Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s4.28

c7.s4.28

The *Viśas* of the Veda were not limited to a caste, but included everything in the Āryan population which was not distinguished by sacerdotal functions or aristocratic rank; and consequently Brahmanic theory in creating the derivative *Vaiśya* may have given to the primitive word an application somewhat arbitrary and historically false, of which we have an indication that must on no account be forgotten. The name Arya, although it does not appear to be used thus in the hymns, is incontestably synonymous with Ārya. It is sometimes thus employed in the sacerdotal literature, but there it is in the main specially applied to the Vaiśyas.¹ It was therefore quite clearly remembered that the Vaiśyas really formed the whole class of free men, the bulk of the nation. There is a world of difference between this loose grouping and the true caste, which is necessarily more restricted. The caste was devoted to the pursuit of a definite profession and was bound together by common descent and by the discipline of its own rules and customs.