Caste in India: The Facts and the System c5.14

c5.14

The Brahmans base their attitude not only on existing conditions—since in their own way they observe the division of the population into numberless sections separated by the laws of custom—but also on Vedic tradition, which, in this as in other matters, they reverently regard as the root of all things. But for all that they take equal liberties with both these authorities: to matters of popular practice they superadd arbitrary rules and fantastic restrictions; they take familiar passages from the Vedas and put them in a new setting. In both directions we detect an artificial theorizing.