Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s5.39

c8.s5.39

It is the same principle conversely applied which forbids participation in the same meal, and in a more general way all contact between people who have no share in the same family rites. This tradition has left traces elsewhere than in India. The *jus osculi*, contact by embrace, is a sign of kinship.³ Here too, then, the germ is ancient. Even the impurity of a corpse is no doubt partly explained by the consideration that the deceased is necessarily excluded from the rites by death. It places him therefore outside the family; his contact and presence defile the relatives in the same way as would an outcast.⁴ We must not forget that exclusion from caste is by the very nature of the ceremonial likened to death; in both cases a funeral is celebrated. The impurity from which the relatives suffer during the days of mourning is a conception common to all Āryan antiquity. Impurity is transmitted by near approach; and from the man it extends to the woman and to the servant. All contact which pollutes must therefore be carefully avoided, as well as all intercourse with people who, if they do not fall under the misfortune of accidental defilement, are impure from the fact that they do not belong to the community of the same fire and water. The development of this law in the caste is perfectly logical.