative study of the characters 
of Australian and Dravidian crania has not led him to the 
conclusion that these data can be adduced in support of the 
theory of the unity of the two peoples. The facts which cast 
doubt on the Australian affinities of the Dravidians likewise 
refute the hasty opinion which seeks to associate them with 
the tiny, broad-headed, and woolly-haired Negritos of the 
Andamans and the Philippines. This is the last word of 
scientific authority; and here we might leave the subject, 
were it not that another theory of the origin of the Dravidians 
was adopted by Sir William Hunter in the account of the non- 
Aryan races of India given by him in The Indian Empire. 

According to this view there are two branches of the Dravi- 
dians the Kolarians, speaking dialects allied to Mundari, and 
the Dravidians proper, whose languages belong to the Tamil 
family. The former entered India from the north-east and 
occupied the northern portion of the Vindhya table-land. 
There they were conquered and split into fragments by the 
main body of Dravidians, who found their way into the 
Punjab through the north-western passes and pressed forward 
towards the south of India. The basis of this theory is 
obscure. Its account of the Dravidians proper seems to rest 
upon a supposed affinity between the Bnihui dialect of 
Baluchistan and the languages of Southern India, while the 
hypothesis of the north-eastern origin of the Kolarians depends 
on the fancied recognition of Mongolian characteristics among 
the people of Chota Nagpur. But in the first place the dis- 
tinction between Kolarians and Dravidians is purely linguistic, 
and does not correspond to any differences of physical type.

 
Secondly, it is extremely improbable that a large body of very 
black and conspicuously long-headed types should have come 
from the one region of the earth which is peopled exclusively 
by races with broad heads and yellow complexions. With this 
we may dismiss the theory which assigns a trans-Himalayan 
origin to the Dravidians. Taking them as we find them now, 
it may safely be said that their present geographical distribu- 
tion, the marked uniformity of physical characters among the 
more primitive members of the group, their animistic religion, 
their distinctive languages, their stone monuments, and their 
retention of a primitive system of totemism justify us in regard- 
ing them as the earliest inhabitants of India of whom we have 
any knowledge. 

===The  indo -Aryan  type===
Upon the interminable discussions known as the Aryan The Tndo- 
controversy there is no need to enter here. Whether anything Aryan 
that can properly be described as an Aryan race ever existed ; 
whether the heads of its members were long, according to 
Penka, or short, according to Sergi ; whether its original habitat 
was Scandinavia, the Lithuanian steppe, South-east Russia, 
Central Asia, or India itself, as various authorities have held ; 
or again, whether the term Aryan is anything more than a philo- 
logical expression denoting a heterogeneous group of peoples 
whose languages belong to the Aryan family of speech these 
are questions which may for our present purpose be left 
unanswered. 

We are concerned merely with the fact that 
there now exists in the Punjab and Rajputana a definite 
physical type, represented by the Jats and Rajputs, which is 
marked by a relatively long (dolicho-cephalic) head ; a straight, 
finely cut (Icptorrhine) nose ; a long, symmetrically narrow 
face ; a well-developed forehead ; regular features ; and a high 
facial angle. The stature is tall, and the general build of the 
figure is well proportioned, being relatively massive in the Jats 
and slender in the Rajputs. 

Throughout the group the pre- 
dominant colour of the skin is a very light transparent brown, 
with a tendency towards darker shades in the lower social 
strata. Except among the Meos and Mlnas of Rajputana, 
where a strain of Bhil blood may perhaps be discerned, the 
type shows no signs of having been modified by contact with the 
Dravidians ; its physical characteristics are remarkably uniform ; 
and the geographical conditions of its habitat tend to exclude 
the possibility of intermixture with the black races of the south. 
In respect of their social characters, the Indo-Aryans, as we 
have here called them, are equally distinct from the bulk of the 
Indian people. 

They have not wholly escaped the influence of 
caste ; but its bonds are less rigid here than elsewhere, and the 
social system retains features which recall the more fluid 
organization of the tribe. Marriage in particular is not 
restricted by the hard-and-fast limits which caste tends to 
impose; but is regulated, within large groups, by the principle 
of hypergamy, or * marrying up/ which was supposed to govern 
the connubial relations of the four original classes (varna) in 
the system described by Manu. Even now Rajputs and Ja"ts 
occasionally intermarry, the Rajputs taking wives from the Jats, 
but refusing to give their own maidens in return. What is the 
exception to-day is said to have been the rule in earlier times. 
In short, both social and physical characters are those of a 
comparatively homogeneous community which has been but 
little affected by crossing with alien races. 

===Its non –indian origin===
Its non- The uniformity of the Indo-Aryan type can be accounted for 
Indian on jy ^y one o f two hypotheses that its members were indi- 
genous to the Punjab, or that they entered India in a compact 
body, or in a continuous stream of families, from beyond the 
north-west frontier. It is clear that they cannot have come by 
sea, and equally clear that they could not have found their way 
into India round the eastern end of the Himalayas. The 
theory that the Punjab was the cradle of the Aryan race was 
propounded by a writer in the Royal Asiatic Society ' Journal* 
about fifty years ago, on the basis of some rather crude linguis- 
tic speculations ; but it met with no acceptance, and the 
opinion of European scholars, from Von Schlegel down to the 
present time, is unanimous in favour of the foreign origin of the 
Indo-Aryans. 

The arguments appealed to are mainly philo- 
logical. Vedic literature, indeed, as Zimmer 2 admits, throws 
but scanty light upon the subject, for no great weight can 
be laid upon the identification of the river Bas3. with 
the Araxes, the name by which the Jaxartes was known to 
Herodotus. We may, however, assume for our present purpose 
that the ancestors of the Indo-Aryans came into India from the 
north-west, and that at the time of their arrival the Peninsula, 
as far as the valley of the Ganges and Jumna, was in the 
possession of the Dravidians. The only indication of the 
latter people having extended farther to the west is to be found 
in the survival of Brahui, an island of supposed Dravidian 
speech, among the Iranian languages of Baluchistan. But the 
present speakers of Bnlhui are certainly not Dravidians by race, 
and we find no traces of Dravidian blood among the Indo- 
Aryans of to-day. 

It seems probable, therefore, that when the 
Indo-Aryans entered the Punjab they brought their own women 
with them : on no other supposition can we explain the com- 
parative purity of their type. 
===The mode of its entry into india===
Now if the physical and social conditions of the Indian The mode 

borderland had been the same in those remote ages as we find ? f its entry 
i . . . ,.- , , urto India. 

them at the present day, it is difficult to see how the slow 
advance of family or tribal migration could have proceeded on 
a scale large enough to result in an effective occupation of the 
Punjab. The frontier strip itself, a mere tangle of barren hills 
and narrow valleys, is ill adapted to serve as an vjfficina gentium, 
while a pastoral people, moving by clans or families from more 
favoured regions farther west, would have found their way 
barred by obstacles which only the strongest members of the 
community could have surmounted. 

The women and children 
must have been left behind or they would have perished by the 
way. Again, given the present rainfall and climate of the 
countries adjacent to India, where should we find to-day, 
within a measurable distance of the frontier, the favoured region 
that would give off the swarm of emigrants required to people 
the Punjab ? Surely not in South-eastern Persia, with its 
inhospitable deserts of shifting sand ; nor on the dreary Central 
Asian steppes, where only a scanty nomadic population finds a 
meagre subsistence. But is it certain that, during the three or 
lour thousand years that may have elapsed since the Aryans 
began to press forward into India, the climate of the countries 
through which they passed has not undergone a material 
change ? 

There is a certain amount of evidence in favour of 
this supposition. Mr. W. T. Blanford, writing in 1873*, thought 
it probable that the rainfall in both Central Asia and Persia 
had decreased greatly in modern times ; and that, owing mainly 
to this cause, and in a less degree to the destruction of trees 
and bushes, the climate had become appreciably drier, cultiva- 
tion had fallen off, and the population had greatly declined in 
numbers. Nearly thirty years later, we find Mr. Blanford's 
views confirmed and developed by Mr. E. Vredenburg in his 
geological sketch of the Baluchistan desert and part of Eastern 
Persia \ Mr. Vredenburg applies to the problem the known 

1 Quart. Jour. GeoL Soc. t xxix (1873). 

1 Mem. doL Survey of India, xxxi, part ii. 
principles of physical geography and shows how, given a 
dwindling rainfall in a tract situated like Eastern Persia and 
Baluchistan, evaporation is bound to produce the present 
condition of perennial drought. As the rainfall declines, 
fertile plains relapse into desert ; lakes are transformed into 
salt marshes; the springs in the hills dry up; and an era of 
desolation sets in. In illustration of the state of things which 
must have existed in some former age, Mr. Vredenburg 
tells us how in the desolate valleys of Kharan (Kalat State) 
there exist hundreds of stone walls, known locally sasgabrbands 
or 'dams of the infidel/ which mark the edges of ancient 
terraced fields and retain even now remnants of soil that once 
was cultivated. 

Arguing from what one sees in India, it seems 
likely that these terraced fields represent the overflow of a 
flourishing agricultural community, driven up into the hills by 
the pressure of population in the plains. Gradually, as the 
climate changed, the level alluvial tracts, deprived of rainfall, 
lapsed into desert ; the bulk of the population drifted on into 
the Punjab ; while those who remained behind eked out by 
pillage the meagre livelihood to be won from patches of soil in 
the hills. Last of all, the springs on which this scanty cultiva- 
tion depended shrank and disappeared, till nothing was left 
but the stone walls to recall the labours of the forgotten people 
who built them. 

The picture, which these observations enables us to con- 
struct, of a country of lakes and fertile plains extending from 
the centre of Persia to the western confines of India, may help 
to throw light upon the problem of the Indo- Aryan advance 
into the Punjab. The population of such a tract, as they began 
to press on their own means of subsistence or were pushed 
forward by incursions from the west, would naturally have 
moved on by tribes and families without any disturbance of 
their social order, and would have occupied the valley of the 
Indus. Arriving there as an organized society, like the children 
of Israel when they entered Palestine, they would have had no 
need to take to themselves any Dravidian daughters of Heth, 
and they would have preserved their type as distinct as we find 
it in the Punjab to-day. 

The movement must of course have 
been gradual, and must have extended over many centuries, 
during which time the climate continued to dry up, and the 
possibilities of agriculture to decline. When the new conditions 
had become fully established, the north-western frontier of India 
was closed to the slow advance of family or tribal migration, 
and remained open only to bands of fighting men or adven- 
turous nomads, who could force their way through long zones 
of waterless deserts ending in a maze of robber-haunted hills. 
Armed invasion took the place of peaceful colonization. But 
the invaders, however great their strength, could in any case 
bring few women in their train. This is the determining factor 
both of the ethnology and of the history of India. As each 
wave of conquerors Greek, Scythian, Arab, Afghan, Mughal - 
that entered the country by land became more or less absorbed 
in the indigenous population, their physique changed, their 
individuality vanished, their energy was sapped, and dominion 
passed from their hands into those of more vigorous successors.
 
===Aryo-Dravidians===  
For the origin of the Aryo-Dravidian type, we need not travel The Aryo- 
beyond the ingenious hypothesis put forward by Dr. Hoernle ^?^ 
twenty years ago and confirmed by the recent researches of Hoernle's 
Dr. Grierson's Linguistic Survey. This theory supposes that theory, 
after the first swarm of Indo-Aryans had occupied the Punjab, 
a second wave of Aryan-speaking people, the remote ancestors 
of the Aryo-Dravidians of to-day, impelled by some ethnic 
upheaval, or driven forward by the change of climate in Central 
Asia, made their way into India through Gilgit and Chitral and 
established themselves in the plains of the Ganges and Jumna, 
the sacred Middle-land (Mad/iyadesd) of post-Vedic tradition. 

Here they came in contact with the Dravidians ; here, by the 
stress of that contact, caste was evolved ; here the Vedas were 
composed, and the whole fantastic structure of orthodox ritual 
and usage was built up. The linguistic evidence in favour of 
this view is summarized in Dr. Grierson's chapter on Language 
in the Report on tltc Census of India, 1901. For the present 
purpose it is sufficient to note that the record of physical 
characters bears out the conclusions suggested by philology. 
The type of the people now dwelling in the Middle-land is 
precisely what might have been expected to result from the 
incursion of a fair long-headed race, travelling by a route which 
prevented women from accompanying them, into a land in- 
habited by dark-skinned Dravidians. The men of the stronger 
race took to themselves the women of the weaker, and from 
these unions was evolved the mixed type which we find in 
Hindustan and Bihar. The degree of intermixture necessarily 
varied : at one end of the scale the type approaches the Indo* 
Aryan, at the other it almost merges in the Dravidian. 

It may be said that the theory of a second wave of Aryans, 
resting as it does on the somewhat uncertain data of philology, 
is not really required for the purpose of explaining the facts.
 
Why should we not content ourselves by assuming that the 
original Indo-Aryans outgrew their settlements on the Indus, 
and threw off swarms of emigrants who passed down the 
Ganges valley, modifying their type as they went by alliances 
with the Dravidian inhabitants? But on this view of the 
problem it is difficult to account for the marked divergence 
of type that distinguishes the people of the Eastern Punjab 
from those of Western Hindustan. 

If there had been no 
second and distinct incursion, coming in like a wedge behind 
the original colonists, no such sharp contrast would now be 
discernible. One type would melt into the other by imper- 
ceptible gradations, and scientific observation and popular 
impressions would not concur, as they do, in affirming that a 
marked change takes place somewhere about the longitude of 
Sirhind. Nor is this the only point in favour of Dr. Hoernle's 
hypothesis. It further explains how it is that the Vedic Hymns 
contain no reference to the route by which the Aryans entered 
India, or to their earlier settlements on the Indus ; and it 
accounts for the antagonism between the eastern and western 
sections, and for the fact that the latter were regarded as 
comparative barbarians by the more cultured inhabitants of 
the Middle-land.
 
===The mongolo – Dravidians===
The Mon- When we leave Bihar and pass eastward into the steamy 
golo-Drav- r i c e-fields of Bengal, the Indo- Aryan element thins out rapidly 
and appears only in a sporadic form. The bulk of the popu- 
lation is Dravidian, modified by a strain of Mongoloid blood 
which is relatively strong in the east and appreciably weaker 
in the west. Even here, however, where the Indo-Aryan factor 
is so small as to be hardly traceable, certain exceptions may 
be noticed. The tradition, cherished by the Brahmans and 
Kayasths of Bengal, that their ancestors came from Kanauj at 
the invitation of King Adisura to introduce Vedic ritual into 
an unhallowed region, is borne out to a substantial degree by 
the measurements of these castes, though even among them 
indications are not wanting of occasional intermixture with 
Dravidians. If, howe\er, the regional type is regarded as a 
whole, the racial features are seen to be comparatively distinct. 
The physical degeneration which has taken place may be due 
to the influence of a relaxing climate and an enfeebling diet, 
and still more perhaps to the practice of marrying immature 
children, the great blot on the social system of the upper 
classes of Bengal. 

