The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c18.6

c18.6

These races were and are even to-day looked upon by the Indians as castes, and indeed, they are classed in the Brahmanical theory with the lowest mixed castes. What gives them in fact in ancient times the appearance of a caste is their local isolation, their living together outside the rest of the society which avoids contact with them, on account of their low position, and their despised profession which is hereditary. From the higher castes they are distinguished by this, that their isolation is not a voluntary one; the barriers which surround them and which prevent their straying from their narrowly circumscribed profession as well as all mixture through marriage with those standing higher, are not erected by them but are forced upon them by their conquerors.