Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47.s1.9.2

c47.s1.9.2

In regard to the former, the foundations of a closed order based on heredity had been laid, as mentioned above, amongst the priests and the nobles, at a very early period, and the bias in favour of such distinctions amongst the "clans" was necessarily accentuated by the contiguity of the dark races, on the one side, and the evolution within their own community of occupations unrecognised, because unknown, in Vedic tradition. Manual industries, it should be borne in mind, were invariably depreciated by the Ārya of the west, where they were relegated to the servile population; and in India, whether they were carried on by the Dasyu, the half-breeds, or the poorer members of the Clan, they could not fail to bring into prominence the possibility of contamination or abasement of position, either on racial grounds or by reason of the inherent or conventional impurity of the calling. In these circumstances, the idea which seems to have been adopted to prevent the flowing tide of impurity from submerging the cherished landmarks of pride of family and of race, was to establish an alliance between conventional purity of race or calling with the ancestral religion of which the Brāhman was the sole exponent. The situation could be stereotyped by the establishment of the distribution of society upon divine ordinance. It is true that as is now generally admitted, Caste, still less the Caste-system — which is the subject now in hand — did not exist amongst the Āryas of the Sūkta period.