Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s7.12

c8.s7.12

Amid this confusion the sacerdotal class alone, in spite of its subdivisions, retained a strong corporate spirit and possessed a power which was both moral and highly efficacious. This it used to strengthen and extend its privileges, and also to establish under its supremacy some kind of order and cohesion. It generalized and codified existing conditions into an ideal system which it strove to have sanctioned by law. This was the legal caste-system. In it was amalgamated the existing situation with the stubborn traditions of the past, in which class-hierarchy had laid the foundations of its power, now so greatly increased.