Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s3.15

c8.s3.15

It is not that he is duped by the dogmatism of the religious books. In his opinion ‘the old fourfold division was never actually in force in India except as a current tradition, the only reality which attaches to it to this day’. Borrowed from the Indo-Iranian past, it has hardly any other value than that of connecting the diversity of the castes with functional differences. The Vaiśyas and the Śūdras in particular have never been anything except a kind of rubric intended to embrace a multitude of heterogeneous elements.³ But, evidently without overcoming the charm exercised on his mind by positivist constructions, Nesfield has clearly felt that for want of a corrective his theory proved too much, that it ought to be applicable to all countries. In spite of his natural independence, he has also doubtless come under the influence of tradition. However that may be, the concession which he makes to it, far from being inherent in his system, disturbs its whole ordinance. The originality of his thesis is to be found elsewhere. Though others before him have assigned an active part in the genesis of the castes to professional groups, no one has so deliberately found in these their whole evolution. He has also more than any one else connected their characteristic details with tribal memories. In taking his stand on the novel ground of ethnography, he has extended the scope of the discussion and offered a wider basis for interpretation.