wnward, partly
in imitation and partly in self-defence. Immediately behind the
Brahman came the Kshatriya, the military chieftain or landlord. He
therefore was the "second-born of castes." Then followed the bankers or
upper trading classes (the Agarwal, Khattri, etc.); the scientific
musician and singer (Kathak); the writing or literary class
(Kayasth); the bard or genealogist (Bhat); and the class of
inferior nobles (Taga and Bhuinhar) who paid no rent to the landed
aristocracy. These, then, were the third-born of castes. Next in order
came those artisan classes, who were coeval with the age and art of
metallurgy; the metallurgic classes themselves; the middle trading
classes; the middle agricultural classes, who placed themselves under
the protection of the Kshatriya and paid him rent in return (Kurmi,
Kachhi, Mali, Tamboli); and the middle serving classes, such as
Napit and Baidya, who attended to the bodily wants of their equals and
superiors. These, then, were the fourth-born of castes; and their rank
in the social scale has been determined by the fact that their manners
and notions are farther removed than those of the preceding castes from
the Brahmanical ideal. Next came the inferior artisan classes, those
who preceded the age and art of metallurgy (Teli, Kumhar, Kalwar,
etc.); the partly nomad and partly agricultural classes (Jat,
Gujar, Ahir, etc.); the inferior serving classes, such as Kahar;
and the inferior trading classes, such as Bhunja. These, then, were the
fifth-born of castes, and their mode of life is still farther removed
from the Brahmanical ideal than that of the preceding. The last-born,
and therefore the lowest, of all the classes are those semisavage
communities, partly tribes and partly castes, whose function consists in
hunting or fishing, or in acting as butcher for the general community,
or in rearing swine and fowls, or in discharging the meanest domestic
services, such as sweeping and washing, or in practicing the lowest of
human arts, such as basket-making, hide-tanning, etc. Thus throughout
the whole series of Indian castes a double test of social precedence has
been in active force, the industrial and the Brahmanical; and these
two have kept pace together almost as evenly as a pair of horses
harnessed to a single carriage. In proportion as the function practiced
by any given caste stands high or low in the scale of industrial
development, in the same proportion does the caste itself, im