===The scythe Dravidians===
Of the foreign elements that have contributed to the making indian peoples two have now been passed in review, 
type. We have seen the Indo-Aryan type maintaining a high degree 
of purity in the Punjab and Rajputana, transformed by an 
increasing admixture of Dravidian blood in Hindustan and 
Bihar, and vanishing beyond recognition in the swamps of 
Lower Bengal. We have found the Mongoloid races pre- 
dominant on ttyz eastern and northern frontiers : confined to 
the hills where the people of the plains were strong; but 
farther east, where they came in contact with feebler folk, 
mixing with the Dravidian element to form the type character- 
istic of the mass of the population of Bengal and Assam. 
A third foreign element still remains to be accounted for.
 
It has long been known, mainly from Chinese sources, 
supplemented by the evidence of coins and the uncertain 
testimony of Indian tradition, that, long after the settlement of 
the Indo-Aryans in the Punjab, successive swarms of nomadic 
people, vaguely designated Sakas or Scythians, forced a way 
into India from the west, and established their dominion 
over portions of the Punjab, Sind, Gujarat, Rajputana, and 
Central India. The impulse which started them on their 
wanderings may be traced in some instances to tribal upheavals 
in far-distant China, while in other cases bands already on 
the move were pushed forward from Central Asia. All these 
peoples came from regions which, so far as we know, have 
from time immemorial been occupied by broad-headed 
races. 

===Historical records of Scythian invasions===
In the time of the Achaemenian kings of Persia, the Scythians, Historical 
who were known to the Chinese as Ssc, occupied the regions T ^ L0 ^ of 
lying between the lower course of the Sillis or Jaxartes and invasion* 
Lake Balkash. The fragments of early Scythian history which of India, 
may be collected from classical writers are supplemented by 
the Chinese annals, which tell us how the Sse, originally located 
in Southern China, occupied Sogdiana and Transoxiana at the 
time of the establishment of the Craeco-Bactrian monarchy. 

Dislodged fronx these regions by the Yueh-chi, who had them- 
selves been put to flight by the Huns, the Sse invaded Bactnana, 
an enterprise in which they were frequently allied with the 
Parthians, To this circumstance, says Ujfalvy, may be due the 
resemblance which exists between*the Scythian coins of India 
and those of the Parthian kings. At a later period the Yueh-chi 
made a further advance and drove the Sse or Sakas out of 
Bactriana, whereupon the latter crossed the Paropamisus and 
took possession of the country called after them Sakastan, 
comprising Segistan, Arachosia, and Drangiana. 


But they 
were left in possession only for a hundred years, for about 
25 B.C. the Yueh-chi disturbed them afresh. A body of Scythians 
then emigrated eastward and founded a kingdom in the western 
portion of the Punjab. The route they followed in their advance 
upon India is uncertain; but to a people of their habits it would 
seem that the march through Baluchistan would have presented 
no serious difficulty. 

The Yueh-chi, afterwards known as the Tokhari, were a 
power in Central Asia and the north-west of India for more 
than five centuries, from 130 B c. The Hindus called them 
Sakas and Turushkas, but their kings seem to have known no 
other dynastic title than that of Kushan. The Chinese annals 
tell us how Kitolo, chief of the Little Kushans, whose name is 
identified with the Kidara of the coins, giving way before the 
incursions of the Ephthalites, crossed the Paropamisus and 
founded, in the year 425 of our era. the kingdom of Gandhara, 
of which, in the time of his son, Peshawar became the capital. 

About the same time, the Kphthahtes or Ye-tha-i-li-to of the 
Chinese annals, driven out of their territory by the Yuan-Yuan, 
started westward and overran in succession Sogdiana, Khwariim 
(Khiva), Bactriana, and finally the north-west portion of India. 
Their movements reached India in the reign of iikanda Gupta 
(452-80) and brought about the disruption of the Gupta 
empire. The Ephthalites were known in India as Huns. 

The 
leader of the invasion of India, who succeeded in snatching 
Gandhara from the Kushans and established his capital at 
Sakala, is called by the Chinese Laelih, and inscriptions enable 
us to identify him with the original I^akhan Uclayaditya of the 
coins. His son Toramana ( 490-5 1 5) took possession of Gujarat, 
Rajputana, and part of the Ganges valley, and in this way 
the Huns acquired a portion of the ancient Gupta kingdom. 
Toramana's successor, Mihirakula (5 15-44), eventually suc- 
cumbed to the combined attack of the Hindu princes of Malwa 
and Magadha. 
Possible These are the historical data. Scanty as they are, they 

origm of serve to establish the fact that, during a lone period of time, 

theScytbo-   

I>rr.vidian swarms of nomadic people, whose outlandish names are 

conveniently summed up in the generic term Scythian, poured 
into India, conquered, and governed. Their coins are now the 
sole memorial of their rule, but their inroads probably began 
centuries before coins were struck or annals compiled. Of the 
jieople themselves all traces seem to have vanished, and the 
student who inquires what has become of them finds nothing 
more tangible than the modern conjecture that they are 
represented by the jts and Rajputs, But the grounds for 
this opinion are of the flimsiest description, and consist mainly 
of the questionable assumption that the people who are called 
Jats or Jats at the present day must have something to do with 
the people who were known to Herodotus as Getae. 


Now apart 
from the fact that resemblances of names are often misleading 
witness the Roman identification of these very Getae with the 
Goths we have good historical reasons for believing that the 
Scythian invaders of India came from a region occupied 
exclusively by broad-headed races and must themselves have 
belonged to that type. They were by all accounts hordes of 
horsemen, short and sturdy of stature, and skilled in the use 
of the bow. In their original homes on the Central Asian 
steppes their manner of life was that of pastoral nomads, and 
their instincts were of the predatory order. 

It seems, there- 
fore, unlikely that their descendants should be found among 
tribes who are essentially of the long-headed t>pe, tall heavy 
men without any natural aptitude for horsemanship, settled 
agriculturists with no traditions of a nomadic and marauding 
past. Still less probable is it that waves of foreign conquerors, 
entering India at a date when the Indo-Aryans had long been 
an organi/ed community, should have been absorbed by them 
so completely as to take rank among their most typical repre- 
sentatives, while the form of their heads, the most persistent 
of racial distinctions, was transformed from the extreme of one 
type to the extreme of another without leaving any trace of 
transitional forms in the process. Such are the contradictions 
which beset the attempt to identify the Scythians with the 
Jats and Rajputs. The only escape scorns to lie in an alter- 
native hypothesis which is suggested by the measurements.
 
These data show that a zone of broad-headed people may still 
be traced southwards, from the region of the Western Punjab 
in which we lose sight of the Scythians, right through the 
Dcccan, till it attains its farthest extension among the Coorgs.
 
Is it not conceivable that this may mark the track of the 
Scythians, who first occupied the great grazing country of 
the Western Punjab, and then, pressed upon by later invaders 
and finding their progress eastwards blocked by the Indo- 
Aryans, turned towards the south, mingled with the Dravidian 
population, and became the ancestors of the Marathas? The 
physical type of the people of this region accords fairly well 
with this theory, while the arguments derived from language 
and religion do not seem to conflict with it.

For, after 
entering India, the Scythians readily adopted an Aryan 
language, written in the Kharosthi character, and accepted 
Buddhism as their religion. Their Prakrit speech would have 
developed into Marathi, while their Buddhistic doctrines would 
have been absorbed in that fusion of magic and metaphysics 
which has resulted in popular Hinduism. On this view the 
wide-ranging forays of the Marathas, their guerilla methods of 
warfare, their unscrupulous dealings with friend and foe, their 
genius for intrigue and their consequent failure to build up an 
enduring dominion, might well be regarded as inherited from 
their Scythian ancestors. 
===Social divisions: the tribes===
Social Up to this point we have been dealing with the racial 
Divisions of the people of India, with ethnology properly so 
called. We now turn to their social divisions, to the ethno- 
graphic data as distinguished from the ethnological. These 
divisions arc either tribes or castes, which in their turn are 
further subdiuded, with reference usually to matrimonial 
considerations. A tribe, as we find it in India, is a collection 
of families, or groups of families, bearing a common name 
which, as a rule, does not denote any specific occupation ; 
generally claiming common descent from a mythical or historical 
ancestor and occasionally from an animal, but in some parts 
of the country held together rather by the obligations of blood- 
feud than by the tradition of kinship; usually speaking the 
same language; and occupying, or claiming to occupy, a 
definite tract of country. A tribe is not necessarily endogamous, 
i.e. it is not an invariable rule that a man of a particular tribe 
must marry a woman of that tribe. 

We may distinguish several kind* of tri!>es in various parts 
of India; and although it cannot be said that each of the 
seven racial types has its own distinctive form of tribe, the 
correspondence between the two sets of groupings is sufficiently 
close to warrant the conjecture that each type was originally 
organized on a characteristic tribal basis, and that where tribes 
have disappeared, their disappearance has been effected by 
caste insensibly absorbing and transforming the tribal divisions 
which it found in posse<sion of particular localities. In 
describing the varieties of tribes we shall therefore follow the 
ethnic types already determined by physical characters. 

===The Dravidian tribe===
The Dravidian tribe exists in its most compact and vigorous 
^ orm amon R t * ie P e pl e f Choti Nagpur. Such a tribe is 
usually divided into a number of exogarnous groups, each of 
which bears the name of an animal or plant common in the 
locality. Usually, also, there is a distinct village organization, 
comprising in its most developed forms a headman with his 
assistant, and a priest, with various acolytes, whose business it 
is to propitiate the undefined powers from whom physical ills 
are to be apprehended. Another remarkable instance of the 
tribal organization of the Dravidians is to be found among the 
Khonds of Orissa, once infamous for the human sacrifices 
which they offered to propitiate the earth goddess, with the 
object of ensuring good crops and immunity from disease and 
accidents. The Khonds are divided into fifty gochis or 
exogamous septs, each of which bears the name of a muta or 
village, believes all its members to be descended from a 
common ancestor, and as a rule dwells in the commune or 
group of villages after which it is called. The Khond gochi 
appears, therefore, to represent the nearest approach that has 
yet been discovered to the local exogamous tribe, believed by 
Mr. McLennan to be the primitive unit of human society. 
===The mongoloid tribe===
The Mongoloid type of tribe, as found in the Naga Hills, The 
is divided, somewhat on the Khond pattern, into a number of M .^ 
kht/s, each of which is in theory an exogamous group of 
blood-relations, dwelling apart in its own territory and moie 
or less at war with the rest of the world. Each khel fortifies 
the locality which it inhabits with a stockade, a deep ditch 
full of bamboo ralthrops, and a craftily devised ladder; and 
raids are constantly made by one upon the other for the 
purpose of capturing wives. So for as our present researches 
have gone, no very clear traces have been found of totemism 
among the Mongoloid races of India ; but the Mongoloid 
people of the Eastern Himalayas and the Chittagong Hills 
have a singular system of exogamous groups based upon real 
or mythical ancestors. 
===The turko Iranian tribes===
Among the Turko-Iranians there seem to be two distinct TheTurko- 
types of tribe. The first comprises tribes based upon kinship, Jr ? nian 
like the Afghan group of tribes known as Pathans, or speakers Afghan 
of the Pashtu language. In theory, says Mr. Hughcs-Buller 1 , 
'an Afghan tribe is constituted from a number of kindred 
groups of agnates. . . . Affiliated with a good many tribes, 
however, are to be found a certain number of alien groups/ 
These are not descended from the common ancestor, and the 
nature of the tie that binds them to the tribe is best expressed 
in a picturesque phrase which describes them as * partners for 
better or worse ' : in other words, active participators in any 
blood-feud that the tribe may have on its hands. Yet such 
is the influence of the idea of kinship upon which the tribe is 
based, that the alien origin of these groups is admitted with 
reluctance, and although for matrimonial purposes they are 

1 Baluchistan Census Report ', 1901. 
looked upon as inferior, the tendency is to merge the fact of 
common vendetta in the fiction of common blood. 

===The baloch and brahui===
The Baloch The second type of Turko-Ininian tribe is based primarily 
and Brahui not U p On agnatic kinship, but upon common good and ill : in 
other words, it is cemented together only by the obligations 
arising from the blood-feud. There is no eponymous ancestor, 
and the tribe itself does not profess to be composed of 
homogeneous elements. In the case of the Marri tribe of 
Baloch, Mr. Hughes-Buller has shown that * Brahuis, Baloch 
from the Punjab, Baloch from other parts of Afghanistan, 
Khetrans, Afghans, Jats, all gained easy admission to the 
tribe. . . . The process is easy to follow : admission to 
participation in common blood feud ; then admission to 
participation in the tribal land ; and lastly admission to kinship 
with the tribe. It was not until after a man or group had 
been given a share of tribal land at the decennial distribution 
that women were given to him or them in marriage. 1 The 
same principles hold good in the rase of the Brahui, who, like 
the Baloch, appear by their history and physique to be of 
Central Asian origin, and whose numbers have been recruited 
from among Afghans, Kurds, Jadgals, Baloch, and other 
elements, all probably belonging to the same ethnic stock.
 
Both Baloch and Brahui possess an elaborate orgam/ation for 
offensive and defensive purposes, based in each rase on the 
principle that the clan, or section, must provide for the service 
of the tribe a number of armed men proportioned to the share 
of the tribal land which it holds. 

None of the numerous tribes comprised under the names 
Afghan, Baloch, or Brahui are strictly endogamous ; and stal- 
wart aliens whose services arc considered worth having are 
admitted into the tribe by the gilt of a wife, or perhaps one 
should rather say the loan, for, in the absence of stipulations 
to the contrary, a woman so given goes back to her own family 
on the death of her husband. Among the Baloch and Brahui, 
however, a distinct tendency towards endogamy results from 
the practice of marrying a woman of the same group if 
possible, a first cousin. 

