Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s5.9

c6.s5.9

One single illustration to show to what oddities this delicate point of honour may lead. Of two much-despised castes in the Panjab, the Chuhras and the Dhanuks, it is said that they mutually refuse to eat one another’s leavings, although they take those of all the other castes, with the exception of the very low-class Sansis! We should never finish if we had to distinguish, even within the rather limited measure of facts known to us, between the rules which govern cooked rice and other foods; between Bengal, where all castes, or nearly all, take food prepared by the Brahmans, and the more strict custom which in several castes in the rest of northern India excludes Brahman cooking and only admits that of a member of the caste itself. We need do no more than give an idea of this wearisome variety.