together, such as then existed in North India, existed also everywhere throughout the world, among peoples of a similar stage of culture. They are, it is true, the key to the origin of the later Indian caste system. But that system involves much more than these restrictions. And it is no more accurate to speak of caste at the Buddha's time in India, than it would be to speak of it as an established institution, at the same time, in Italy or Greece. There is no word even for caste. The words often wrongly rendered by that modern expression (itself derived from a Portuguese word) have something to do with the question, but do not mean caste. The Colours (Vanna) were not castes. No one of them had any of the distinctive marks of a caste, as the term is now used, and as it always has been used since it was first introduced by Europeans, and there was neither connubium nor commensality between the members of each. Fati is "birth"; and pride of birth may have had to do with the subsequent building up of caste prejudices; but it exists in Europe today, and is an idea very different from that of caste. Kula is "family "or" clan " according to the context. And though the medieval caste system had much to do with families and clans, it is only misleading to confuse terms which are so essentially different, or to read back a mediæval idea into these ancient documents. The caste system, in any proper or exact use of the term, did not exist till long afterwards.'

1 For the discussion of this question see also Senart, Les Castes dans l'Inde; Fick, Sociale Gliederung im nordöstlichen Indien zu Buddha's Zeit; and Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, 1. 95–107.

E have, unfortunately, no detailed description

W of the outward appearance of an ancient

city. We are told of lofty walls, and strong ramparts with buttresses and watch-towers and great gates; the whole surrounded by a moat or even a double moat, one of water and one of mud. In a bas-relief on the Sanchi tope, dating from the second or perhaps the third century B.C., we have a representation of such city walls, and it is very probable that in earlier times the fortifications were often similar in kind. But we are nowhere told of the length of the fortifications or of the extent of the space they enclosed. It would seem that we have to think, not so much of a large walled city, as of a fort surrounded by a number of suburbs. For there is frequent mention of the king, or a high official, going out of the city when he wants to take an afternoon's pleasure jaunt. And from the equally frequent mention of the windows of the great houses opening directly on to the streets or squares, it would appear that it was not the custom to have them surrounded

by any private grounds. There were, however, no doubt, enclosed spaces behind the fronts of the houses, which latter abutted on the streets.

FIG. 3.--KING AND QUEENS WATCHING A PROCESSION AS IT LEAVES A FORT.

We have several descriptions of the building of a house, showing the materials used, and we have bas

reliefs showing the general design of the frontage. The elaborate description of the underground palace, a sort of Welbeck Abbey of ancient days, constructed by Mahosadha in his famous tunnel, is full of points. of interest in this connection.' And the detailed account of the residences of members of the Order given in Vinaya Texts (3. 96, 104-115, 160-180) goes farther into minute details of the construction and ornamentation of the various portions of a human habitation. Then we have descriptions and basreliefs of the palace of the gods. And as gods are made in imitation of men, these are fair evidence also of the buildings in use by men at the time when the books were written, or the sculptures made. We have no space to enter fully into detail here. But the annexed illustration shows the ideas of a sculptor on the Bharahat tope as to the façade of a mansion, and the next shows his notion of what the meetinghall of the gods, part of Vejayanta, the palace in heaven, was like.'

It is not easy to determine from these illustrations whether the pillars and railings depicted are intended to represent woodwork, or stone carved in imitation of wood. I am inclined to think the latter is meant. If so, that would show that in the third century B.C. (the date of the bas-reliefs), stone was already much used. We have an extant example of stone walls surrounding a hill fortress before the sixth century B.C. (at Giribbaja, see above, p. 37). But in the

1

1 Jāt. 6. 430; translated in Yatawara's Ummagga Jātaka.

? These gods must have been made by the clansmen in the free republics, or they would not have had a mote-hall.