Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c4.16

c4.16

It was during the later Vedic period that there grew up the institution of caste which occupies a prominent place in all subsequent social speculation, and which has a direct bearing on governmental theory. Perhaps caste was partly borrowed from the Dravidians among whom, in the south, it still obtains a much more rigid form than in the north.¹ The ancient designation of caste, Varna or colour suggests that the difference of complexion between the Aryan settlers and the darker aborigines was a cause of the first magnitude in the division of society into two primary ranks. If a distant analogy be permitted, the legislation on the relations between the Whites and the Negroes in the southern states of the American Union supports the hypothesis. The natural operation of economic forces and of warfare splits a community into different groups. The Hindu tendency to push an idea to its logical extreme produced caste where Europe stopped at class. Whatever its original causes, caste which fixes the station of man according to Birth and which restricts intermarriage among groups, is taken for granted throughout the greater period of Hindu history and obtrudes at innumerable points into governmental organisation and theory. At the base of the institution lies the idea of function which formed the governing principle of Hindu associated life. Function, indeed, must dominate all organisation. Every social