ooks of the Veda. The "Once-born" castes are still denied the
sacred thread; and they were not allowed to study the holy books, until
the English set up schools in India for all classes of the people. But
while caste is thus founded on the distinctions of race, it has been
influenced by two other systems of division, namely, the employments of
the people, and the localities in which they live. Even in the oldest
times, the castes had separate occupations assigned to them. They could
be divided either into Brahmans, Kchatryas, Vaisyas, and Sudras; or into
priests, warriors, husbandmen, and serfs. They are also divided
according to the parts of India in which they live. Even the Brahmans
have among themselves ten distinct classes, or rather nations. Five of
these classes or Brahman nations live to the north of the Vindhya
mountains; five of them live to the south. Each of the ten feels itself
to be quite apart from the rest; and they have among themselves no
fewer than 1886 subdivisions or separate Brahmanical tribes. In like
manner, the Kchatryas or Rajputs number 590 separate tribes in different
parts of India.

While, therefore, Indian caste seems at first a very simple arrangement
of the people into four classes, it is in reality a very complex one.
For it rests upon three distinct systems of division: namely, upon race,
occupation, and geographical position. It is very difficult even to
guess at the number of the Indian castes. But there are not fewer than
3,000 of them which have separate names, and which regard themselves as
separate classes. The different castes cannot intermarry with each
other, and most of them cannot eat together. The ordinary rule is that
no Hindu of good caste can touch food cooked by a man of inferior caste.
By rights, too, each caste should keep to its own occupation. Indeed,
there has been a tendency to erect every separate kind of employment or
handicraft in each separate province into a distinct caste. But, as a
matter of practice, the castes often change their occupation, and the
lower ones sometimes raise themselves in the social scale. Thus the
Vaisya caste were in ancient times the tillers of the soil. They have in
most provinces given up this toilsome occupation, and the Vaisyas are
now the great merchants and bankers of India. Their fair skins,
intelligent faces, and polite bearing must have altered since the days
when their forefathers ploughed, sowed, and reaped under the hot sun.