This seems to be due partly to the 
feeling that a woman's marriage to an outsider deprives the 
tribe of the accession of strength that may accrue to it from 
her offspring ; and partly also, as Mr. Hughes-Buller observes, 
to the belief that * while among animals heredity follows the 
father, among human beings it follows the mother. It is 
argued, therefore, that there is more hope of the stock remain- 
ing pure if a man marries a woman who is nearly related to 
him/ In marked contrast to the Baloch and Brahui, the 
business instincts of the Afghan lead him to regard women as 
a marketable commodity, and under the system of walwar, or 
payment for wives, 'girls are sold to the highest bidder, no 
matter what his social status.' 
===The word caste===
which has obtained such a wide currency in The word 
the literature of sociology, comes from the Portuguese adven- <caste - 
turers who followed Vasco da Gama to the west coast of India. 
The word itself is derived from the Latin castus and implies 
purity of breed. In his article on caste in Ilobson-Jobson, 
Sir Henry Yule quotes a decree of the sacred council of Goa, 
dated 1567, which recites how * the Gentoos divide themselves 
into distinct races or castes (castas] of greater or less dignity, 
holding the Christians as of lower degree, and keep these so 
supcrstitiously that no one of a higher caste can eat or drink 
with those of a lower/ It was natural enough that foreign 
observers should seize upon the superficial aspects of a social 
system which they understood but imperfectly, and should 
have overlooked the essential fact that the regulations affect- 
ing food and drink are comparatively fluid and transitory, 
while those relating to marriage are remarkably stable and 
absolute. 

A caste may be defined as a collection of families or groups Definition 
of families, bearing a common name which usually denotes or ^ casle - 
is associated with a specific occupation ; claiming common 
descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine ; professing 
to follow the same calling; and regarded by those who are 
competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous 
community. A caste is almost invariably endogamous in the 
sense that a member of the large circle denoted by the common 
name may not marry outside that circle ; but within this circle 
there are usually a number of smaller circles, each of which is 
also endogamous. Thus, it is not enough to say that a Brahman 
at the present day cannot marry any woman who is not a Brah- 
man : his wife must also belong to the same endogamous 
division of the Brahman caste. 

All over India at the present moment we can trace the Conversion 

gradual and almost insensible transformation of tribes into ? f tril)es 
** ... into castes. 

castes. i he mam agency at work is fiction, which, in this 

instance, takes the form of the pretence that whatever usage 
prevails to-day has been so from the beginning of time. It 
may be hoped that the Ethnographic Survey now in progress 
will throw much more light upon these singular forms of evolu- 
tion, by which large masses of people surrender a condition of 
comparative freedom, and take in exchange a condition which 
becomes more burdensome in proportion as its status is 
higher. So far as present observation goes, several distinct 
processes are involved in the movement, and these proceed 
independently in different places and at different times : 

(1) The leading men of an aboriginal tribe, having some- 
how got on in the world and become independent landed 
proprietors, manage to enrol themselves in one of the more 
distinguished castes. They usually set up as Rajputs, their 
first step being to start a Brahman priest who invents for 
them a mythical ancestor, supplies them with a family miracle 
connected with the locality where their tribes are settled, 
and discovers that they belong to some hitherto unheard-oi 
clan of the great Rajput community. 

In the earlier stages 
of their advancement they generally find great difficulty in 
getting their daughters married, as they will not take husbands 
from their original tribe and real Rajputs will not condescend 
to alliances with them. But after a generation or two their 
persistency obtains its reward and they intermarry, if not with 
pure Rajputs, at least with a superior order of manufactured 
Rajputs whose promotion into Brahmanical society dates far 
enough back for the steps by which it was gained to have been 
forgotten. Thus a real change of blood may take place, 
while in any case the tribal name is completely lost, and with 
it all possibility of correctly separating this class of people 
from the Hindus of purer blood and of tracing them to any 
particular Dravidian or Mongoloid tribe. They have been 
absorbed in the fullest sense of the word, and henceforth pass 
and are locally accepted as high-class Hindus. All stages of 
the process, family miracle and all, can be illustrated by 
actual instances taken from the leading families in Chota 
Nagpur. 

(2) A number of aborigines, as we may conveniently call 
them, though the term begs an insoluble question, embrace 
the tenets of a Hindu religious sect, losing thereby their tribal 
name and becoming Vaishnavas, Lingayats, Ramayats, or the 
like. Whether there is any mixture of blood or not will 
depend upon local circumstances and the rules of the sect 
regarding intermarriage. Anyhow, the identity of the converts 
as aborigines is usually, though not invariably, lost, and this 
also may, therefore, be regarded as a case of true absorption. 

(3) A whole tribe of aborigines, or a large section of a tribe, 
enrol themselves in the ranks of Hinduism under the style of 
a new caste which, though claiming an origin of remote antiquity, is readily distinguishable by its name from any of the 
standard and recognized castes. Thus the great majority of 
the Koch inhabitants of Jalpaigun, Rangpur, and part of 
Pinajpur now invariably describe themselves as Rajbansis or 
Bhanga Kshattriyas, a designation which enables them to 
represent themselves as an outlying branch of the Kshattriyas 
who fled to North-eastern Bengal in order to escape from the 
wrath of Parasu Rama. They claim descent from Raja 
Dasaratha, father of Rama; they keep Brahmans, imitate the 
Brahmanic rituals in their marriage ceremony, and have begun 
to adopt the Brahmanical system of gotras. In respect of this 
last point they are now in a curious state of transition, as they 
have all hit upon the same gotra (Kasyapa) and thus habitually 
transgress the primary rule of the Brahmanical system, which 
absolutely prohibits marriage within the gotra. But for this 
defect in their connubial arrangements a defect which will 
probably be corrected in course of time as they and their 
priests rise in intelligence there would be nothing in their 
customs to distinguish them from Indo-Aryan Hindus, al- 
though there has been no mixture of blood and they remain 
thoroughly Koch. 

(4) A whole tribe of aborigines, or a section of a tribe, 
become gradually converted to Hinduism without, like the 
Rajbansis, abandoning their tribal designation. This is what 
has happened among the Bhumij of Western Bengal. Here 
a pure Dravidian race have lost their original language and 
now speak only Bengali ; they worship Hindu gods in addition 
to their own (the tendency being to relegate the tribal gods to 
the women), and the more advanced among them employ 
Brahmans as family priests. They still retain a set of totemistic 
exogamous subdivisions, closely resembling those of the Mundas 
and the Santals ; but they are beginning to forget the totems 
which the names of the subdivisions denote, and the names 
themselves will probably soon be abandoned in favour of more 
aristocratic designations. The tribe will then have become 
a caste in the full sense of the word, and will go on stripping 
itself of all customs likely to betray its true descent : the 
physical characteristics of its members will alone survive. With 
their transformation into a caste, the Bhumij will be more 
strictly endogamous than they were as a tribe, and even less 
likely to modify their physical type by intermarriage with other 
races. 

By such processes as these, and by a variety of complex Types of 
social influences whose working cannot be precisely traced, castc * 


(i) Tribal castes. 



(ii) Func- tional castes. 



a Dumber of types or varieties of caste have been formed, 
which admit of being grouped as follows : 

(i) The tribal type, where a tribe like the Bhumij has 
insensibly been converted into a caste, preserving its original 
name and many of its characteristic customs, but modifying 
its animistic practices more and more in the direction of 
orthodox Hinduism, and ordering its manner of life in accord- 
ance with the same model. Numerous instances of this 
process are to be found all over India : it has been at work for 
centuries, and it has even been supposed that the Sudras of 
Indo-Aryan tradition were originally a Dravidian tribe which 
was thus incorporated into the social system of the conquering 
race. We may mention as examples of such transformation 
the Ahlr, Dom, and Dosadh of the United Provinces and 
Bihar ; the Gujar, Jat, Meo, and Rajput of Rajputana and 
the Punjab; the Koli and Mahar of Bombay; the Bagdi, 
Bauri, Chandal (Namasudra), Kaibartta, Pod, and Rajbansi- 
Koch of Bengal ; and, in Madras, the Mai, Nayar, Vellala, 
and Paraiyan (Pariah), of whom the last retain traditions of 
a time when they possessed an independent organization of 
their own and had not been relegated to a low place in the 
Hindu social system. 

(ii) The functional or occupational type of caste is so 
numerous and so widely diffused, and its characteristics are so 
prominent, that community of function is ordinarily regarded 
as the chief factor in the evolution of caste. Almost every 
caste professes to have a traditional occupation, though many 
of its members have abandoned it, and the adoption of new 
occupations, or of changes in the original occupation, may give 
rise to subdivisions of the caste which ultimately develop into' 
castes entirely distinct. Thus among the large castes, the 
Ahirs are by tradition herdsmen ; the Brahmans, priests , 
the Chamars and Muchis, workers in leather ; the Chuhras, 
Bhangis, and Doms, scavengers; the Dosadhs, village watchmen 
and messengers; the Goalas or Golas, milkmen; the Kai- 
barttas and Kewats, fishermen and cultivators ; the Kayasths, 
writers ; the Koiri and Kachhl, market gardeners ; the 
Kumhars, potters ; the Pods, fishermen ; and the Teli and 
Tili, oil-pressers and traders in oil But the proportion of a 
caste that actually follows the traditional occupation may vary 
greatly. 

It is shown in the Bengal Census Report of 1901 
that 80 per cent, of the Ahirs in Bihar are engaged in 
agriculture; that of the Lower Bengal Brahmans only 
17 per cent,, and of the Bihar Brahmans only 8 per cent., 
perform religious functions; that only 8 per cent, of the 
Chamars in Bihar live by working in leather, the remainder 
being cultivators or general labourers; that two-thirds of the 
Kayasths in Bengal are agriculturists ; and that only 35 per cent. 
of the Telis follow their traditional profession. A remarkable 
instance of the formation of a caste on the basis of distinctive 
occupation is supplied by the Garpagari, or hail-averters, in 
the Maratha Districts of the Central Provinces, village servants 
whose duty it is to control the elements and protect the crops 
from the destructive hail-storms which are frequent in that part 
of India. Changes of occupation in their turn, more especially 
among the lower castes, tend, as above mentioned, to bring 
about the formation of separate castes. The Sadgops of 
Bengal have, within recent times, taken to agriculture and 
broken away from the pastoral caste to which they originally 
belonged ; the educated Kaibarttas and Pods are in course 
of separating themselves from their brethren who have not 
learnt English ; the Madhu-napit are barbers who became 
confectioners ; the Chasa-dhobas are washermen who took to 
agriculture. 

(iii) The sectarian type comprises a small number of castes (in) Seo 
which commenced life as religious sects founded by philan- 
thropic enthusiasts who, having evolved some metaphysical 
formula offering a speedier release from the taedium vitae 
which oppresses the East, had further persuaded themselves 
that all men were equal, or at any rate that all believers in 
their teaching ought to be so. As time went on, the practical 
difficulties of realizing this ideal forced themselves upon the 
members of the sect ; they found their company becoming 
unduly mixed ; and they proceeded to reorganize themselves 
on the lines of an ordinary caste. 


A notable instance of this 
tendency to revert to the normal type of Hindu society is to 
be found in the present condition of the Lingayat or Vira Saiva 
caste of Bombay and Southern India, which numbers 2,600,000 
adherents. Founded as a sect in the twelfth century, by a 
reformer who proclaimed the equality of all who received the 
eightfold sacrament ordained by him, and wore on their 
persons the mystic phallus emblematic of the god Siva, the 
Lingayat community had begun, by the close of the seventeenth 
century, to develop endogamous sub-castes based upon the 
social distinctions which their founder had expressly abjured.
 
At the last Census the process of transforming the sect into a 
caste had advanced still farther. In a petition presented to 
the Government of India the members of the Lingayat 
community protested against the 'most offensive and mis- 
chievous order' that all of them should be entered in the 
census papers as belonging to the same caste, and asked that 
they might be recorded as Vira Saiva Brahmans, Kshattriyas, 
Vaisyas, or Sudras, as the case might be. It would be difficult 
to find a better illustration of the essentially particularist 
instinct of the Indian people, of the aversion with which they 
regard the doctrine that all men are equal, and of the 
attraction exercised by the aristocratic scheme of society which 
their ancient traditions enshrine. The legend of the four 
original castes may have no historical foundation, but there 
can be no question as to the spread of its influence or the 
strength of the sentiment which it still inspires. So long, in 
short, as the sectarian instinct confines itself to expressing 
a mere predilection for one god rather than another, or simply 
develops a new cult, however fantastic, which permits men 
to indulge in the luxury of religious eccentricity without 
quitting the narrow circle of their social environment, its 
operations are undisturbed and the sects which it forms may 
flourish and endure. But directly it invades the social sphere 
and seeks to unify and amalgamate groups of theoretically 
different origin, it comes in contact with a force too strong for 
it and has to give way. 

(iv) Castes (iv) Castes formed by crossing. Modern criticism has been 
formed by especially active in its attacks on that portion of the traditional 
crossing.theory which derives the multitude of mixed or inferior castes 
from an intricate series of crosses between members of the 
original four. No one can examine the long lists which purport 
to illustrate the working of this process without being struck 
by much that is absurd and inconsistent. But in India it 
does not necessarily follow that, because the individual 
applications of a principle are ridiculous, the principle itself 
must have no foundation in fact. The last thing that would 
occur to the literary theorists of those times, or to their 
successors the pandits of to-day, would be to go back upon 
actual facts, and to seek by analysis and comparison to work 
out the true stages of evolution. 

They found the a priorimethod simpler and more congenial. Having once got hold 
of a formula, they insisted, like Thales and his contemporaries, 
on making it account for the entire order of things. Thus 
castes which were compact tribes, castes which had been 
developed out of trade corporations, and castes which ex- 
pressed the distinction between fishing and hunting, agriculture 
and handicrafts, were all supposed to have been evolved by 
interbreeding. But the initial principle, though it could not 
be stretched to explain everything, nevertheless enshrines a 
grain of historical fact. It happens that we can still observe 
its workings among a number of Dravidian tribes which, though 
not yet drawn into the vortex of Brahmanism, have been in 
some degree affected by the example of Hindu organization. 


As regards inter-tribal marriages, these seem to be in a stage 
of development through which the Hindus themselves have 
passed. A man may marry a woman of another tribe ; but 
the offspring of such unions do not become members of either 
the paternal or maternal groups, but belong to a distinct 
endogamous aggregate, the name of which often denotes the 
precise cross by which it was started. Among the large tribe 
of Mundas we find, for instance, nine such groups, whose 
names denote descent from intermarriages between Munda 
men and women of other tribes. Illustrations of this sort 
might be multiplied almost indefinitely. The point to be 
observed is that the sub-tribes formed by inter-tribal crossing 
are from an early stage complete endogamous units, and that 
they tend continually to sever their slender connexion with 
the parent group and to stand forth as independent tribes. 

