Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s6.45

c6.s6.45

It is the whole of these rules, often so trivial, which defines the character of each caste. Each, indeed, has a sense of cohesion to which it owes its continuance and its strength. It is sometimes personified in a special cult of some divine or legendary patron:¹ Chitragupta, the infernal recorder, for the scribes; Lāl Guru or Lāl Beg for the sweepers² and the blacksmiths³; Rāja Kiḍar for certain fishermen, etc. In default of such special protectors, certain divinities, although belonging to the common Pantheon, are preferred in the worship of this or that class. The traces of true ancestor-worship appear to be rare. Observers have rightly drawn attention to them,⁴ but have wrongly leapt to positive conclusions on the subject. For in those cases where our information is at all circumstantial we find that almost all the castes have memories or legends⁵ concerning their origin and migrations, which imply that each possesses a sense of its genealogical cohesion as definite as would be revealed by the invention of some common eponym. This eponym itself is not always lacking.⁶