Caste and Race in India c11.5

c11.5

Of the many cultures that flourished in India the literary records of the Indo-Aryan culture are not only the earliest but contain the first mention and a continuous history of the factors that make up caste. The only other culture whose records are intelligible is the Dravidian; but when that culture put forward its documents that are extant, it had already been immensely influenced by the Indo-Aryan tradition. The brahmanic variety of this Indo-Aryan civilization—it is the most widely and deeply spread aspect—