Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s1.2

c6.s1.2

When they entered into relations with the peoples of the Malabar coast the Portuguese were quick to observe that the Hindus were divided into a great number of exclusive hereditary groups distinguished by their special occupations. They were graded in a sort of hierarchy, the upper groups refraining with superstitious care from all intercourse with those considered more lowly. It was to these sections that the Portuguese gave the name of *castes*. Eighteen centuries earlier the first Greeks who had established anything approaching close intercourse with India were already struck by this peculiarity. Megasthenes, ambassador of Seleucus, informed his countrymen that the Hindus were split into ‘divisions’ (μέρη),¹ within which individuals were to some extent confined, being unable themselves to pass or to marry into any other section than that in which they were born, or to choose a profession different from that which had devolved on them by heredity.