ase of a Brahman, between the
eleventh and twenty-second year of a Kshatriya, and between the twelfth
and twenty-fourth year of a Vaisya. He who has not been invested with
the mark of his class within this time is for ever excluded from
uttering the sacred _savitri_ and becomes an outcast, unless he is
absolved from his sin by a council of Brahmans, and after due
performance of a purificatory rite resumes the badge of his caste. With
one not duly initiated no righteous man is allowed to associate or to
enter into connexions of affinity. The duty of the Sudra is to serve the
twice-born classes, and above all the Brahmans. He is excluded from all
sacred knowledge, and if he performs sacrificial ceremonies he must do
so without using holy mantras. No Brahman must recite a Vedic text where
a man of the servile caste might overhear him, nor must he even teach
him the laws of expiating sin. The occupations of the Vaisya are those
connected with trade, the cultivation of the land and the breeding of
cattle; while those of a Kshatriya consist in ruling and defending the
people, administering justice, and the duties of the military profession
generally. Both share with the Brahman the privilege of reading the
Veda, but only so far as it is taught and explained to them by their
spiritual preceptor. To the Brahman belongs the right of teaching and
expounding the sacred texts, and also that of interpreting and
determining the law and the rules of caste. Only in exceptional cases,
when no teacher of the sacerdotal class is within reach, the twice-born
youth, rather than forego spiritual instruction altogether, may reside
in the house of a non-Brahmanical preceptor; but it is specially
enjoined that a pupil, who seeks the path to heaven, should not fail, as
soon as circumstances permit, to resort to a Brahman well versed in the
Vedas and their appendages.

Notwithstanding the barriers placed between the four castes, the
practice of intermarrying appears to have been too prevalent in early
times to have admitted of measures of so stringent a nature as wholly to
repress it. To marry a woman of a higher caste, and especially of a
caste not immediately above one's own, is, however, decidedly
prohibited, the offspring resulting from such a union being excluded
from the performance of the _sraddha_ or obsequies to the ancestors, and
thereby rendered incapable of inheriting any portion of the parents'
property. On the other hand, a man is a