Within the limits of the regular caste system, Mr. Gait 
(Bengal Census Report, 1901) mentions the Shagirdpeshas of 
Bengal as a true caste ' which takes its origin from miscegena- 
tion, and which is still adding to its numbers in the same way. 
Amongst the members of the higher castes of Orissa who do 
not allow widow remarriage, and also amongst the Kayasth 
immigrants from Bengal, it is a common practice to take as 
maid-servants and concubines women belonging to the lower 
clean castes, such as Chasa and Bhandari. The offspring of 
these maid-servants are known as Shagirdpesha (servants). 

They form a regular caste of the usual type, and are divided 
into endogamous groups with reference to the caste of the 
male parent. . . . The caste of the mother makes no 
difference in the rank of the children, but those who can 
count several generations from their original progenitor rank 
higher than those in whose case the stigma of illegitimacy is 
more recent, . . . 


The relationship between the legitimate 
children of a man of good caste and their bastard brothers 
and sisters is recognized, but the latter cannot eat with the 
former.' In spite of its number (about 47,000), this caste is 
said to be of quite recent origin, and it is asserted that it did 
not exist a century and a half ago. An older and more 
instructive illustration, dating possibly from long before the 
Christian era, of the formation of a caste by crossing, is 
furnished by the Khas of Nepal, who appear to be the 
offspring of mixed marriages between Rajput or Brahman 
immigrants and the Mongolian women of the country. 
(V)Na- (v) Castes of the national type. Where there is neither 

nation nor national sentiment, it may seem paradoxical to talk 
about a national type of caste. There exist, however, certain 
groups, usually regarded as castes at the present day, which 
cherish traditions of bygone sovereignty, and seem to preserve 
traces of an organization considerably more elaborate than 
that of an ordinary tribe. The Newars, a mixed people of 
Mongoloid origin, who were the predominant race in Nepal 
proper until the country was conquered and annexed by the 
Gurkha Prithwi Narayan in 1769, may be taken as an illustra- 
tion of such a survival. The group comprises both Hindus 
and Buddhists. The two communities are quite distinct and 
each is divided into an elaborate series of castes. 

If the Marathas can be described as a caste, their history 
and traditions certainly stamp them as a caste of the national 
type. They numbered five million at the 1901 Census: 
3,650,000 in Bombay, 1,100,000 in Hyderabad, 81,000 in 
Madras, 53,000 in Mysore, 61,000 in the Central Provinces 
and Berar, and 34,000 in Central India. According to 
Mr. Enthoven {Bombay Census Report, 1901), the Bombay 
Marathas * may be classified as a tribe with two divisions, 
Maratha and Maratha Kunbi, of which the former are 
hypergamous to the latter, but were not originally distinct. 

It remains to be explained that the Kunbis also consist of two 
divisions: Desh Kunbis, numbering 1,900,000, and Konkani 
Kunbis, of whom there are 350,000 recorded. Intermarriage 
between these divisions is not usual. The barrier, however, 
seems to be purely geographical. It may not withstand the 
altered conditions due to improvements in communications, 
and it is not apparently based on any religious prohibition of 
intermarriages.' The highest class of Marathas is supposed to 
consist of ninety-six families, who profess to be of Rajput 
descent and to represent the Kshattriyas of the traditional 
system. They wear the sacred thread, marry their daughters 
before puberty, and forbid widows to marry again. But their 
claim to kinship with the Rajputs is effectually refuted by the 
anthropometric data now published, and by the survival among 
them tfkuldevaks or totems, such as the sunflower, the kadamba 
tree, the mango, the conch-shell, the peacock's feather, and 
turmeric, which are worshipped at marriages and at the ceremony of dedicating a new house, while their close connexion 
with the Kunbis is attested by the fact that they take Kunbl 
girls as wives, though they do not give their own daughters 
to Kunbl men. A wealthy Kunbl, however, occasionally gains 
promotion to the higher grade and claims brevet rank as 
a Kshattriya. The fact seems to be that these superior families 
represent Kunbis who came to the front under Muhammadan 
rule, or during the decline of the Mughal Empire won for them- 
selves offices or estates, claimed the rank of landed gentry, and 
asserted their dignity by refusing their daughters to their less 
distinguished brethren. 

(vi) Castes formed by migration. If members of a caste (vi) Castes 
leave their original habitat and settle permanently in another 
part of India, they tend to develop into a distinct caste. The 
stages of the process are readily traced. In the first instance 
it is assumed that people who live in foreign parts must of 
necessity eat forbidden food, worship alien gods, and enter 
into relations with strange women. Consequently when they 
wish to take wives from among their own people, they find 
that their social status has been lowered and that they must 
pay for the privilege of marrying within the parent group. 
This luxury grows more and more expensive, and in course 
of time the emigrants marry only among themselves and thus 
become a sub-caste, usually distinguished by a territorial name, 
such as Jaunpuria, Tirhutia, Burendra, and the like. 

A good illustration of the formation of a caste by migration 
is to be found in the traditions of the Nambudri or Namputiri 
Brahmans of Malabar. These Brahmans claim to have come 
to the west coast from various sacred localities in Kathiawar 
and the Northern Deccan. Mr. F. Fawcett describes them as 
'the truest Aryans in Southern India/ and their complexion 
and features seem to lend some support to the tradition which 
assigns to them a foreign origin. Whatever their original 
stock may have been, they are now an entirely separate caste, 
differing from the Brahmans of most other parts of India by 
their tendency to polygamy ; by their rejection of infant mar- 
riage; by their restriction of marriage to the eldest son, the 
other brothers entering into relations with Nayar women ; and 
by the curious custom of ceremonial fishing which forms part 
of the marriage ritual with a certain division of them. Another 
instance of the same process is furnished by the Rarhi Brah- 
mans of Bengal. The current legend is that early in the 
eleventh century A,D., Raja Adisura or Adisvara, finding the 
Brahmans then settled in Bengal too ignorant to perform for him certain Vedic ceremonies, applied to the Raja of Kanauj 
for priests conversant with the sacred ritual of the Aryans. 


In answer to his request there were sent to him five Brahmans 
of Kanauj, who brought with them their wives, their sacred 
fire, and their sacrificial implements, and from these the Rarhi 
Brahmans are descended. Adisura did what the Rajas of 
outlying and unorthodox tracts of country (such as Bengal was 
in the eleventh century) have constantly done since and are 
doing still. A local chief, far removed from the great centres 
of Brahmanical lore, somehow becomes aware of his ceremonial 
shortcomings. He sends for Brahmans, gives them grants of 
land near his own residence, and proceeds at their dictation 
to reform his ways on the model of the devout kings whom 
Brahmanical literature holds up as the ideal for a Raja to 
follow. 

The Brahmans find for him a pedigree of respectable 
antiquity and provide him with a family legend ; and in course 
of time, by dint of money and diplomacy, he succeeds in 
getting himself recognized as a member of the local Rajput 
community. But that does not mean that the real Rajputs 
will acknowledge his pretensions ; nor will the Brahmans who 
have attached themselves to his fortunes retain their status 
among the community from which they have broken off. It 
will be said of them, as is said of the Brahman immigrants into 
Bengal, that they have married local women, eaten forbidden 
food, adopted strange customs, and forgotten the endless 
details of the elaborate ritual which they set forth to teach. 
As priests in partibus infidelium they will be regarded with 
suspicion by the Brahmans of their original stock : they will 
have to pay high for brides from among their own people, and 
eventually will be cut off altogether from the ius connubii. 
When that stage has been reached they will have become to 
all intents and purposes a separate caste, retaining the generic 
name of Brahman, but forming a new species and presenting 
a distinctive type. And this great change will have been 
brought about by the simple fact of their abandoning the 
habitat of their original community. 

Occasionally it may happen that social promotion, rather 
than degradation, results from a change of residence. In 
Chanda, a remote District of the Central Provinces, a number 
of persons returned themselves at the 1901 Census as Barwaiks, 
and it was stated that the Barwaiks were a clan of Rajputs 
from Orissa who had come to Nagpur in the train of the 
Bhonsla Rajas and had taken military service under them. 
Now in Chota Nagpur the Baraiks or Chick-Baraiks are a sul> caste of the Pans, the helot weavers and basketmakers who 
perform a variety of service functions for the organized Drav- 
idian tribes, and used to live in a kind of ghetto in the villages 
of the Khonds, for whom they purveyed children destined for 
human sacrifice. The Census Superintendent observes that 
c though it is possible that the coincidence may be accidental, 
still there seems good reason to fear that it is from these 
humble beginnings that the Barwaik sept of Rajputs in Chanda 
must trace its extraction. And it is clear that, before the days 
of railways and the half-anna post, an imposture of this sort 
must have been practically impossible of detection.* 

(vii) Castes formed by changes of custom. The formation of (vii) Castes 

new castes as a consequence of neglect of established usage, or fr> rmed b y 
r . . . i changes of 

the adoption of new ceremonial practices or secular occupa- cus tom. , has been a familiar incident of the caste system from the 
earliest times. We are told in Manu how men of the three 
twice-born castes who have not received the sacrament of 
initiation at the proper time, or who follow forbidden occupa- 
tions, become Vratyas or outcasts, intercourse with whom is 
punished with a double fine, and whose descendants are 
graded as distinct castes. Living as a Vratya is a condition 
involving of itself exclusion from the original caste, and a 
Brahman who performs sacrifices for such persons has to do 
penance. The idea of such changes of status is inherent in 
the system, and illustrations of its application are plentiful.

 
Sometimes it figures in the traditions of a caste under the 
form of a claim to a more distinguished origin than is admitted 
by current opinion. The Skanda Purana, for example, recounts 
an episode in Parasu Rama's raid upon the Kshattriyas, the 
object of which is to show that the Kayasths are by birth 
Kshattriyas of full blood, who by reason of their observing 
the ceremonies of the Siidras are called Vratya or incomplete 
Kshattriyas. The Babhans or Bhuinhars of the United Pro- 
vinces and Bihar are supposed, according to some legends, to 
be Brahmans who lost status by taking to agriculture. At 
the present day the most potent influence in bringing about 
elevations or depressions of social status, which may result 
ultimately in the formation of new castes, is the practice of 
widow remarriage. With the advance of orthodox ideas that 
may plausibly be ascribed to the extension of railways and the 
diffusion of primary education, it dawns upon some members 
of a particular caste that the custom of marrying widows is 
highly reprehensible, and, with the assistance of their Brah- 
mans, they set to work to discourage it. 

The first step is 
to abstain from intermarriage with people who practise the 
forbidden thing, and thus to form a sub-caste which adopts 
a high-sounding name derived from some famous locality like 
Ajodhya or Kanauj, or describes itself as Biyahut or Behuta 
(the married ones) by way of emphasizing the orthodox 
character of their matrimonial arrangements. Thus the 
Awadhia or Ayodhia Kurnns of Bihar, and the Kanaujia 
Kurmls of the United Provinces, pride themselves on pro- 
hibiting the remarriage of widows, and are endeavouring to 
establish a shadowy title to be recognized as some variety of 
Kshattriya, in pursuance of which, with singular ignorance of 
the humble origin of the great Maratha houses, they claim 
kinship with SivajT, Sindhia, and the Bhonsla family of Nagpur. 


In Bihar they have succeeded in attaining a higher rank than 
ordinary Kurmls. But although the Awadhias have achieved 
complete practical separation from the main body of Kurmls, 
no one accepts them as Kshattriyas or Rajputs, nor are they 
recognized by Hindu public opinion as forming a distinct 
caste. In the Punjab the distinction between the Jats and the 
Rajputs, both presumably sprung from a common Indo-Aryan 
stock, is marked by the fact that the former practise, and the 
latter always abstain from, widow remarriage. The same test 
applies in the Kangra Hills, the most exclusively Hindu portion 
of the Punjab, where Musalman domination was never fully 
established. Here the line between the Thakkar and Rathi 
castes, both belonging to the lower classes of hill Rajputs, is 
said to consist in the fact that Rathis do, and Thakkars do not, 
ordinarily practise widow marriage. In Southern India move- 
ments of the same sort may be observed. Among the begging 
castes which form nearly i per cent, of the population of the 
Tamil country, the Pandararns rank highest, in virtue of their 
abstention from meat and alcohol, and more especially of their 
prohibition of widow marriage. 

===Totemism===
An account will be found in chapter ix of the Report on the 
Census of India, 1901, of what may be called the internal structure 
of tribes and castes in India the various endogamous, exo- 
gamous, and hypergamous divisions which restrict and regulate 
matrimony, and form the minor wheels of the vast and intricate 
machinery by which Hindu society is controlled. It would be 
tedious to enter here upon a detailed description and analysis 
of these divisions. But from the point of view of general 
ethnology considerable interest attaches to one particular kind 
of division, to those exogamous groups which are based upon 
totems. The existence of totemism in India on a large scale has been brought to notice only in recent years ; the inquiries 
instituted in connexion with the Census have added materially 
to our knowledge of the subject ; and special attention is being 
given to it in the Ethnographic Survey now being conducted in 
all British Provinces and the more important Native States. 


At 
the bottom of the social system, as understood by the average 
Hindu, we find, mainly in the Dravidian regions of India, 
a large body of tribes and castes each of which is broken up 
into a number of totemistic septs. Each sept bears the name 
of an animal, a tree, a plant, or of some material object, natural 
or artificial, which the members of that sept are prohibited 
from tilling, eating, cutting, burning, carrying, using, &c.; and 
the members of such a sept may not intermarry. In short, 
totemistic exogamy prevails in India on a fairly large scale and 
is still in active operation.
 
===Classification of caste===

In a country where the accident of birth determines   
vocably the whole course of a man's social and domestic  
relations, and he must throughout life eat, drink, dress, marry, 
and give in marriage in accordance with the usages of the com- 
munity into which he was born, one is tempted at first sight to 
assume that the one thing that he may be expected to know 
with certainty, and to disclose without much reluctance, is the 
name of the caste, tribe, or nationality to which he belongs. As 
a matter of fact, no column in the Census schedule displays a 
more bewildering variety of entries, or gives so much trouble 
to the enumerating and testing staff and to the central offices 
which compile the results. If the person enumerated gives the 
name of a well-known tribe, such as Bhll or Santal, or of 
a standard caste like Brahman or Kayasth, all is well. But he 
may belong to an obscure caste from the other end of India ; he 
may give the name of a sect, of a sub-caste, of an exogamous 
sept or section, of a hypergamous group ; he may mention 
some titular designation which sounds finer than the name of 
his caste ; he may describe himself by his occupation, or by 
the Province or tract of country from which he comes. 


