DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16243#0310
276
PEOPLE OF INDIA
distinctions, its pedantic tendency to press a principle to its
furthest logical conclusion, and its remarkable capacity for
imitating and adapting social ideas and usages of whatever
origin. It is through this imitative faculty that the myth of
the four castes—evolved in the first instance by some specula-
tive Brahman, and reproduced in the popular versions of the
epics which the educated Hindu villager studies as diligently
as the English rustic used to read his Bible—has attained its
wide currency as the model to which Hindu society ought to
conform. That it bears no relation to the actual facts of life is,
in the view of its adherents, an irrelevant detail. It descends
from remote antiquity; it has the sanction of the Brahmans; it
is an article of faith ; and every one seeks to bring his own
caste within one or other of the traditional classes. Finally,
as M. Senart has pointed out, the whole caste system, with its
scale of social merit and demerit and its endless gradations of
status, is in remarkable accord with the philosophic doctrine
of transmigration and karma. Every Hindu believes that his
spiritual status at any given time is determined by the sum
total of his past lives : he is born to an immutable karma, what
is more natural than that he should be born into an equally
immutable caste ?
The ethnological conclusions which the
Summary- c ■ , ~ , . ,,. ,
foregoing chapters seek to establish may
now be summed up. They are these:— .
(1) There are seven main physical types in India, of which
the Dravidian alone is, or may be, indigenous. The Indo-
Aryan, the Mongoloid, and the Turko-Iranian, types are in the
main of foreign origin. The Aryo-Dravidian, the Mongolo-
Dravidian, and the Scytho-Dravidian are composite types
formed by crossing with the Dravidians.
(2) The dominant influence in the formation of these types
was the physical seclusion of India, involving the consequence
that the various invaders brought few women with them and
took the women of the country to wife.
(3) To this rule the first wave of Indo-Aryans formed the
sole exception, for the reasons given on pages 49— 5 5.
(4) The social grouping of the Indian people comprises both
tribes and castes. We may distinguish three types of tribe
and seven types of caste.
(5) Both tribes and castes are sub-divided into endogamous,
exogamous, and hypergamous groups.
(6) Of the exogamous groups a large number are totemistic.
PEOPLE OF INDIA
distinctions, its pedantic tendency to press a principle to its
furthest logical conclusion, and its remarkable capacity for
imitating and adapting social ideas and usages of whatever
origin. It is through this imitative faculty that the myth of
the four castes—evolved in the first instance by some specula-
tive Brahman, and reproduced in the popular versions of the
epics which the educated Hindu villager studies as diligently
as the English rustic used to read his Bible—has attained its
wide currency as the model to which Hindu society ought to
conform. That it bears no relation to the actual facts of life is,
in the view of its adherents, an irrelevant detail. It descends
from remote antiquity; it has the sanction of the Brahmans; it
is an article of faith ; and every one seeks to bring his own
caste within one or other of the traditional classes. Finally,
as M. Senart has pointed out, the whole caste system, with its
scale of social merit and demerit and its endless gradations of
status, is in remarkable accord with the philosophic doctrine
of transmigration and karma. Every Hindu believes that his
spiritual status at any given time is determined by the sum
total of his past lives : he is born to an immutable karma, what
is more natural than that he should be born into an equally
immutable caste ?
The ethnological conclusions which the
Summary- c ■ , ~ , . ,,. ,
foregoing chapters seek to establish may
now be summed up. They are these:— .
(1) There are seven main physical types in India, of which
the Dravidian alone is, or may be, indigenous. The Indo-
Aryan, the Mongoloid, and the Turko-Iranian, types are in the
main of foreign origin. The Aryo-Dravidian, the Mongolo-
Dravidian, and the Scytho-Dravidian are composite types
formed by crossing with the Dravidians.
(2) The dominant influence in the formation of these types
was the physical seclusion of India, involving the consequence
that the various invaders brought few women with them and
took the women of the country to wife.
(3) To this rule the first wave of Indo-Aryans formed the
sole exception, for the reasons given on pages 49— 5 5.
(4) The social grouping of the Indian people comprises both
tribes and castes. We may distinguish three types of tribe
and seven types of caste.
(5) Both tribes and castes are sub-divided into endogamous,
exogamous, and hypergamous groups.
(6) Of the exogamous groups a large number are totemistic.