sion may follow the trade of a
lower caste or even of a higher: "Daily observation shows even Brahmans
exercising the menial profession of a Sudra. We are aware that every
caste forms itself into clubs or lodges, consisting of the several
individuals of that caste residing within a small distance, and that
these clubs or lodges govern themselves by particular rules or customs
or by-laws. But though some restrictions and limitations, not founded on
religious prejudices, are found among their by-laws, it may be received
as a general maxim that the occupation appointed for each tribe is
entitled merely to a preference. Every profession, with few exceptions,
is open to every description of persons; and the discouragement arising
from religious prejudices is not greater than what exists in Great
Britain from the effects of municipal and corporation laws. In Bengal
the numbers of people actually willing to apply to any particular
occupation are sufficient for the unlimited extension of any
manufacture." This was corroborated by Elphinstone,[8] who states that,
during a long experience of India, he never heard of a single case of
degradation from caste; and it is illustrated by the experience of the
Indian army, in which men of all castes unite.[9]

The ordinary notion of modern caste is that it involves certain
restrictions on marriage, on profession, and on social intercourse,
especially that implied in eating and drinking together. How far
intermarriage is permitted, what are the effects of a marriage permitted
but looked on as irregular, what are the penalties of a marriage
forbidden, whether the rules protecting trades and occupations are in
effect more than a kind of unionism grown inveterate through custom, by
what means caste is lost, and in what circumstances it may be
regained,--these are questions on which very little real or definite
knowledge exists. Sir H. Risley regards the absolute prohibition of
mixed marriages as now the essential and most prominent characteristic.
It is very remarkable that the Vedas, on which the whole structure of
Brahmanic faith and morals professes to rest, give no countenance to the
later regulations of caste. The only passage bearing on the subject is
in the Purusha Sukta, the 90th Hymn of the 10th Book of the Rigveda
Samhita. "When they divided man, how many did they make him? What was
his mouth? what his arms? what are called his thighs and feet? The
Brahmana was his mouth, the Ragan