These 
various alternatives, which are far from exhausting the possi- 
bilities of the situation, undergo a series of transformations at 
the hands of the more or less illiterate enumerator who writes 
them down in his own vernacular, and the abstractor in the 
central office who transliterates them into English. Then 
begins a laborious and most difficult process of sorting, 
referencing, cross-referencing, and corresponding with local 
authorities, which ultimately results in the compilation of the 
Census Table XIII, showing the distribution of the inhabitants of India by caste, tribe, race, or nationality. The arrangement 
of this table is alphabetical, and it consists of two parts. 

The 
first is a general list of all the groups returned, with their dis- 
tribution by religion, while the second shows the distribution 
by Provinces and States of all groups with an aggregate strength 
of 10,000. An analysis of the 1901 table shows that it includes 
2,378 main castes and tribes, and forty-three races or nation- 
alities. With the latter we are not concerned here ; as to the 
former, the question at once arises on what principle should 
they be arranged? An alphabetical system is useful for 
reference, and essential for the purely statistical purposes of 
a census table. But it does not help in the least towards pre- 
senting an intelligible picture of the social grouping of that 
large proportion of the people of India which is organized, 
admittedly or tacitly, on the basis of caste. 

===the principle adopted in 1901===
Principles Accordingly,   was that of 
adopted in classification by social precedence, as recognized by native 
public opinion at the present day, and manifesting itself in the 
facts that particular castes are supposed to be the modern 
representatives of one or other of the castes of the theo- 
retical Hindu system ; that Bnlhmans will take water from 
certain castes ; that Brahmans of high standing will serve 
particular castes ; that certain castes, though not served by 
the best Brahmans, have nevertheless got Brahmans of their 
own, whose rank varies according to circumstances ; that cer- 
tain castes are not served by Brahmans at all, but have 
their own priests ; that the status of certain castes has been 
raised by their taking to infant marriage or abandoning the 
remarriage of widows ; that the status of some castes has been 
lowered by living in a particular locality; that the status of 
others has been modified by their pursuing some occupation in 
a special or peculiar way ; that some can claim the services of 
the village barber, the village palanquin-bearer, the village mid- 
wife, &c., while others cannot ; that some castes may not enter 
the court-yards of certain temples ; that some are subject to 
special taboos, such as that they must not use the village well, 
or may draw water only with their own vessels, that they must 
live outside the village or in a separate quarter, that they must 
leave the road on the approach of a high-caste man or must call 
out to give warning of their approach. 


In the case of the 
Animistic tribes it was mentioned that the prevalence of 
totemism and the degree of adoption of Hindu usages would 
serve as ready tests. Most of the Provincial Census Superin- 
tendents readily grasped the main idea of the scheme, and their patient industry, supplemented by the intelligent assistance 
given by the highest native authorities, has added very greatly 
to our knowledge of an obscure and intricate subject. 

As no stereotyped scheme of classification was drawn up, but General 
every Province was left to adopt its own system in consultation resu ts * 
with local experts and representative men, it is clearly impos- 
sible to draw up any general scheme for the whole of India. 
One might as well try to construct a table of social precedence 
for Europe which should bring together Spanish grandees, 
Swiss hotel-keepers, Turkish Pashas, and Stock Exchange 
millionaires, and should indicate the precise degree of relative 
distinction attaching to each. The problem in fact is essentially 
a local one, and India is no more one country than is Europe. 

The Provincial schemes of classification are summarized in the 
Appendix to chapter xi of the Report on the Census of India, 
1901. Although they cannot be reduced to common terms, 
they exhibit points of resemblance and difference which deserve 
some further examination. The first point to observe is the 
predominance throughout India of the influence of the 
traditional system of four original castes. In every scheme of 
grouping the Brahman heads the list. Then come the castes 
whom popular opinion accepts as the modern representatives 
of the Kshattriyas, and these are followed by the mercantile 
groups supposed to be akin to the Vaisyas. When we leave 
the higher circles of the twice-born, the difficulty of finding a 
uniform basis of classification becomes apparent. 

The ancient 
designation 'Siidra' finds no great favour in modern times, and 
we can point to no group that is generally recognized as repre- 
senting it. The term is used in Bombay, Madras, and Bengal 
to denote a considerable number of castes of moderate 
respectability, the higher of whom are considered 'clean' 
Sudras, while the precise status of the lower is a question which 
lends itself to controversy. At this stage of the grouping a 
sharp distinction may be noticed between Northern India and 
Bombay and Madras. In Rajputana, the Punjab, the United 
Provinces, the Central Provinces, Bengal, and Assam, the grade 
next below twice-born rank is occupied by a number of castes 
from whose hands Brahmans and members of the higher castes 
will take water and certain kinds of sweetmeats. Below these 
again is a rather indeterminate group from whom water is taken 
by some of the higher castes, but not by others. Farther down, 
where the test of water no longer applies, the status of a caste 
depends on the nature of its occupation and its habits in 
respect of diet. 


There are castes whose touch defiles ttwice-born, but who do not commit the crowning enormity of 
eating beef; while below these again in the social system of 
Northern India are people like Chamars and Doms, who eat 
beef and various sorts of miscellaneous vermin. In Western 
and Southern India the idea that the social status of a caste 
depends on whether Brahmans will take water and sweetmeats 
from its members is unknown, for the higher caste will as a 
rule take water only from persons of their own caste and sub- 
caste. In Southern India the idea of ceremonial pollution by 
the proximity of a member of an unclean caste has been 
developed with much elaboration. Thus, the table of social 
precedence attached to the Cochin Report shows that, while a 
Nayar can pollute a man of a higher caste only by touching 
him, people of the Kammalan group, including masons, black- 
smiths, carpenters, and workers in leather, pollute at a distance 
of 24 feet, toddy-drawers (Iluvan or Tiyan) at 36 feet, Pulayan 
or Cheruman cultivators at 48 feet ; while in the case of the 
Paraiyan (Pariah), who eats beef, the range of pollution is stated 
to be no less than 64 feet. 

The subject is examined fully in some of the Provincial 
Census Reports of 1901, to which the reader is referred for 
further particulars. No attempt was made to grade every 
caste. Large classes were formed, and the various groups 
included in these were arranged in alphabetical order so as to 
escape the necessity of settling the more delicate questions of 
precedence. As an illustration of the method of procedure, 
we may refer to the table of precedence for Bengal proper, 
which was compiled by Mr. Risley some years ago, and was 
adopted by Mr. Gait (Census Superintendent, 1901) after 
careful examination by local committees of native gentlemen 
appointed for the purpose. 
===The  seven main classes of hindus in Bengal===
The seven The entire Hindu population of this tract, numbering 
classes of n ^ neteen millions, has been divided into seven classes. The 
Hindus first class is reserved for the Brahmans, of whom there are 
in Bengal. more t han a million, forming 6 per cent, of the Hindus of 
Bengal. As every one knows, there are Brahmans and Brah- 
mans, of status varying from the Rarhi, who claim to have 
be<?n imported by Adisura from Kanauj, to the Barna Brah- 
mans who serve the lower castes, from whose hands pure 
Brahmans will not take water, and to the Vyasokta Brahmans 
who serve the Chasi Kaibartta caste, and rank so low that even 
their own clients will not touch food in their houses. 

Next in order, at the top of the second class, come the 
Rajputs, basing their claims to precedence on their supposed descent from the pure Rajputs of the distant Indo- Aryan tract. 
Their number (113,405) must include a large proportion of 
families belonging to local castes who acquired land and 
assumed the title of Rajput on the strength of their territorial 
position. Then follow the Baidyas, by tradition physicians, 
and the writer caste of Kayasths. The former pose as the 
modern representatives of the Ambastha of Manu, and assert 
their superiority to the Kayasths. The Kayasths, on the other 
hand, claim to be Kshattriyas who took to clerical work ; deny 
the identity of the Baidyas with the Ambasthas ; and describe 
them as a local caste, unknown in the great centres of Hindu- 
ism, who were Sudras till about a century ago, when they took 
to wearing the sacred thread and bribed the Brahmans to 
acquiesce in their pretensions. 

The third class, numbering three millions, comprises the 
functional castes originally known as Navasakha (the nine 
* branches ' or * arrows ') and the other ' clean ' Sudras, from 
whose hands the higher castes take water, and who are served 
by high-class Brahmans. Confectioners, perfume vendors, 
betel growers, oilmen, gardeners, potters, and barbers figure in 
this group, the constitution of which appears to have been 
largely determined by considerations of practical convenience. 
The preparation of a Hindu meal is a very elaborate perform- 
ance, involving lengthy ablutions and a variety of ritualistic 
observances which cannot be performed on a journey; and it 
is essential to the comfort of the orthodox traveller that he 
should be able to procure sweetmeats of various kinds without 
being troubled by misgivings as to the ceremonial cleanliness 
of the people from whom he buys them. In matters of food 
and drink caste rules are wisely elastic. It has been held that 
neither ice nor soda-water counts as water for the purpose of 
conveying pollution ; there are special exemptions in favour of 
biscuits and patent medicines, for the last of which the Bengali 
has an insatiable appetite ; and in an outlying District where 
the only palanquin-bearers available were Dravidian Bhuiyas, 
these have been promoted to the rank of a water-giving 
(jaldcharaniyd) caste in order that the twice-born traveller 
might be able to get a drink without quitting his palanquin. 

The fourth class includes only two castes the Chasi 
Kaibartta and the Goala from whom water is taken by the 
high castes, but whose Bnahmans are held to be degraded. 
About the former group Mr. Risley wrote in 1891 *: 'It 
seems likely, as time goes on, that this sub-caste will rise in 
1 Tribes and Castes of Bengal* 

===Caste ten- dencies among Muhammadans===

social estimation, and will altogether sink the Kaibartta, so 
that eventually it is possible that they may succeed in securing 
a place with the Navasakha.' The forecast has so far been 
fulfilled that, at the 1901 Census, the Chasi Kaibartta called 
themselves Mahisya, the name of the offspring of a legen- 
dary cross between Kshattriyas and Vaisyas, and posed as a 
separate caste. 

Class V contains a rather miscellaneous assortment of castes, 
including the Baishtam, the Sunri, and the Subarnabanik, from 
whom the higher castes do not usually take water. Their 
precedence is also defined by the fact that, although the village 
barber will shave them, he will not cut their toe-nails, nor will 
he take part in their marriage ceremonies. 

The sixth class includes a long list of castes, numbering 
nearly eight millions, who abstain from eating beef, pork, and 
fowls, but from whom the higher castes will not take water. 
They are served by degraded B rah mans, the regular barbers 
refuse to shave them, and some of them have special barbers 
of their own. Most of them, however, can get their clothes 
washed by the village washerman. The typical members of 
this group are the Bagdi (1,032,004), Dravidian cultivators and 
labourers; the Jeliya or fishing Kaibartta (447,237); the 
Namasudra or Chandal (1,860,914); the Pod (464,921), 
fishermen and cultivators; and the Rajbansi-Koch (2,065,982), 
nearly all of whom are small cultivators. 

Class VII represents the lowest grade of the Bengal system, 
castes who eat all manner of unclean food, whose touch 
pollutes, whom no Brahman, however degraded, will serve, 
and for whom neither barber nor washerman will work. It 
comprises the scavenging Doms and Haris ; the leather-work- 
ing Chamars and Muchis; and the Bauris, who eat rats and 
revere the dog as their totem, because, as some of them told 
Colonel Dalton, it is the right thing to have some sacred 
animal, and dogs are useful while alive and not very nice to 
eat when dead. 

Islam, whether regarded as a religious system or as a theory 
of things, is in every respect the antithesis of Hinduism. Its 
idea is strenuous action rather than hypnotic contemplation ; 
it allots to man a single life and bids him make the best of it ; 
its practical spirit knows nothing of a series of transmigrations, 
&{ karma, of the weariness of existence which weighs upon the 
Hindu mind. For the dream of absorption into an impersonal 
Weltgeist it substitutes a very personal Paradise, made up of 
joys such as all Orientals understand. On its social side the religion of Muhammad is equally opposed to the Hindu scheme 
of a hierarchy of castes, an elaborate stratification of society 
based upon subtle distinctions of food, drink, dress, marriage, 
and ceremonial usage. In the sight of God and of His Prophet 
all followers of Islam are equal. 

In India, however, caste is in 
the air; its contagion has spread even to the Muhammadans; 
and we find its evolution proceeding on characteristically 
Hindu lines. In both communities foreign descent forms the 
highest claim to social distinction ; in both promotion cometh 
from the west. As the twice-born Aryan is to the mass of 
Hindus, so is the Muhammadan of alleged Arab, Persian, 
Afghan, or Mughal origin to the rank and file of his co- 
religionists. And just as in the traditional Hindu system men 
of the higher groups could marry women of the lower, while 
the converse process was vigorously condemned, so, within the 
higher ranks of the Muhammadans, a Saiyid will marry a 
Sheikh's daughter but will not give his daughter in return ; 
and intermarriage between the upper circle of soi-disant 
foreigners and the main body of Indian Muhammadans is 
generally reprobated, except in parts of the country where the 
aristocratic element is small and must arrange its marriages as 
best it can. Even there, however, it is only under the stress 
of great poverty that a member of the ashraf, or f noble ' class, 
will give his daughter to one of the ajldf, or 'low people/ as 
converts of indigenous origin are called in Bengal. Of course, 
the limits of the various groups are not defined as sharply as 
they are with the Hindus. The well-known proverb which 
occurs in various forms in different parts of Northern India 
< Last year I was a Jolaha (weaver) ; now I am a Sheikh ; next 
year if prices rise, I shall become a Saiyid 7 marks the differ- 
ence, though analogous changes of status are not unknown 
among Hindus and, as Mr. Gait observes, * promotion is not so 
rapid in reality as it is in the proverb.' But speaking generally, it 
maybe said that the social cadre of the higher ranks of Muham- 
madans is based on hypergamy with a tendency in the direction 
of endogamy, while the lower functional groups are strictly 
endogamous, and are organized on the model of regular castes, 
with councils and officers which enforce the observance of 
caste rules by the time-honoured sanction of boycotting. 

