Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s3.5

c8.s3.5

Thus, among the artisan castes he perceives two great divisions: the first corresponds to the trades before metal-working—this is the lower; the second and higher one represents the metallurgical industries, or is contemporaneous with their development. He has expended remarkable ingenuity in establishing on analogous bases within the group to which it belongs the precedence of each caste, as determined in his view by Hindu usage. The groups are thus ranked according as they are more particularly concerned with hunting, fishing, pastoral pursuits, landed property, manual trades, commerce, servile occupations, or sacerdotal functions. To use his own words:²