Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s5.20

c7.s5.20

It is an odd delusion to profess to use such tales as documents bearing on the history of caste. All that they can show is that in spite of the claims of the Brahmanic class a monopoly of religious life and activity has never really been exclusively theirs. The outstanding fact is that at the period when they took definite form Brahmanic ambition had received its final consecration in the system which is the law. To admit that a Kshatriya might not touch sacred things except by becoming a Brahman was, in the eyes of Brahmans, another way of paying homage to their privilege. A rare exception, very dearly bought, confirmed the rule. It is impossible to see in it a proof that changes of caste have been officially recognized, still less that the legend is older than the caste-system. The utmost we may infer from it is that the rule entrusting the religious ministry solely to the Brahmanic castes, being foreign to the archaic constitution of the rites, which did not assume a privileged priesthood, suffered in remote antiquity still more exceptions than in later times which were further removed from the primitive family-priesthood.