===Absence of caste system in Baluchistan===
On the outskirts of the Empire lie two regions where Hindu Absence 
standards of social precedence and Hindu notions of caste are f caste . 
neither recognized nor known. In Baluchistan, until less than Balnchis- 
a generation ago, Hindus were tolerated only as a useful class ten and 
of menials who carried on the petty trade which the fighting 

===Distribution of social groups=== 

races deemed below their dignity. They adopted the device, 
not unknown in mediaeval Europe, of putting themselves 
under the protection of their more powerful neighbours, and 
Mr. Hughes-Buller (Baluchistan Census Report, 1901) tells us 
that even now a Hindu, when asked to what caste he belongs, 
* will often describe himself by the name of the tribal group to 
which he holds himself attached/ Among the non-Hindu 
people of Baluchistan the question of social precedence is 
intricate and obscure, and its details must be studied in 
Mr. Hughes-Buller's excellent Report. Of the three chief 
races, the Afghans rank highest, in virtue of their former 
sovereignty ; then come the Baloch, who also once bore rule ; 
and last the Brahui, who were in power at the time of the 
British occupation. The relative position of the two latter 
is indicated by various proverbs, by the attempts of the 
Brahui to trace their descent to the Baloch, and by the 
fact that 'no self-respecting Baloch will give his daughter 
to a Brahui.' Below these races come the Jats, a term which 
seems to be loosely used to denote all sorts of menial classes, 
including professional musicians (Langahs), blacksmiths (Loris), 
and leather-workers (Muchis). But even here there is no hard 
and fast prohibition of intermarriage, and both Baloch and 
Brahui will take wives from among the Jats. Within the circle 
of each tribe a condition of theoretical equality appears to pre- 
vail, tempered by personal considerations arising from capacity 
to lead, religious sanctity, age, and kinship with a ruling family. 

In Burma caste is so little known that the Burmese language 
possesses no word for it, while one of the difficulties of con- 
ducting the census of the numerous Indian immigrants was 
the impossibility of making the average Burman enumerator 
understand the meaning of the Indian term zat or jat. 
Differences of religion he can grasp in a vague sort of way ; 
he has a notion of what is meant by race ; but caste remains 
to him an insoluble mystery, a thing with whr:h his democratic 
spirit has no sympathy whatever. Mr. Lewis (Burma Census 
Report, 1901) assures us that there are not and never have 
been any true castes in Burma, though a class of landed 
proprietors in Minbu, known as the Thugaungs, appear to be 
endogamous, and thirty-six professional groups with hereditary 
occupations are said to have existed among the Chins. 

No attempt can be made here to analyse and explain the 
distribution of the nearly 2,400 castes and tribes which have 
been enumerated in the 1901 Census. The distribution of 
thirty-six of the principal tribes and castes is shown in the series of maps annexed to chapter xi of the Census Report, and 
a glance at these will show that some castes are diffused over 
the whole of India, while others are localized in particular 
Provinces or tracts of country 1 . The typical instance of a 
widely diffused caste is furnished by the Brahmans, who 
number nearly fifteen millions, and represent a proportion of 
the total population ranging from ten per cent, in the United 
Provinces, Central India, and Rajputana, to three per cent, in 
Madras, the Central Provinces, and Bengal proper, and two 
per cent, in Assam and Chota Nagpur. The distribution 
accords fairly well with the history and traditions of the caste. 
They are strongest in their original centre, numbering nearly 
five millions in the United Provinces, and weakest in the 
outlying tracts, peopled mainly by non-Aryan races, whom 
their influence has even now only imperfectly reached. There 
can, moreover, be little doubt that many of the Brahmans of 
the more remote tracts have been manufactured on the spot 
by the simple process of conferring the title of Brahman on 
the tribal priests of the local deities. The so-called Barna 
Brahmans, who serve the lower castes of Bengal, probably 
obtained sacerdotal rank in this fashion. That the priestly 
caste is not of altogether unmixed descent is attested by the 
numerous legends of Rajas who, having sworn a rash oath to 
feed a stated number of Brahmans, found the supply run short 
and were obliged to make them up for the occasion out of any 
materials that were at hand. As with the Brahmans, so in the 
chief functional groups the tendency is towards wide diffusion, 
and their racial composition probably differs materially in 
different Provinces. Owing to differences of language, the 
maps above mentioned fail to bring out the complete facts in 
relation to the whole of India. Thus, the leather-workers (Cha- 
mar and Muchi) of Northern India, numbering about twelve 
millions and forming twelve per cent, of the population of the 
United Provinces, correspond with the Chakkiliyan (486,884) 
and Mddiga (755,316) of Madras, but the maps do not include 
these. In each Province such groups form, of course, distinct 
castes which have probably been evolved independently. 

Of the locali/ed groups a large number are admittedly tribes. 
The Bhll, Gond, Koll, and Santal come within this category, 
and are still outside the Hindu social system. The Doms, 
Dosfldhs, Giljars, Jats, Kaibarttas, Namasudras (Chandals), 
Pods, Na"yars, Pallis, Paraiyans (Pariahs), and Rajbansi-Koch 

1 The distribution of the roost important castes is shown, more generally, 
in the ethnographic map of the Atlas accompanying the Gazetteer. represent tribes which have been transformed into castes at 
a comparatively recent date and still retain some traces of the 
tribal stage of development. 

===Origin of caste===
Origin of Several theories of the origin of caste are to be found in the literature of the subject. The oldest and most famous is 

The Indian theory. accepted as an article of faith by all orthodox Hindus, and 

its attraction extends, as each successive Census shows, through 
an ever-widening circle of aspirants to social distinction. It 
appears in its most elaborate form in the curious jumble of 
magic, religion, law, custom, ritual, and metaphysics which is 
commonly called the Institutes of Manu. Here we read how 
the Anima Mundi, the supreme soul which 'contains all created 
beings and is inconceivable/ produced by a thought a golden 
egg, in which ' he himself was born as Brahma, the progenitor 
of the whole world/ Then * for the sake of the prosperity of 
the worlds, he caused the Brahman, the Kshattriya, the Vaisya, 
and the Siidra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his thighs, 
and his feet/ and allotted to each of these their distinctive 
duties. The Brahman was enjoined to study, teach, sacrifice, 
and receive alms ; the Kshattriya to protect the people and 
abstain from sensual pleasures ; the Vaisya to tend cattle, to 
trade, to lend money, and to cultivate land; while for the Siidra 
was prescribed the comprehensive avocation of meekly serving 
the other three groups. Starting from this basis, the standard 
Indian tradition proceeds to trace the evolution of the caste 
system from a series of complicated crosses, first between 
members of the four groups and then between the descendants 
of these initial unions. The men of the three higher groups 
might marry women of any of the groups below them, and if 
the wife belonged to the group next in order of precedence the 
children took her rank, and no new caste was formed. If, 
however, the mother came from a group lower down in the 
scale, her children belonged neither to her group nor to their 
father's, but formed a distinct caste called by a different name. 

Thus the son of a Brahman by a Vaisya woman is an Ambastha, 
to whom belongs the art of healing; while if the mother is a 
Sudra, the son is a Nishada and must live by killing fish. The 
son of a Kshattriya father and a Sudra mother is 'a being called 
Ugra, resembling both a Kshattriya and a Sudra, ferocious in 
his manners and delighting in cruelty/ In all of these the 
father is of higher rank than the mother, and the marriages 
are held to have taken place in the right order (anuloma, or 
'with the hair'). Unions of the converse type, in which the 
woman belongs to a superior group, are condemned &$fra(iloma } 



 

or ' against the hair/ The extreme instance of the fruit of 
pratiloma relations is the Chandal, the son of a Brahman woman 
by a Sudra, who is described as 'that lowest of mortals/ 
and is condemned to live outside the village, to clothe himself 
in the garments of the dead, to eat from broken dishes, to 
execute criminals, and to carry out the corpses of friendless 
men. But the Ayogavas, with a Sudra father and a Kshattriya 
mother, are not much better off, for the accident of their birth 
is sufficient to brand them as wicked people who eat repre- 
hensible food. Alliances between the descendants of these 
first crosses produce, among others, the Sairandhra who is 
'skilled in adorning his master/ and pursues as an alternative 
occupation the art of snaring animals ; and ' the sweet-voiced 
Maitreyaka who, ringing a bell at the appearance of dawn, 
continually praises great men/ Finally, a fresh series of con- 
nubial complications is introduced by the Vratya, the twice- 
born men who have neglected their sacred duties and have 
among their direct descendants the Malla, the Licchivi, the Nata, 
the Karana, the Khasa, and the Dravida, while each of these in 
its turn gives rise to further mazes of hypothetical parentage. 
===Its historic elements===
It is small wonder that European ciitics should have been Its historic 
so impressed by the unreal character of this grotesque scheme elements - 
of social evolution, that some of them have put it aside as 
a mere figment of the subjective intellect of the ingenious 
Brahman. Yet, fantastic as it is, it opens indirectly and un- 
consciously an instructive glimpse of prehistoric society in 
India. It shows us that at the time when Mann's treatise 
was compiled, probably about the second century A.D., there 
must have existed an elaborate and highly developed social 
system, including tribal or national groups like the Nishada, 
Mngadha, Vaideha, Malla, Licchivi, Khasa, Dravida, Saka, 
Kirata, and Chandal ; and functional groups such as the 
Ambastha, who were physicians ; the Siita, who were concerned 
with horses and chariots ; the Nishada, and the Margavas, 
Dasas or Kaivartas, who were fishermen ; the Ayogava, car- 
penters ; the Karfivara and Dhigvansa, workers in leather ; 
and the Vena, musicians and players on the drum. It is 
equally clear that the occupations of Brahmans were as diverse 
as they are at the present day, and that their position in this 
respect was just as far removed from that assigned to them by 
the traditional theory. In the list of Brahmans whom a pious 
householder should not entertain at a srdddha * we find physi- 

1 LawsofManu, iii. 149-167, 



 

cians ; sellers of meat ; shopkeepers ; usurers ; actors ; singers ; 
oilmen ; keepers of gambling houses ; sellers of spices ; makers 
of bows and arrows ; cowherds, and trainers of elephants, oxen, 
horses or camels ; astrologers ; bird-fanciers ; fencing-masters ; 
architects; breeders of sporting dogs; falconers; cultivators; 
shepherds; and even carriers of dead bodies. The conclusions 
suggested by the passages cited from Manu are confirmed by 
Dr. Richard Pick's instructive study of the structure of society 
in Bihar and the Eastern Districts of the United Provinces at 
the time of Buddha *. Dr Kick's work is based mainly upon 
the Jatakas or * birth-stories ' of the Southern Buddhists; and 
from these essentially popular sources, free from any suggestion 
of Brahmanical influence, he succeeds in showing that, at the 
period depicted, the social organization in the part of India 
with which his authorities were familiar did not differ very 
materially from that which prevails at the present day. Then, 
as now, the traditional hierarchy of four castes had no distinct 
and determinate existence, still less had the so-called mixed 
castes supposed to be derived from them, while of the Sildras 
in particular no trace at all was to be found. Then, as now, 
Indian society was made up of a medley of diverse and hetero- 
geneous groups, apparently not so strictly and uniformly en- 
dogamous as the castes of to-day, but containing within 
themselves the germs out of which the modern system has 
developed by natural and insensible stages. That development 
has been furthered by a variety of influences which will be 
discussed below. 
===Its probable origin===
Its Assuming that the writers of the law books had before their 

origin C e y es *^e same kind of social chaos that exists now, the first 
question that occurs is, From what source did they derive the 
theory of the four castes? Manu, of course, as Sir Henry 
Maine has pointed out, is a relatively modern work ; but the 
traditional scheme of castes figures in earlier law books, such 
as the BaudhSyana and Apastamba, and it seems probable that 
for them it was not so much a generalization from observed 
facts as a traditional theory, which they attempted to stretch 
so as to explain the facts. The Indian pandit does not take 
kindly to inductive methods, nor is it easy to see how he could 
have arrived by this road at a hypothesis which breaks down 
directly it is brought into contact with the realities of life. 
But it is possible that the Brahmanical theory of castes may 
be nothing more than a modified version of the division of 

1 Die sotiale Gliederung im nor do si lichen Indien zu Luddha's Zcit 

(1897). 



 
society into four classes priests, warriors, cultivators, and 
artisans which appears in the sacerdotal literature of ancient 
Persia 1 . It is not suggested that the Iranian legend of four 
classes formed part of the stock of tradition which the Aryans 
brought with them into India. Had this been so, the myth 
relating to their origin would have figured prominently in the 
Vedas, and would not have appeared solely in the Purusha 
Sukta, which most critics agree in regarding as a modern inter- 
polation. The conjecture is that the relatively modern com- 
pilers of the law books, having become acquainted with the 
Iranian legend, were fascinated by its assertion of priestly 
supremacy, and made use of it as the basis of the theory by 
which they attempted to explain the manifold complexities of 
the caste system. The procedure is characteristic of Brah- 
manical literary methods, and is in itself no more absurd than 
a recent attempt on the part of the Arya Samaj to discover 
in the Rig-veda an anticipation of the discoveries of modern 
science. 
===The Indian and Iranian classes===
The differences in the Indian and Iranian categories are The Indian 
trifling, and admit of being accounted for by the fact that India andlianian 
had, what Persia had not, a large aboriginal population, differ- 
ing from the Indo-Aryans in respect of religion, usages, and 
physical type, and more especially in the conspicuous attribute 
of colour. These people had somehow to be brought within 
the limits of the scheme ; and this was done by the simple 
process of lumping them together in the servile class of Sudras, 
which is sharply distinguished from the twice-born groups and 
has a far lower status than is assigned to the artisans in the 
Iranian system. 

Thus the four varmis, or colours, of the Indian 
myth seem to occupy an intermediate position between the 
purely occupational classes of ancient Persia and Egypt and the 
rigidly defined castes of modern India. In the Persian system 
only the highest group of Athravans or priests was cndogamous, 
while between the other three groups, as between all the groups 
of the Egyptian system (excluding the swineherds if we follow 
Herodotus), no restrictions on intermarriage appear to have 
been recognized. Moreover, as is implied by the distinction 
between the twice-born classes and the Sudras, and by the pro- 
minence given to the element of colour (varna\ the Indian 
system rests upon a basis of racial antagonism of which there 
is no trace in Persia and Egypt. Yet in the stage of develop- 
ment portrayed in the law books the system had not hardened 

1 Spiegel, Eranischc Alte. thuntskundc,into the rigid mechanism of the present day. It is still more 
or less fluid ; it admits of intermarriage under the limitations 
imposed by the rule of hypergamy ; it represents caste in the 
making, not caste as it has since been made. This process of 
caste-making has indeed by no means come to an end. Fresh 
castes are constantly being formed, and wherever we can trace 
the stages of their evolution they seem to proceed on the lines 
followed in the traditional scheme. The first stage is for a 
number of families, who discover in themselves some quality 
of social distinction, to refuse to give their women in marriage 
to other members of the caste, from whom nevertheless they 
continue to take wives. After a time, when their numbers 
have increased and they have bred women enough to supply 
material for a ins connubii of their own, they close their ranks, 
marry only among themselves, and pose as a superior sub-caste 
of the main caste to which they belong. Last of all they 
break off all connexion with the parent stock, assume a new 
name which ignores or disguises their original affinities, and 
claim general recognition as a distinct caste. The educated 
Pods of Bengal are an illustration of the first sta^e ; the Chasi 
Kaibartta of the second ; the Mahisya of the third. 

