Caste in India Its Nature, Function, and Origins

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In this second edition of Caste in India the author has to acknowledge with thanks his indebtedness to the many kind reviewers of the first edition for improvements in this one. He has done his best to take advantage of all criticisms except one or two which he found it impossible to accept, and one which required something beyond his powers: having no Sanskrit he was compelled to continue to rely on translations of the vedas and puranas instead of consulting the original texts. He has morcover made little attempt to recast his material in the terms of India and Pakistan as they appear after their achievement of independent status, but has thought it wiser to retain the termi- nology of the India with which he was personally familiar. In the few passages containing words, references, or quotations from Greek literature Roman script has been substituted for the Greek lettering used in the original edition. Otherwise he has added a little, he has altered a little, and he has to thank Mr Martin Rowlands of the School of Geography in Cambridge for two admirable maps, one showing areas, the other places and geo- graphical features. The general aim in these maps has been to insert all places mentioned in the text, and, with the object of keeping the maps as clear as possible in a small space, such places only.

It should perhaps be added that it was largely the appreciative reception of the first edition by Indians that encouraged the author to publish a second, and to get it done in India itself, a country to which his lasting gratitude is due. And in this connexion the author has to acknowledge not only the generosity of the Cambridge University Press in allowing him to transfer the work to another press when the first edition was sold out, but also the courtesy and the efficiency of the printers and publishers in Bombay.¹

It is probable that some sort of an apology is needed from anyone who is bold enough to add to the great mass of literature that already exists upon the subject of Indian caste. A recent Indologist in America claims to have compiled a list of over five thousand published works on this subject; so obviously some justification is needed for adding to their number. Nothing like that quantity, however, will be found in the list of works cited in this volume, which does not claim in any sense to deal exhaustively with the subject. Only an encyclopaedia could do that. It does attempt, however, to offer a brief conspectus of the various aspects of caste, since, when trying to give to my classes a general idea of the nature of the problems involved, I was unable to find any single book of moderate size to which I could send students for what I regarded as a satisfactory outline of the subject. Two compact books in English there certainly are, both fairly recent and each admirable after its kind; they have been freely cited in this volume, particularly in chapter VII. But the one deals merely with existing phenomena omitting, generally speaking, questions of origin and of wider significance; the other has its treatment of origin based on theories of race which are no longer valid in the light of present knowledge, while its treatment of existing facts is limited to northern India, though the caste system is probably found at its strongest in the south. In this outline some attempt has been made in brief not only to consider origins, but also the place of caste in the social and economic order of Hindustan.

Besides the two authors referred to above there are a number of others whose works have been quoted freely. All will be found in the bibliography at the end of the volume. Even where facts referred to are within my own observation and experience, I have, wherever I could, given a reference to some printed authority in which the matter can be followed up.