Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s4.31

c7.s4.31

The conclusion is inevitable. The Veda, depository of a distant past, reflects a division of *classes*, for which the comparison with Iran and other indications besides attest a very great antiquity. As for the more modern literature, it found itself not only by reason of its origin involved in a system of castes, but also enslaved to the Vedic tradition of which it was obliged to accept unreservedly the whole heritage. Memories of the past and actualities of the present were fused in a hybrid system : the living order of the castes was made to fit in with old divisions of races and classes which were transmogrified for the purpose. These incoherences had no terror for a scholastic speculation which was more contemptuous than any other of facts and of history. Its work was, moreover, facilitated by what certainly survived of class spirit, as manifested in the minute subdivision of the castes.