Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s4.6

c7.s4.6

So sharp a distinction can hardly fail, at the period to which our researches take us, to correspond to a national secession. It is impossible to discern whether the population comprised under the name of Śūdras was solely composed of those aboriginal elements which the Āryans met when immigrating from the north-west into India, or whether it included a mixture of elements. The point is of secondary importance. Between Āryas and Śūdras there was certainly an original opposition of race, more or less absolute. The interbreeding inevitable between conquerors and conquered, between invaders and aborigines, has succeeded in modifying the essential differences, but not in effacing the consciousness of the past.