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Presented by the Hibbert Trustees.

8vo. Leiden, 1894.

Upton (C. B.). Bases of Religious Belief.

8vo. London, 1894.

Presented by the Publishers.

Douglas (Prof. R. K.). Society in China.

8vo. London, 1894.

Rees (J. D.). The Muhammedans, 1001-1761 A.D.

Cunha (J. Gerson da). History of Chaul and Bassein.

Presented by Professor Tchéraz.

8vo. Bombay, 1876.

Tamamchef (Dr. J. von). Der Kampf um Constanti

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Purchased.

8vo. Wien, 1887.

Jacob (Col. G. A.). Vedāntasāra. 8vo. Bombay, 1894. Clough. Sinhalese-English Dictionary.

Kittel (F.). Kannada-English Dictionary.

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Roy. Columbo, 1887-92.

4to. Mangalore, 1894.

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JOURNAL

OF

THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.

ART. XIX.-On Certain Features of Social Differentiation in India. By J. A. BAINES.

THE question of caste, with a branch of which I am to deal, is, I need hardly observe, the most important of all social subjects connected with India. As the most prominent feature in the organization of the community, it enters into every ramification of the administration, and these, as we all know, are many. As admittedly the mainstay of the religious belief of the majority of the population, it has received a place in the sacred lore of the priesthood such has been given to no similar institution in any other known system; and on this consideration, therefore, it has been discussed for the last century and more with all the scholarship and power of laborious investigation that are associated with the great names that adorn the roll of the Asiatic Society.

So we have the authority of two classes to appeal to on this question. First, of those who take their stand on the past, and from the ancient writings which they have taken such pains to elucidate for the benefit of lay inquirers, deduce the situation at the time-whenever it may have been-to which the work refers, and reason down from it to what is, or ought to be, the orthodox position in the present day. On the other hand we have the men of the time; those whose acquaintance with caste

J.R.A.S. 1894.

43

is that of every-day contact in the office or court, in the Darbar of the Chief, the hut of the forest tribe, the municipal hall, round the camp fire, or under the pipal tree, where village affairs are discussed from a caste standpoint, and caste-rules are pleaded as over-riding all our modern codes.

It is no wonder that the two schools differ occasionally in their conclusions. The one treats of caste de jure, as it ought to be; the other, de facto, as he finds it. The scholar lays down the orthodox notions which he finds in the most ancient, the most pure, or, as is sometimes equally suggestive, the most corrupt, Sanskrit he can reach. The administrator observes that in these degenerate days castedistinctions are honoured or recognized which are not justified by holy writ, that the social order is anything but that prescribed by the authorities quoted in support of it, and that even the highest classes are guilty of practices which, by the consensus of opinion amongst the learned of ancient days, are wholly abominable. As to this discrepancy, I need only say that, taking the ancient literature at its proper value in regard to every-day life, its authority is of wide scope and pretty general application. On the other hand, the later development of the social system in India has been remarkable for its diversity or want of uniformity, so that personal observation is apt to err in adapting the particular to the general, the concrete evidence of a special tract to the course of evolution throughout the country. Thus the remark is justified of that charming American philosopher, the autocrat of the breakfast-table, that "experience is a solemn fowl, that cackles more than she lays eggs." I have not the slightest doubt that before I had the opportunity opened to me by the Census of going over the whole country, interviewing district officers at every turn, that solemn fowl was the petted darling of my own poultry-yard.

The task I am now attempting is to link the past to the present, using impartially the materials from both sources. The two paths, it seems to me, however far apart

at the outset, tend to converge, after they have been respectively followed to a sufficient distance, because the course of evolution of society in India is restricted within comparatively narrow limits, and has been subjected to rare and relatively slight disturbances. We may liken the two roads, therefore, to the shrouds of a vessel which both support the same mast and both give access to a standpoint from which the community below can be surveyed on either side or as a whole.

Now, in India, we find an epitome of ancient civilization in full operation before our eyes-a civilization highly organized, but stunted in its growth, like those Japanese plants which are in appearance and structure complete trees, but in dimensions never exceed what can be adequately put into a small flower-pot. If we examine it more closely, it will be found like an astronomical system, where numbers of agglomerated masses are found in continuous motion, each on its own axis, throwing off or attracting other particles, and the whole kept in position by the central force of custom or tradition. What we have to inquire into, then, is the process of formation of these small aggregates from the archaic nebula, and then, why the internal conflict of forces, that in other cases where the early conditions were much the same resulted in rapid and continuous progress, in India subsided almost at its outset.

First, then, as to the historical materials for this inquiry. These are almost exclusively of the nature of indirect evidence. They afford, that is, proof, not of what is stated, but of some collateral fact which can be assumed from them. We may regard them, in fact, as the basis of what is known in other branches of investigation as a "working hypothesis." For example, from its prayers and invocations we gather what was the material condition of the community, what difficulties and what hostility it had to encounter, and not merely what were its gods and what was its religious system. In later times, again, the long list of prohibitions. affords evidence of the sins to which the community was most inclined; its pet vices, and the ideal of conduct

set before it. What is of more importance to the present subject is the deductions we can draw as to not what was the social position of certain sections of the community in the general estimate, but what were the directions from which attacks were being made to disturb that estimate.

Take, in the first place, the Vedic literature. Here we find that out of the four principal works, three are obviously based on the fourth. It is with this last alone, then, that we need deal. But here, again, internal evidence indicates that generations must have elapsed between the composition of the earlier portions and that of the later. The diction and grammar on the one hand, and the conceptions on the other, enter into this part of the subject, on which, however, it would be a waste of time to comment now. The Sukta, or invocations, of which it is the collection, range between the simple bargains of patriarchal rule with personified elemental powers, and the elaborate addresses of a professional priesthood, trained to a sacrificial ritual which is efficacious in their hands alone, and which has reached the stage of incantation, or power to compel compliance on the part of the objects of the address.

It is clear that the two periods must be distinguished from each other, and we must not assume that the earlier, or patriarchal, ritual prevailed in the same conditions as the later, or sacerdotal. The question is, how and where the divergence began ? In connection with this point, I may as well touch briefly upon the salient features of the information we possess as to the early movements of the population of whom the more archaic invocations of the Rig collection are the religious expression. We will give them the title of Arya, since that is the term they themselves employed in these outpourings. We gather that the Arya were a northern people. They reckoned their time by winters; they spoke familiarly of snow and cold; the cradle of their race they placed in the north, and, as usual in cases of emigration to a distance, they constituted that the sacred and propitious point of the compass, and attributed to the south the opposite influences.