==Sir Denzil Ibbetsons ==

We may now pass from the pious fictions of Manu and the 
Ramayana to those modern critical theories which, whether 
they carry conviction or not, at least start from and give full 
weight to the facts, and make an honest attempt to work out 
a scientific solution of the problem. Among these Sir Dcn/il 
Ibbetson's description of caste in the Punjab 1 contains the 
most vivid presentment of the system in its everyday working, 
of the various elements which have contributed to its making, 
and of the surprising diversity of the results which have been 
produced. From this wealth of material it is not altogether 
easy to disentangle the outlines of a cut-and-dricd theory, and 
it may well have been the intention of the writer to leave the 
question more or less open, and to refrain from the futile 
endeavour to compress such infinite variety within the limits of 
any formula. The following passage sums up the leading 
features of the hypothesis ; but the exposition of its working 
requires to be studied as a whole, and the entire section dealing 
with the evolution of caste will be found in the Ethnographic 
Appendices to the Report on the Census of India > 1901. 

'Thus, if my theory be correct, we have the following steps 
in the process by which caste has been evolved in the Punjab : 

1 Report on the Census of the Punjab, 1881, pp. 172-341. 

(1) the tribal divisions common to all primitive societies; 

(2) the guilds based upon hereditary occupation common to 
the middle life of all communities ; (3) the exaltation of the 
priestly office to a degree unexampled in other countries ; 
(4) the exaltation of the Levitical blood by a special insistence 
upon the necessarily hereditary nature of occupation ; (5) the 
preservation and support of this principle by the elaboration 
from the theories of the Hindu creed or cosmogony of a purely 
artificial set of rules, regulating marriage and intermarriage, 
declaring certain occupations and foods to be impure and 
polluting, and prescribing the conditions and degree of social 
intercourse permitted between the several castes. Add to 
these the pride of social rank and the pride of blood which are 
natural to man, and which alone could reconcile a nation to 
restrictions at once irksome from a domestic and burdensome 
from a material point of view ; and it is hardly to be wondered 
at that caste should have assumed the rigidity which dis- 
tinguishes it in India. 1 

M. Senart's criticism on this theory 1 is directed to two points. 
He demurs, in the first place, to the share which he supposes 
it to assign to Brahmanical influence, and challenges the sup- 
position that a strict code of rules, exercising so absolute a 
dominion over the consciences of men, could be merely 
a modern invention, artificial in its character and self-regarding 
in its aims. Secondly, he takes exception to the dispropor- 
tionate importance which he conceives Sir Denzil Ibbetson to 
attach to community of occupation, and points out that, if this 
were really the original binding principle of caste, the tendency 
towards incessant fission and dislocation would be much less 
marked : the force that in the beginning united the various 
scattered atoms would continue to hold them together to the 
end. Both criticisms appear to miss an essential feature in the 
scheme, the influence of the idea of kinship, which is certainly 
the oldest and probably the most enduring factor in the caste 
system, and which seems to have supplied the framework and 
the motive principle of the more modern restrictions based 
upon ceremonial usage and community of occupation.

===Mr Nesfields===
Mr. Nesfield 2 is a theorist of quite a different type. He Mr. 
feels no doubts and is troubled by no misgivings. Inspired by Nesfiel 
the systematic philosophy of Comte, he maps out the whole 
confused region of Indian caste into a graduated series of 
1 Les Castes dans 

1 Brief View of the Caste System of the North-Western Provinces and 
Oudh, pp. 3, 4, 75, 88, 329-132. 
groups and explains exactly how each has come by the place that 
it occupies in the scheme. As stated on page 286, he assumes as 
the basis of his theory the essential unity of the Indian race, 
and appeals to ' physiological resemblance ' to prove that ' for 
the last three thousand years at least no real difference of blood 
between Aryan and aboriginal ' has existed * except perhaps in 
a few isolated tracts/ In his opinion the conquering Aryan 
race was completely absorbed by the indigenous population. 
The homogeneous people thus formed are divided by Mr. Nes- 
field, in the area to which his researches relate, the United Pro- 
vinces of Agra and Oudh, into the following seven groups, 
among which he distributes the 121 castes enumerated in the 
Census of 1881 : 

I. Castelcss tribes. III. Artisan castes : 

II. Castes connected with land : A. Preceding metallurgy. 

A. Allied to hunting state. B. Coeval with metallurgy. 

B. Allied to fishing state. IV. Trading castes, 
c, Allied to pastoral state. V. Serving castes. 

D. Agricultural. VI. Priestly castes. 

E. Landlords and warriors. VII. Religious orders. 

The classification, it will be observed, is based solely upon 
occupation, and it expresses Mr. Nesfield's conviction that 
* function, and function only, as I think, was the foundation 
upon which the whole caste system of India was built up.' 
The order of the groups is determined by the principle that 
'each caste or group of castes represents one or other of those 
progressive stages of culture which have marked the industrial 
development of mankind, not only in India, but in every other 
country in the world wherein some advance has been made 
from primeval savagery to the arts and industries of civilized 
life. The rank of any caste as high or low depends upon 
whether the industry represented by the caste belongs to an 
advanced or backward stage of culture ; and thus the natural 
history of human industries affords the chief clue to the grada- 
tions as well as to the formation of Indian castes/ At the 
bottom of the scale are the more or less primitive tribes 
Tharus, Kanjars, Doms, and Nats 'the last remains and sole 
surviving representatives of the aboriginal Indian savage, who 
was once the only inhabitant of the Indian continent, and from 
whose stock the entire caste system, from the sweeper to the 
priest, was fashioned by the slow growth of centuries.' Then 
come the hunting Baheliyas, the Mallahs and Dhlmars (boat- 
men and fishermen), the pastoral Ahlrs and Gadar&s, and the 
great mass ot agriculturists, while above these he finds in the 
Kshattriya or Rajput the sole representative of the landlord and 
warrior caste. The artisan castes are subdivided with refer- 
ence to the supposed priority of the evolution of their crafts. 

The basket-making Bansphors, the weavers (Kori and Jolaha), 
the potters (Kumhars), and the oilmen (Teli) fall within the 
more primitive group antecedent to metallurgy, while black- 
smiths, goldsmiths, tailors, and confectioners are placed in the 
group coeval with the use of metals. Above them again come 
the trading and the serving castes, among whom we find in 
rather odd collocation the scavenging BhangI, the barber (Napit 
or Nai), the bard and genealogist (Bhat), and the Kayasths, who 
are described as estate managers and writers. The Brahmans 
and the religious orders complete the scheme. But the mere 
classification obviously offers no solution of the real problem.
 
How did these groups, which occur in one form or another all 
over the world, become hardened into castes ? Why is it that 
in India alone their members are absolutely forbidden to inter- 
marry ? Mr. Nesfield replies without hesitation that the whole 
series of matrimonial taboos which constitute the caste system 
are due to the initiative of the Brahmans. According to him 
they introduced for their own purposes, and in order to secure 
the dignity and privileges of their own caste, the rule that a 
Brahman could only marry a Brahman, and all the other classes, 
who up to that time had intermarried freely, followed their 
example, ' partly in imitation and partly in self-defence.' The 
proposition recalls the short way that writers of the eighteenth 
century were apt to take with historical problems, reminding 
one of Bolingbroke's easy assertion that the sacred literature of 
Egypt was invented by the priests. Detailed criticism would 
be out of place here : the main object of this chapter is to lay 
stress on precisely those factors of evolution which Mr. Nesfield 
ignores ; but it may be observed that a theory which includes 
in the same categories the Dom and the Teli, the Banjara and 
the Khattri, the BhangI and the Kayasth must, in the race for 
acceptance, have a good deal of leeway to make up.

===Mr Senarts theory===
After examining the views propounded by Sir Denzil Ibbet- M.Senart's 
son and Mr. Nesfield, and by Mr. Risley in his Tribes and theory. 
Castes of Bengal^ M. Senart passes on to formulate his own 
theory of the origin of caste. In his view caste is the normal 
development of ancient Aryan institutions, which assumed this 
form in the struggle to adapt themselves to the conditions with 
which they came into contact in India. In developing this 
proposition he relies greatly upon the general parallelism that 
may be traced between the social organization of the Hindus 
and that of the Greeks and Romans in the earlier stages of 
their national development. He points out the close corre- 
spondence that exists between the three series of groups gens, 
curia^ tribe at Rome; family, </>parpia, <uXiJ in Greece; and 
family, gotra> caste in India. Pursuing the subject into fuller 
detail, he seeks to show that the leading principles which 
underlie the caste system form part of a stock of usage and 
tradition common to all branches of the Aryan people. 

In 
the department of marriage, for example, the Athenian yW 
and the Roman gens present striking resemblances to the 
Indian gotra. We learn from Plutarch that the Romans never 
married a woman of their own kin, and among the matrons 
who figure in classical literature none bears the same gentile 
name as her husband. Nor was endogamy unknown. At 
Athens, in the time of Demosthenes, membership of a <f>parpia 
was confined to the offspring of the families belonging to the 
group. In Rome the long struggle of the plebeians to obtain 
the ius connubii with patrician women belongs to the same 
class of facts; and the patricians, according to M. Senart, 
were guarding the endogamous rights of their order or should 
we not rather say the hypergamous rights? for in Rome, as in 
Athens, the primary duty of marrying a woman of equal rank 
did not exclude the possibility of union with women of 
humbler origin. We read in Manu how the gods disdain the 
oblations offered by a Siidra : at Rome they were equally of- 
fended by the presence of a stranger at the sacrifice of the 
gens. Marriage itself is a sacrifice at which husband and wife 
officiate as priests, and their equality of status is attested by 
their solemnly eating together. The Roman confarreatio has 
its parallel in the got kandla or ' tribal trencher ' of the Punjab, 
the connubial meal by partaking of which the wife is transferred 
from her own exogamous group to that of her husband. 

As with marriage so with food. The prohibition, which 
strikes us as so strange, against eating with members of an- 
other caste or partaking of food prepared by a man of lower 
caste recalls the religious significance which the Aryans at- 
tached to the common meal of the household. Cooked at the 
sacred fire, it symbolizes the unity of the family, its life in the 
present, its ties with the past. In Rome, as in India, daily 
libations were offered to ancestors; and the funeral feasts of 
the Greeks and Romans (ntpidttirvov and silicernium) corre- 
spond to the srdddha of Hindu usage which, in M. Senart's 
view, represents 'an ideal prolongation of the family meal. 1 
He seems even to find in the communal meals of the Persians, 
and in the Roman charistia^ from which were excluded not 
only strangers but any members of the family whose conduct 
had been unworthy, the analogue of the communal feast at 
which a social offender in India is received back into caste.

 
The exclusion from religious and social intercourse symbolized 
by the Roman interdict aqua et igni corresponds to the ancient 
Indian ritual for expulsion from caste, where a slave fills the 
offender's vessel with water and solemnly pours it out on the 
ground, and to the familiar formula hukka pant band karna^ in 
which the modern luxury of tobacco takes the place of the 
sacred fire of the Roman excommunication. Even the caste 
panchdyat that wields these formidable sanctions has its parallel 
in the family councils which in Greece, Rome, and ancient 
Germany assisted at the exercise of the patria pote stas> and in 
the chief of the gens who, like the matabar of a caste, decided 
disputes between its members and gave decisions which were 
recognized by the state. 

How was it that out of this common stock of usage there 
arose institutions so antagonistic in their nature as the castes of 
India and the nations of Europe ? To what causes is it due that 
among the Aryans of the West all the minor groups have been 
absorbed in the wider circle of national unity, while the Indian 
Aryans have nothing to show in the way of social organization 
but a bewildering multitude of castes and sub-castes? M. Se- 
nart suggests a cause, but makes no attempt to follow out or 
illustrate its workings. He says, ' L'Inde ne s'est elev<e ni k 
1'idee de rfitat ni i Pidee de la Patrie. Au lieu de s'etendre, 
le cadre s'y resserre. Au sein des rpubliques antiques la 
notion des classes tend a se r^soudre dans l'ide plus large de 
la cit ; dans llnde elle s'accuse, elle tend kse circonscrire dans 
les cloisons dtroites de la caste. N'oublions pas qu'ici les immi- 
grans se repandaient sur une aire immense ; les groupemens trop 
vastes taient condamn^s H se disperses Dans cette circonstance 
les inclinations particularistes puisferent un supplement de force.' 

Distribution over a wide area, tending to multiply groups ; 
contact with the aborigines, encouraging pride of blood ; the 
idea of ceremonial purity, leading to the employment of the 
indigenous races in occupations involving manual labour, while 
the higher pursuits were reserved for the Aryans ; the influence 
of the doctrine of metempsychosis, which assigns to every man 
a definite status determined by the inexorable law of karma \ 
the absence of any political power to draw the scattered groups 
together; and the authority which the Brahmanical system 
gradually acquired these seem to be the main factors of

===Caste not merely occupation===
The guilds of mediaeval Europe. M. Senart's theory of caste. It may be urged in favour of his 
view of the subject that evolution, especially social evolution, is 
a gradual and complex process, that many causes work together 
to produce the final result, and that the attempt to reduce 
them to a single formula carries with it its own refutation. On 
the other hand, as Dr. Pick has pointed out 1 , if caste were 
a normal extension of the ancient Aryan family system, the 
absence of any traces of this tendency in the Vedas is hardly 
accounted for by the statement that development proceeded 
so slowly, and was based on such primitive and instinctive 
impulses, that we could scarcely expect to find any tangible 
indications of it in a literature like that of the Hymns. 

