The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c8.108

c8.108

What concerned us hitherto in our investigation was to show that we find precisely the attributes which the caste of the Brahmanical theory has in common with modern caste and in which we must look for the essence of a caste, in the *játi* of the Pali texts and that we have to recognise in them—without maintaining the existence of a strict caste order—a factor of great power which lies deeply rooted in the life of society as well as of the individual.