Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s6.17

c8.s6.17

There are yet other facts: I have spoken of those Russian villages where community of property and proximity on the same soil have resulted in community of profession. The same thing has occurred in India; we cannot doubt this when we remember the numerous villages of potters, curriers, blacksmiths, etc., to which literature, above all Buddhistic literature, makes such frequent allusions. Community of trade may have spread in this way all the more readily if a blood-bond originally united the inhabitants of the village. Now there are incessant references to villages of Brahmans. This must mean that the groupings are governed, often, at any rate, by relationship, for with the Brahman relationship and not identity of profession was unquestionably the essential thing. They lived infinitely less by their ritual functions than by agricultural and above all pastoral pursuits. This, however, does not exclude the possibility that by a superficial analogy their example may have encouraged community of trade in less noble and respected groups round about them.