Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47.s2.5

c47.s2.5

In dealing with the masses of the population, the first fact of which cognisance should be taken in regard to the general arrangement of the castes is the remarkable preponderance of the agricultural element. Cultivation is the premier employment of the country, and to occupy a holding is the main object of the bulk of the rural population. In the little oligarchy, therefore, known as the village community, the landed classes stand at the top, and where, as in all but the east of India and the tracts still under the forest tribes, that community exists in an organised form, the classes included therein are all subservient to the needs of the peasantry. Each of these economic units contains a recognised body of artisans, minor professionals and menials, to whom is assigned respectively a small share of the village land or of its annual produce. Mixed in with these, are found the various large bodies of fishers, cattle-breeders and others, some of whom hover between the fields and their eponymous means of subsistence. To the village, then, as it is understood in India, is dedicated the second of the main divisions of the list, followed by a small group of minor, or subsidiary professional castes between village and town. In the third are placed the castes exercising functions specially or exclusively the product of city life. In placing them after the rural bodies it is not implied that they rank below the latter from whom in most cases they originally sprang, for they stand, as a rule, a little higher; but they are, as it were, bye-products of the hive, outside the normal output, and on lines parallel to the main organisation. Then, detached from either town or village, except in a few cases where a permanent pied à terre is kept for shelter during the rainy season, are various tribes of travellers and nomads, some of whom are real castes, others a nondescript collection of waifs often consisting of "broken men" or people discarded by other communities. The greater number of the latter are numerically small; but there are a few which include large and respectable communities. Finally, some reference must be made to the bodies not coming within the caste system, such as the more or less primitive tribes of the Hill-tracts, and also the Muslim races foreign to India in their titles, though to a great extent native in blood.