Before proceeding farther we may dispose of the popular 
notion that community of occupation is the sole basis of the 
caste system. If this were so, as M. Senart has effectively 
pointed out, the institution 'aurait montr moins de tendance 
k se morceler, \ se disloquer ; Tagent qui 1'aurait unifie 
d'abord en aurait maintenu la cohesion.' To put it in another 
way, if the current idea were correct, all cultivators, all traders, 
all weavers ought to belong to the same caste, at any rate 
within the same area. But every one knows that this is not 
the case ; that the same occupation embraces a whole crowd of 
castes each of which is a close corporation, though the members 
of each carry on the avocation that is common to them all. 
Several writers have laid stress on the analogy between Indian 
castes and the trade guilds of mediaeval Europe. 

The com- 
parison is misleading. In the first place the guild was never 
endogamous in the sense that a caste is : there was nothing to 
prevent a man of one guild from marrying a girl of another. 
Secondly, there was no bar to the admission of outsiders who 
had learned the business : the guild recruited smart appren- 
tices, just as the Baloch and Br&hui open their ranks to a 
fighting man who has proved his worth. The common occu- 
pation was a real tie, a source of strength in the long struggle 
against nobles and kings, not a symbol of disunion and weak- 
ness like caste in India. 

If the guild had been a caste, bound 
by rigid rules as to food, marriage, and social intercourse, and 
split up into a dozen divisions which could not eat together or 
intermarry, the wandering apprentice who was bound to travel 
for a year from town to town to learn the secrets of his art 
could hardly have managed to exist, still less could he have 
discharged, like Quintin Matsys and a host of less famous 
craftsmen, the traditional duty of marrying his master's 
daughter. A guild may expand and develop; it gives free 
play to artistic endeavour ; and it was the union of the guilds 
that gave birth to the Free Cities of the Middle Ages. A caste 
is an organism of a lower type ; it grows by fission, and each 
step in its growth detracts from its power to advance or even 
to preserve the art which it professes to practise.

===Castes tendencies under the roman empires===
A curious illustration of the inadequacy of occupation alone Caste 
to generate and maintain the instinct of caste as we see it at 
work in India is furnished by certain ordinances of the Theo- Roman 
dosian code. In the early part of the fifth century, when the 
Western Roman Empire was fast falling to pieces, an attempt 
was made, from purely fiscal motives, to determine the status 
and fix the obligations of all classes of officials. In his fasci- 
nating account of the constitution of society in those days, 
Professor Dill tells us how 'an almost Oriental system of 
caste ' had made all public functions hereditary, ' from the 
senator to the waterman on the Tiber or the sentinel at a 
frontier post 1 . 1 The Navicularii who maintained vessels for 
transport by sea, the Pistores who provided bread for the 
people of Italy, the Pecuarii and Suarii who kept up the supply 
of butcher's meat, were all organized on a system as rigid and 
tyrannical as that which prevails in India at the present day. 

Each class was bound down to its characteristic occupation, 
and its matrimonial arrangements were governed by the curious 
rule that a man must marry within the caste, while if a woman 
married outside of it her husband thereby acquired her status 
and had to take on the public duties that went with it. 

This 
surprising arrangement was not a spontaneous growth, like 
caste in India, but owed its existence to a law enforced by 
executive action. ' One of the hardest tasks of the Government 
(says Mr. Dill) was to prevent the members of these guilds 
from deserting or evading their hereditary obligations. It is 
well known that the tendency of the later Empire was to 
stereotype society, by compelling men to follow the occupation 
of their fathers, and preventing a free circulation among dif- 
ferent callings and grades of life It was the principle of rural serfdom applied to social functions. Every avenue of escape 
was closed. A man was bound to his calling not only by his 
father's but by his mother's condition*. Men were not per- 
mitted to marry out of their guild. If the daughter of one of 

1 Roman Society in the Last Days of the Western Empire, Book iii, chap. L 
1 C. Th. xiv. 4, 8 * ad mnnus pristinum revocentur, tarn qui paterno quam 
matcrno genere inveniuntur obnoxii,the baker caste married a man not belonging to it, her husband 
was bound to her father's calling. Not even a dispensation 
obtained by some means from the imperial chancery, not even 
the power of the Church, could avail to break the chain of 
servitude.' There was even a caste of curiales or, as we should 
say in India, municipal commissioners, of whom we read that 
at a certain time all of them were ordered back to their native 
cities, and were forbidden to evade their hereditary obligations 
by entering any branch of the government service. As the 
Empire broke up, the caste system vanished with it. Men 
hastened to shake off all artificial restrictions and to choose 
wives and professions for themselves. But on the theory that 
community of function is the sole causative principle of caste, 
that is the last thing that they ought to have done. They should 
have hugged their chains and proceeded to manufacture new 
castes or sub-castes to fit every new occupation that sprang up.
 
If the principle had been worth anything, it should have 
operated in Europe as effectually as it does in India. No one 
can say that the Theodosian code had not given it a good start. 
Castes not But, it will be asked, if the origin of caste is not to be found 
trade g u ild ma y we n t see k ft i n the more primitive 
tubes. institution of the tribe? Early society, as far back as we can 
trace it, is made up of a network of tribes, and in India it is 
easy to observe the process of the conversion of a tribe into a 
caste. The conjecture seems at first sight plausible; but a 
glance at the facts will show that the transformation in question 
is confined to those tribes which have been brought into con- 
tact with the regular caste system, and have adopted its 
characteristic usages from religious or social motives. 

The 
Manipuris, for example, were converted from NSgas into 
Hindus only a century or two ago. The Bhumij, again, were 
a tribe at a still more recent date and retain plentiful traces of 
their origin. On the other hand, the races of Baluchistan, 
where Hindu influence is practically non-existent, show no 
inclination to follow the example of the Indian Muhammadans 
and organize themselves on the model of caste. The primitive 
tribe, in fact, wherever we find it, is not usually endogamous, 
and, so far from having any distaste for alien marriages, makes 
a regular business of capturing wives. In short, when tribes 
are left to themselves they exhibit no inborn tendency to 
crystallize into castes. In Europe, indeed, the movement has 
been all in the opposite direction : the tribes consolidated into 
nations; they did not sink into the political impotence of 
caste. 

In the case of a complex phenomenon such as caste, to the Thegenesis 
formation of which a number of subtle tendencies must have ^bT^g 
contributed, all that we can hope to do is to disentangle one of facts, 
or two leading ideas and to show how their operation may 
have produced the state of things that actually exists. Follow- 
ing out this line of thought, it seems possible to distinguish 
two elements in the growth of caste sentiment : a basis of fact 
and a superstructure of fiction. The former is widespread if 
not universal ; the latter peculiar to India. Whenever in the 
history of the world one people has subdued another, whether 
by sudden invasion or by gradual occupation of their territory, 
the conquerors have taken the women of the country as con- 
cubines or wives, but have given their own daughters in 
marriage only among themselves. Where the two peoples are 
of the same race, or at any rate of the same colour, this initial 
stage of hypergamy soon passes away and complete amalgama- 
tion takes place. Where, on the other hand, marked distinctions 
of race and colour intervene, and especially if the dominant 
people are continually recruited by men of their own blood, 
the course of evolution runs on different lines. The tendency 
then is towards the formation of a class of half-breeds, the 
result of irregular unions between men of the higher race and 
women of the lower, who marry only among themselves and 
are to all intents and purposes a caste. In this literal or 
physiological sense caste is not confined to India. 

It occurs 
in a pronounced form in the Southern States of the American 
Republic, where negroes intermarry with negroes, and the 
various mixed races, mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons, each 
have a sharply restricted ius connubii of their own and are 
practically cut off from legal unions with the white races. The 
same set of phenomena may be observed among the half-breeds 
of Canada, Mexico, and South America, and among the 
Eurasians of India, who do not intermarry with natives and 
only occasionally with pure-bred Europeans. Illustrations of 
the same process may be observed in the Himalayas, where, if 
anywhere in India, the practices recorded with exaggerated 
precision in the Indian law books still survive. 

The Rajputs 
of the Kangra Hills and the Khas of Nepal are believed to be 
the offspring of alliances between conquering Rajputs and 
women of more or less Mongoloid descent. Working from 
this analogy, it is not difficult to construct the rough outlines 
of the process which must have taken place when the second 
wave of Indo-Aryans made their way into India through 
Gilgit and Chitral. To start with, they formed a homogeneous 
community, scantily supplied with women, which speedily out- 
grew its original habitat. A company of the more adventurous 
spirits set out to conquer for themselves new domains among 
the neighbouring Dravidians. They went forth as fighting 
men, taking with them few women or none at all. They sub- 
dued the inferior race, established themselves as conquerors, 
and captured women according to their needs. Then they 
found themselves cut off from their original stock, partly by 
distance and partly by the alliances they had contracted. By 
marrying the captured women they had, to some extent, 
modified their original type ; but a certain pride of blood 
remained to them, and when they had bred females enough 
to serve their purposes and to establish a distinct ius connubii, 
they closed their ranks to all further intermixture of blood.
 
When they did this they became a caste like the castes of the 
present day. As their numbers grew, their cadets again sallied 
forth in the same way, and became the founders of Rajput and 
pseudo-Rajput houses all over India. In each case complete 
amalgamation with the inferior race was averted by the fact 
that they only took women and did not give them. They 
behaved in fact towards the Dravidians whom they conquered 
in the same way as some planters in America behaved to the 
African slaves whom they imported. This is a rough statement 
of what we may take to be the ultimate basis of caste, a basis 
of fact common to India and to certain stages of society all 
over the world. The principle upon which the system rests is 
the sense of distinction of race indicated by differences of 
colour : a sense which, while too weak to preclude the men 
of the dominant race from intercourse with the women whom 
they have captured, is still strong enough to make it out of 
the question that they should admit the men whom they have 
conquered to equal rights in the matter of marriage.

===Influence of fiction===

Once started in India, the principle was strengthened, 
perpetuated, and extended to all ranks of society by the 
fiction that people who speak a different language, dwell in 
a different district, worship different gods, eat different food, 
observe different social customs, follow a different profession, 
or practise the same profession in a slightly different way must 
be so unmistakably aliens by blood that intermarriage with 
them is a thing not to be thought of. Illustrations of the 
working of this fiction have been given already and might be 
multiplied indefinitely. Its precise origin is necessarily un- 
certain. All that can be said is that fictions of various kinds 
have contributed largely to the development of early societies 
in all parts of the world, and that their appearance is probably 
due to that tendency to vary, and to perpetuate beneficial 
variations, which seems to be a law of social no less than of 
physical development. 

However this may be, it is clear that 
the growth of the caste instinct must have been greatly 
promoted and stimulated by certain characteristic peculiarities 
of the Indian intellect its lax hold of facts, its indifference to 
action, its absorption in dreams, its exaggerated reverence for 
tradition, its passion for endless division and subdivision, its 
acute sense of minute technical distinctions, its pedantic 
tendency to press a principle to its farthest logical conclusion, 
and its remarkable capacity for imitating and adapting social 
ideas and usages of whatever origin. It is through this 
imitative faculty that the myth of the four castes evolved in 
the first instance by some speculative Brahman, and reproduced 
in the popular versions of the Ramayana which the educated 
Hindu villager studies as diligently as the English rustic used 
to read his Bible has attained its wide currency as the model 
to which Hindu society ought to conform. 

That it bears no 
relation to the actual facts of life is, in the view of its adherents, 
an irrelevant detail. It descends from remote antiquity, it has 
the sanction of the Brahmans, it is an article of faith, and 
every one seeks to bring his own caste within one or other of 
the traditional classes. Finally, as M. Senart has pointed out, 
the whole caste system, with its scale of social merit and 
demerit and its endless gradations of status, is in remarkable 
accord with the philosophic doctrine of transmigration and 
karma. Every Hindu believes that his spiritual status at any 
given time is determined by the sum total of his past lives : he 
is born to an immutable kartna, what more natural than that 
he should be born into an equally immutable caste ? 

The conclusions which this chapter seeks to establish may Summary, 
now be summed up. They are these : 

(1) There are seven main physical types in India, of which 
the Dravidian alone is, or may be, indigenous. The Indo- 
Aryan, the Mongoloid, and the Turko-Iranian types are in the 
main of foreign origin. The Aryo-Dravidian, the Mongolo- 
Dravidian, and the Scytho-Dravidian are composite types 
formed by crossing with the Dravidians. 

(2) The dominant influence in the formation of these types 
was the physical seclusion of India, involving the consequence 
that the various invaders brought few women with them and 
took the women of the country to wife. 

(3) To this rule the first wave of Indo-Aryans formed the 
sole exception, for the reasons given on pages 300-3. 
(4) The social grouping of the Indian people comprises both 
tribes and castes. We may distinguish three types of tribe 
and seven types of caste. 

(5) Both tribes and castes are subdivided into endogamous, 
exogamous, and hypergamous groups. 

(6) Of the exogamous groups a large number are totemistic. 

(7) Castes can be classified only on the basis of social 
precedence, but no scheme of classification can be framed for 
the whole of India. 

(8) The Indian theory of caste was perhaps derived from 
Persia. It has no foundation in fact, but is universally accepted 
in India. 

(9) The origin of caste is from the nature of the case an 
insoluble problem. We can only frame more or less plausible 
conjectures, derived from the analogy of observed facts. The 
particular conjecture now put forward is based firstly, upon 
the correspondence that can be traced between certain caste 
gradations and the variations of physical type ; secondly, on the 
development of mixed races from stocks of different colour ; and 
thirdly, on the influence of fiction.

===BIBLIOGRAPHY ===

Chapters ix (Marriage) and xi (Caste, Tribe, and Race) of the Report on 
the Census of India, 1901, and Ethnographic Appendices. 

Sir D. Ibbetson. -Report on th* Punjab Census, 1881. 

H. H. Risley. Tnbes and Castes of Bengal (Calcutta, 1902). 

Colonel Dalton. Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 1872). 

J. C. Neifield. Brief View of the Caste System of the North- Western 
Provinces and Oudh (Allahabad, 1885). 

\V. Crooke. Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Province* and 
Oudh (Calcutta, 1896). 

Sir H. M. Elliot. ROMS of the North- Western Provinces (revised by 
J. Beames, 1869). 

M. A. Sherring. Hindu Tribes and Casks (1872-81), 

Dr. J. \\i\ton.-~Indian Caste (1877). 

E. Senart //; Castes dans flnde (Paris, 1896). 

Sir A. C. Ly*\l Asiatic Studiu (1899). 

R. Fick. Die sodale Gliedtrung im nordostluhen Indien nu Buddha's 
Zeit (Kiel, 1897). 

Madras Government Museum Bull*tins t published at the Local Govern- 
ment Press SUKC 1894.