ra
whether he is in good health.[20] In administering oaths a Brahman is
asked to swear by his veracity; a Kshatriya by his weapons, house or
elephant; a Vaisya by his kine, grain or goods; a Sudra by all the most
frightful penalties of perjury. The Hindu mind is fertile in oaths;
before the caste assembly the Dhurm, or caste custom, is sometimes
appealed to, or the feet of Brahma, or some cow or god or sacred river,
or the bel (the sacred creeper), or the roots of the turmeric plant. The
castes are also distinguished by their modes of marriage. Those peculiar
to Brahmans seem to be--1st, Brahma, when a daughter, clothed only with
a single robe, is given to a man learned in the Veda whom her father has
voluntarily invited and respectfully receives; 2nd, Devas or Daiva, when
a daughter, in gay attire is given, when the sacrifice is already begun,
to the officiating priest. The primitive marriage forms of Rashasas or
Rachasa, when a maiden is seized by force from home, while she weeps and
calls for help, is said to be appropriate to Kshatriyas. To the two
lower castes the ceremony of Asura is open, in which the bridegroom,
having given as much wealth as he can afford to the father and paternal
kinsman and to the damsel herself, takes her voluntarily as his bride. A
Kshatriya woman on her marriage with a Brahman must hold an arrow in her
hand; a Vaisya woman marrying one of the sacerdotal or military classes
must hold a whip; a Sudra woman marrying one of the upper castes must
hold the skirt of a mantle.

How little the system described by Manu applies to the existing castes
of India may be seen in these facts--(1) that there is no artisan caste
mentioned by Manu; (2) that eating with another caste, or eating food
prepared by another caste, is not said by him to involve loss of caste,
though these are now among the most frequent sources of degradation. The
system must have been profoundly modified by the teaching of Buddha: "As
the four rivers which fall into the Ganges lose their names as soon as
they mingle their waters with the holy river, so all who believe in
Buddha cease to be Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras." After
Buddha, Sudra dynasties ruled in many parts of India, and under the
Mogul dynasty the Cayets, a race of Sudras, had almost a monopoly of
public offices. But Buddha did not wish to abolish caste. Thus it is
related that a Brahman Pundit who had embraced the doctrines of Buddha
nevertheless found