Caste in India: The Facts and the System c4: Author's Note
Caste in India: The Facts and the System c4
- Language
- English
Author's Note
c4.1
THIS essay is more than thirty years old : a great age for so modest an investigation. It appeared at an auspicious moment : for a general census of India had just made available vast stores of information, and had prompted a number of those high officials who had contributed to that work to study closely the social organization of India. Many new theories were thus propounded. At that time, also, new district *Gazetteers*, throwing much light on local conditions, were constantly appearing. Time will no doubt show that the end of the last century was the ideal moment in which to take stock of the social life of India in its traditional aspect. For at this period was to be seen the full development of British rule and administration unaffected by the nationalist evolution which was destined to change the outward face of the country.
c4.2
Although the bibliography of the subject has grown considerably since that time, I do not think anything fresh has been revealed. Nothing in recent publications appears to me of a nature to cause me to modify the conclusions indicated by the older documentation.
c4.3
Observing how uncertain and vague were current ideas, I intended above all to set forth the character of the caste system as displayed in the only country where it appears to have shaped the whole framework of society, with more precision and authenticity than it had hitherto received.
c4.4
As regards the past, we must necessarily draw our information from literary tradition. We must, however, proceed with caution; for, as might be expected, it is strongly coloured by the mentality peculiar to India, and is dominated by the ideas and outlook of the Brahmanic class, whose schools elaborated it. This tradition is less concerned with the faithful record of facts than with their arrangement in systems conforming to the tendencies of a strongly biased group. It confuses, for example, class and caste—*varṇa* and *jāti*—and presents as the effect of an intangible dogma what is in reality due to spontaneous and infinitely complex developments. In this way it has tended to distort ideas relating to caste even amongst the most learned. The time has obviously arrived for applying to literary tradition the correctives to be found in the special conditions which governed its formation.
c4.5
In the hope that this little work still fulfils its original purpose I have readily given my consent to a new impression.
c4.6
É. SENART