The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c8.67

c8.67

By a caste of modern India, we understand, if I am to adhere in all essentials to the definition given by Senart,¹ a self-contained body which with a certain traditional and independent organisation, has a chief as well as a council, the membership of which is hereditary and which is thus determined not by chance or free selection but by birth, which gathers more or less fully on certain occasions, for instance, in certain festivals, and which is generally held together by a common hereditary calling, which observes the same customs, especially, with regard to marriage, eating and various acts of purification, which, finally, is provided with a judiciary that makes the authority of the corporate body felt principally through the punishment of excommunication. The essential element by which the castes are even now characterised as an order *sui generis* and are distinguished from other similar social groups, is to be sought in the customs relating to the connubium, interdining and contact of impure persons; it is precisely these rules which set up absolute barriers between the innumerable modern castes and thereby give the Indian society its own proper physiognomy.