Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s7.13

c8.s7.13

This system, sprung from a mixture of arbitrary pretensions and authentic facts, became a force in its turn. Not only was it carried by the Brahmans as a dogma into parts of the country where it was assimilated at a later date, but everywhere, thanks to the immense authority wielded by its patrons, it reacted through ideas upon practice. Idealism tended to be imposed as the strict rule of duty. But the distance between fact and theory was too great ever to admit of a complete fusion of the two.