Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s1.4

c6.s1.4

The fact, then, is obvious enough; its details and peculiar conditions are much more obscure. To every one, and to the foreigner especially, the private life of the Hindu is veiled in a kind of dignified shyness which is not at all easy to penetrate. The social organism of India, the play of its motive-forces, is, moreover, regulated infinitely more by custom, varying according to locality and baffling in its complexity, than by legal formulae laid down in authentic and easily accessible texts. The books which we are accustomed to regard as collections of laws do not represent rules rigidly enforced in the civil sphere. They are sacerdotal works, and leave undefined a number of interesting points. In many respects they express a certain theological ideal rather than actual statements adapted to meet real conditions.