Travels in India (Tavernier) 117.1

117.1

The idolaters of India are so numerous that for one Muhammadan there are five or six Gentiles. It is astonishing to see how this enormous multitude of men has allowed itself to be subjected by so small a number of persons, and has bent readily under the yoke of the Muhammadan Princes. But the astonishment ceases when one considers that these idolaters have no union among themselves, and that superstition has introduced so strange a diversity of opinions and customs that they never agree with one another. An idolater will not eat bread nor drink water in a house belonging to any one of a different caste from his own, unless it is more noble and more exalted than his own; thus they can all eat and drink in the houses of the Brahmins which are open to all the world. A caste is, so to speak, among these idolaters that which formerly a tribe was among the Jews, and although it is commonly believed that there are seventy-two of these castes, I have ascertained from the most accomplished of their priests that they are able to reduce them to four principal (castes), from which all others derive their origin.