The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c8.66

c8.66

We must distinguish between the two concepts, between the modern caste and that which the Brahmanical law-books understand by caste; they do not coincide with each other in any way and it would be a great mistake to make them identical. We cannot also hope to arrive at a universally valid definition by a combination of the two; a definition like this which is true of all stages of evolution of Indian culture, cannot at all be given; we can only try, through a comparison of the different stages which the caste has gone through in the course of centuries, to find persisting, and consequently, probably essential moments, in order, with the help of these, to get an approximate idea of the general meaning of caste in the earlier Buddhistic age. On the other hand, we must not ignore the development of the modern castes and confine ourselves wholly to literary tradition, for it is precisely the modern castes which give us many valuable parallels where the Brahmanical theory leaves us in the lurch, and many conditions of the social life of ancient times are only intelligible to us in the light of the present day.