Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s7.24

c8.s7.24

The classical language of India is distinguished from cognate languages by a striking peculiarity. The finite verb finds small place in the sentence; the thought is unfolded in long, compound phrases, often very ambiguously related. Instead of a solid syntactic construction in which the design is perceptible and the stresses stand out of them selves in clearly defined clauses, the sentence boasts no more than a loose structure in which the constituent parts of the thought, merely juxtaposed, are lacking in relief. The religious beliefs of India are scarcely ever presented in positive dogmas. In the vague outlines of an imperfectly defined pantheism opposition and divergences rise for a moment only, then sink back into the shifting mass. Contradictions are quickly resolved in a conciliatory syncretism which weakens schisms, and all differences are cloaked by a convenient orthodoxy. Nowhere is there categoric doctrine, consistent and uncompromising. On the social plane an analogous phenomenon appears in the caste-system. Everywhere is the same spectacle of plastic impotence.