Caste and Race in India c8.187

c8.187

In the treatment of the outcast section of the society this period witnesses a development which is in keeping with the ideas of ceremonial purity. Untouchability is graded according to the supposed impurity of the object. A Brahmin should keep a distance of one yuga, two, three, and four yugas between himself and a degraded person, a woman in her period, a parturient woman, and a Caṇḍāla respectively in order that he may not catch pollution from them.²