Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s3.26

c7.s3.26

One example will make my meaning clear. Haug,¹ and after him, with more precision, Kern,² have sought to show, contrary to the most generally received opinion,³ that not only were castes perfectly well known at the Vedic epoch, but that they go back farther—to the days when the ancestors of the Iranians and those of the Hindus lived side by side. They base their argument either on the texts of the Avesta or on the more recent evidence which shows the early population of Iran divided into four *pishtras*, analogous to the four *varṇas* of India. The existence of castes is nowhere attested in the history of Persia. The caste-idea is, however, in the opinion of Kern and Haug, so indissolubly connected with the quadruple division of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaiśyas, and Śūdras, that in order to discover its equivalent in a kindred region they unhesitatingly conclude that the caste-system must have had a parallel existence in the two countries! I consider—and I shall return to this point—that Kern is perfectly justified in comparing the two series. I readily admit that there is more than an outward resemblance between them—there is an intimate affinity; but despite the fusion which has operated in India between this quadruple division and the caste-system nothing proves that the connexion is original or necessary, or that the one implies the other.