Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-17

IA
Ia H&l industrial and partly tribal,
the Hindu system of caste
III n vi is the most cruelty tyranni-
IzSzas&ll cal and absolutely powerful
form of discipline to which
human beings are subject. Wheh
Hindu baby is born its status
in life is already fixed. He knows,
as soon as he knows anything,
what occupation he will follow,
what food he will eat. what clothes
he will wear, what girl he VIII
marry, and how every detail of his
life will be ordered until death. OF
course there are numerous instances
of individual escape from the rules
thus laid down, but for all but the
thousandth man the 207,000,O00 Hindus
of India came into the world with their
lives arranged and their rank or
dained.
The system is so complex and intri-
cate that volumes are necessary TO
explain it's workings in detail. There
are more than 24O0 recognized castes'
and each one has it's distinguishing
and peculiar features. According TO
! the Indian theory the whole system
had Nts beginning in the establishment
of four great castes-the Brahmans, or
priests; the Kshattriya, or warriors;
the Vaisya, or merchants and farmers,
and the Sudra, or servants. the three
| higher castles were called "twiee-born,
and were originally Aryan stock. Their
race, pride and superior strength
caused them to put the aboriginal in
| habitants in the lowest class of menlal
service.
The word caste" is from the Latin
through the Portuguese caste, mean
| ing pure of race" and was appheu
first because of the fact that the Narl-
! GUS classes of Hindu society generally
forbid intermarrlage. The Hindu Word
| for caste means literally color, ana
| it was along the color line that the
! first divisions in Hindu society We're
marked out. Through countless ages
! the process of evolving new castles
| has botted out the sharper distinc-
tions of color, but there are stlll ap-
| parent gradations. The naughty
| Brahman of Benares is proud or ms
| light yellow skin, not nearly so dark
as that of a Japanese. And the Pariah
of Southern India is in no wise proud
of his blackness, which is that OF the
blackest African intensified. The
Brahman is at the top of the system,
and IT is he who benefits by its rigid
discipline. The Pariah is at the bot
tom. or almost at the bottom, for even
below this lowest caste there are out
cast people upon whom even the
Pariah looks down with ineffable scorn.
Caste is the keystone of Hindu So
cietty. India has never been united
under one government; 1t has never
had less than a hundred different IAN
guages; it has never had common
religion; 1t has never had national
ideal. But it has always had caste.
and the system is as powerful In one
part of the country as in another al
though the people may belong to diff
ferent races and speak entirely difter-
ent tongues.
The influence of the railroad and
postal system upon caste Is one OF the
most striking features of the Indian
life of today In one way the intro
duction of modern civilization has
served to break down the caste lines.
A Brahman has found that he may
ride in the same third-class railway
carriage with a Pariah without being
any the worse for wear at the end OF
the journey. And the Pariah has
found that he has not been struck
dumb or carried off bodily to hell be-
cause of his daring approach to the
heavenly "tWice-born" yellow man
and his sacred thread. Hindus Of all
castles have learned that 1t is possible
to cross the black water" as they
call the ocean, without great danger.
That discovery has given rise to the
Hindu emigration problem. The spread
of English education has tempered the
fanaticism of the high-caste Hindu,
and he sometimes will deign to sit at
table with his English lords and mas
ters. Some of the younger generation
will go SO far as to eat the unclean
food prepared in the unholy Christian
kitchen, provided they are quite sure
no account of their transgression will
reach the ears of the lower castles.
But among the uneducated the eff
feet of the cheap railway transporta-
tion, cheap postage and free education
has been to strengthen and buttress
the whole caste system. The Hindus
of scores of widely separated sections
Of the country have been brought in
to communication for the first time in
history The crafty Brahman has not
failed to take advantage of the OPP
portunity.
The strictest rules of caste have been
selected as a model, and communities
living under standards of greater lax
ity have been brought up sharp with
threats of loss of caste. The British
government has been eXerting itself for
years to induce the Hindus to permit
the remarriage of widows. But now the
Brahmans, through their newspapers
and religious journals, hold out the
whatsoever things are honest, whatso-