Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-01-18
No. 59.-When Glass Petrified Into
HCaste''

T N the consideration of the formation of
special classes among men, if now we
turn eastward from this main develop
ment of civilization in the world between
Central Asia and the Atlantic, to the social
development of India in the 1000 years next
before the Christian era, we find certain
broad and very in :eIesting differences
The first of these is that We find such a
fixity Of classes in process of establishment
as no other part of the world can present.
This fxity of classes is known to Europeans
as the institution of caste; it's origins are
still in complete obscurity, but it was GER
tainly we'll rooted in the Ganges valley be-
fore the days of Alexander the Great. 1t
is a complicated horizontal division of the
social structure into classes castles, the
members. of which may neither eat nor in
ter-marry with persons of lower caste un-
der penalty of becoming outcasts, and who
may also close Caste for various ceremon-
ial negligences and defilements By losing
caste a man does not sink to a lower caste;
he becomes outcast.
A Complicated System
The various subdivisions of caste are very
complex many are practically trade organl-
cations. Each caste has its local organlza-
ton, which maintains discipline, distributes
various charities, looks after it's own poor,
protects the common interests of it's MEM
bers and examines the credentials of new
corners from other districts. (There is lit
tie to check the pretensions of travelling
Hindu to be of higher caste than is leg1tl-
mately his.) Originally the four main castles
seem to have been:
The Brahmins-the priests and teachers.
The Kshatriyas-the warriors.
The Vaisyas-herdsmen merchants, mon
ey lenders and land owners.
The Sudras.
And outside the castles. the Pariahs.
But these primary divisions have long
been complicated by subdivisions into null
ttude of minor tastes, all exclusive, each
holding its members to one definite way OF
living and one group of associates. In Ben
gal the Kshartryas and aisyas have large
ly disappeared But this is too intricate a
question for us to deal with here in any de-
tail
Next to this extraordinary fission and COM
plication of the social body we have to note
that the Brahmins the priests and teachers
of the Indian world, unlike so many western
priesthoods are a reproductive and exclusive
class, taking no recruits from any other So
cial stratum.
Whatever may have been the original in
centive to this extensive fixation of class in
India there can be little doubt of the role
played by the Bra minis as the custodians OF
tradition and the only teachers of the peo-
pie in sustaining it.
How Did 1t Arise?
BY some it is supposed that the first three
of the four original castles, known also as
the twice born" were the descendants OF
the Vedic Aryan conquerors of Indian, who
established these .2ard and fast separations to
prevent racial mixing with the conquered
Sudras and Pariahs. The Sudras are rep
resented as a previous wave of northern con-
querors and the Pariahs are the original
Dravidian inhabitants of India. But these
speculations are not universally accepted
and it is perhaps rather the case that the
Uniform conditions of life in he Ganges val
ley throughout long centuries served to
stereotype difference of classes that have
never had the same steadfastness of defln1-
ton under the more various and variable
conditions of the greater world to the west
However caste arose, there can be no
doubt of it's extraordinary hold upon the In
dian mind. In the sixth century B. C. arose
Gautama, the great tei cher of Buddhism,
proclaimng: LAS the four streams that
flow into the Gauges lose their names as