Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s2.1

c8.s2.1

IF the Hindus have confused the two ideas and the two terms ‘ classes ’ and ‘ castes ’, there are those among us who have followed in their erring footsteps with regrettable docility. I refer especially to Indianists. Representatives of the philological school, they obey an almost irresistible preference to regard the problem from this traditional aspect. The Brahmanic theory is, as it were, their native atmosphere, and literary chronology their invariable starting-point.