Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s4.2

c7.s4.2

The first embraces the *Āryas*, otherwise called the *dvijas*, persons to whose natural birth is added the religious rebirth conferred by initiation. The *Śūdras*, excluded from this kind of sacrament, have no part at all in learning or the sacred texts to which it serves as an indispensable introduction, no direct part whatever in sacrifices, nor in any of the ceremonies destined to sanctify the life of the higher castes in its various phases. At best they are allowed to celebrate certain inferior rites, and through that alone they are still, although only in a very humble degree, included within the common organization. Initiation is the door by which one enters into the great Aryan family ; as Manu expressly states, the Aryan himself is no better than the Śūdra until he has passed through this second birth. The division, then, is essential ; it is religious, not simply social. A dead man of the three upper castes, if carried by a Śūdra, could not enter into heaven.¹ The strongest form of condemnation for certain offences among Brahmans is to proclaim that thereby they have become Śūdras,² that is to say, *outcasts*. Manu states that for the Śūdra there is no deadly sin, *pātaka*.³ For him there are, in fact, no offences involving degradation, for he has no access to those heights from which it is possible to fall.