Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s8.46

c6.s8.46

By the factors which modify the condition of the groups we may judge of the principal considerations which govern their hierarchy. This hierarchy is very punctilious, but far from being invariable. The general tendencies are altered by special circumstances, especially by historical events. At a given moment the power of a province may have fallen to the representative of a class which from its origin did not seem destined to wield authority. The agrarian race of the Kunbis at Poona go so far as to adorn themselves with the title of Kshatriyas. This claim is not unconnected with the important part played in the seventeenth century by one of its members, Śivājī, as founder of the Maratha power.³ All things considered, what governs precedence is the degree of fidelity with which each caste conforms, or professes to conform, to the Brahmanic teaching either as regards marriage or external purity, or as regards the occupations or accessory customs of which I have attempted to give some idea. It is, above all, the supposed impurity of their trades or of their food which is responsible for the humiliation of the lowest castes, those who are commonly called outcasts.¹ It is easy to imagine that every one is scrupulously on his guard against these people, since the essential formula is to have no dealings with those who are inferior and defiled.