Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47.s2.1

c47.s2.1

§ 21. Regarding the subject in its ethnographic aspect, it is obvious that it must be a task of extraordinary, almost insuperable, difficulty to reduce to anything like accurate numerical terms the component parts of so vast and complex an organisation as that sketched above. It should be borne in mind that the object of the Census is to obtain a record not only of scientific value in the service of ethnography, but of practical importance in the every-day administration of the country. The social position and the numerical strength of different sections of the community are essential facts in connection, for instance, with public instruction or with measures for the promotion of the comfort or convenience of the locality. The Courts of Justice, again, are frequently called upon to decide questions of rank or privilege in which the relative numbers of the litigant parties are points relevant to the inquiry, and which cannot be safely left to the evidence of the disputants, in view of the "megalomania" which is probably at the bottom of the whole controversy. Even the identification of an individual cannot be satisfactorily established in the case of many of the more important social divisions by less than two or even three, successive questions, and often the credibility of a witness is decided by a casual detail of caste convention. On these considerations, and with an eye to the known probability of error in the direction of either excessive generality or excessive minuteness of description, provision was made at the Census for the return of social divisions under two headings, first, the main body, such as caste or tribe, and, secondly, the subdivision to which the individual may belong. In the larger communities, indeed the latter is the more distinctive designation, and was adopted, accordingly, as the unit of compilation in the returns prepared for local use. Lower than this it is unnecessary, for administrative purposes, that the inquiry should go; but it must be recognised that from the ethnological standpoint, the more minute subdivisions of the community are often more pregnant of suggestion or information than those of which they form a part, and must be adequately dealt with in any special investigation, such as that now engaging the attention of those employed upon the Indian Ethnographical Survey.