Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s2.51

c7.s2.51

Thus these religious and moral legislators obeyed a natural inclination which is very powerful in the Hindu mind. They also obeyed, more or less willingly, a personal and selfish tendency, the operation of which is everywhere patent, and finally deprived their work of the authority of a straightforward document. Before all else their aim was to establish the absolute supremacy of the Brahmans. With them everything bears on their own glorification and is intended to further their interests. The books which come from their schools are designed to exalt their power and strengthen their pre-eminence. Sole purveyors of literature, it is they also who gave form to the epic traditions. It is therefore only natural that, in spite of accidental discrepancies, these latter reflect with as much insistence as the sacerdotal literature itself the pretensions of the Brahmans, and point out with equal emphasis the privileges to which they lay claim.