Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s3.34

c7.s3.34

Here we put our finger on the true situation: the names of Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaiśya and Śūdra represent not four primitive ‘castes’, but four ‘classes’. These classes may be exceedingly ancient; it is only in later times that they have been superimposed on the castes. Different by nature and origin, the true castes, or the organisms from which they sprang, were from the beginning more diverse and more numerous. This explanation alone accounts for the glaring incongruity apparent between fact and theory.