pelled by
the general tone of society by which it is surrounded, approximate more
nearly or more remotely to the Brahmanical idea of life. It is these
two criteria combined which have determined the relative ranks of the
various castes in the Hindu social scale.

5. Caste and the Sentiments of Caste Reflected in Popular Speech[228]

No one indeed can fail to be struck by the intensely popular character
of Indian proverbial philosophy and by its freedom from the note of
pedantry which is so conspicuous in Indian literature. These quaint
sayings have dropped fresh from the lips of the Indian rustic; they
convey a vivid impression of the anxieties, the troubles, the
annoyances, and the humors of his daily life; and any sympathetic
observer who has felt the fascination of an oriental village would have
little difficulty in constructing from these materials a fairly accurate
picture of rural society in India. The _mise en scene_ is not altogether
a cheerful one. It shows us the average peasant dependent upon the
vicissitudes of the season and the vagaries of the monsoon, and watching
from day to day to see what the year may bring forth. Should rain fall
at the critical moment his wife will get golden earrings, but one short
fortnight of drought may spell calamity when "God takes all at once."
Then the forestalling Baniya flourishes by selling rotten grain, and the
Jat cultivator is ruined. First die the improvident Musalman
weavers, then the oil-pressers for whose wares there is no demand; the
carts lie idle, for the bullocks are dead, and the bride goes to her
husband without the accustomed rites. But be the season good or bad, the
pious Hindu's life is ever overshadowed by the exactions of the
Brahman--"a thing with a string round its neck" (a profane hit at the
sacred thread), a priest by appearance, a butcher at heart, the chief of
a trio of tormentors gibbeted in the rhyming proverb:

Blood-suckers three on earth there be,
The bug, the Brahman, and the flea.

Before the Brahman starves the king's larder will be empty; cakes
must be given to him while the children of the house may lick the
grindstone for a meal; his stomach is a bottomless pit; he eats so
immoderately that he dies from wind. He will beg with a lakh of rupees
in his pocket, and a silver begging-bowl in his hand. In his greed for
funeral fees he spies out corpses like a vulture, and rejoices in the
misfortunes of his clients. A village with a