Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s3.22

c8.s3.22

He nevertheless summarizes in the following words the stages which he discerns in the history of the caste : (1) the organization of the tribe, common to all primitive societies ; (2) the guilds founded on heredity of occupation ; (3) the exaltation, peculiar to India, of the sacerdotal function ; (4) the exaltation of Levitical blood by the importance attributed to heredity ; (5) the consolidation of the principle by the elaboration of a series of entirely artificial laws, derived from Hindu beliefs, regulating marriage and fixing the limits within which it may be contracted, declaring certain occupations and foods to be impure, and determining the conditions and extent of the relations permitted between the castes.