Caste in India: The Facts and the System c5.12

c5.12

exactly as they are presented to us in the Dharma-śāstras, any more in recent times than in the period to which the hymns belong. On the other hand, there is no indubitable proof that they may not have existed from Vedic times, although no doubt in a less advanced stage of development. It is, on the contrary, a supposition which commands acceptance, if it be true that all the seeds from which the caste system has sprung amidst conditions and surroundings peculiar to India are traceable to the common patrimony of the Indo-European races. Between the periods of the hymns and the law-books the castes were able to take more definite shape, and to develop logically in accordance with certain generating principles; they were not made artificially.