The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.228

v1.c15.228

The caste-system is, as we have seen, a distinctive product of Brāhmanism, a code which regards the family, and not the congregation, as the religious unit. And so strong did this social system become that it has affected all the other religions. The most probable explanation of the very remarkable disappearance of Buddhism from the greater part of the sub-continent, where it was once so widely extended, is that Buddhism has been gradually absorbed into the Brāhman caste-system, which has also, though in a less degree, influenced the followers of other faiths—Jains, Muhammadans, Sikhs, and even native Christians. We must conclude, then, that the caste-system has accompanied the spread of Brāhmanism from its first stronghold in the country of the Upper Jumna and Ganges into other regions of Northern India and finally into Southern India; and we must expect to find its complete record only in Brāhman literature. Caste must naturally be less perfectly reflected in the literature of other faiths.