Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47.s2.2

c47.s2.2

It must also be understood that neither the Provincial nor the Imperial returns claim to present anything beyond a partial and very imperfect picture of the astounding fissiparity of the Brāhmanic social system in the full vigour of its present existence. The Imperial Table, even after a somewhat drastic process of compilation, contains nearly 2,400 separate items, and the project of expanding it to the full limits of the subject inevitably calls to the memory of the expert the concluding verse of the Gospel according to St John. Take, for instance, the feature of endogamy alone. Every subdivision recorded in a Provincial Table, covers, if the main body be widely spread, many others, none of which intermarries with the rest. Not only so, but the main body itself does not recognise any social tie with the body bearing the same name located in a distant part of the country, even though, as sometimes, happens, the same vernacular language may be spoken by both. Each of these local subdivisions, moreover, is divided into its respective endogamous sections; some of them professing a different religion, and occupying, perhaps, quite a different position in the social hierarchy of the neighbourhood from that of the synonymous section elsewhere. Even the Provincial groups, therefore, subjoined to the general aggregate in the Table, convey an impression of homogeneity not in correspondence with the actual fact.