Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s7.8

c8.s7.8

Little by little the demands for a less shifting existence became insistent. A more sedentary life was established in villages engaged in pastoral and agricultural pursuits which were originally founded on a basis of kinship, for the laws of family and of the clan preserved supreme authority, and the traditional usages sanctioned by religion continued to be observed. More settled habits developed the needs and trades of a civilization which was ripe for greater expansion. The professional corporations were in their turn caught in the network, either because the village-community brought about community of occupation, or because the scattered representatives of the same profession in neighbouring districts obeyed an imperious need by modelling themselves on the only type of organization in use around them.