son to be of more castes than one, and of
different castes from those to which his father or wife belonged. The
lower employments, commerce, agriculture, even medicine, are never
mentioned on the tombs. The absolute statements about caste in Egypt,
circulated by such writers as Reynier and De Goguet, have, no doubt,
been founded on passages in Herodotus (ii. 143, 164), who mentions seven
classes, and makes war an hereditary profession; in Diodorus Siculus (i.
2-8), who mentions five classes and a hereditary priesthood; and in
Plato, who, anxious to illustrate the principle of compulsory division
of labour, on which his republic was based, speaks in the _Timaeus_ of a
total separation of the six classes--priests, soldiers, husbandmen,
artisans, hunters and shepherds. Heeren (ii. 594) does not hesitate to
ascribe the formation of Egyptian caste to the meeting of different
races. According to the chronology constructed by Bunsen the division
into castes began in the period 10,000-9000, and was completed along
with the introduction of animal worship and the improvement of writing
under the third dynasty in the 6th or 7th century of the Old Empire. The
Scholiast of Apollonius Rhodius, on the authority of Dicaearchus, in the
Second Book of _Hellas_, mentions a king, Sesonchosis, who, about 3712
B.C., "enacted that no one should abandon his father's trade, for this
he considered as leading to avarice." Bunsen conjectures that this may
refer to Sesostoris, the lawgiver of Manetho's third or Memphite
dynasty, the eighth from Menes, who introduced writing, building with
hewn stone, and medicine; possibly, also, to Sesostris, who, Aristotle
says (_Polit._ vii. 1), introduced caste to Crete. He further observes
that in Egypt there was never a conquered indigenous race. There was one
nation with one language and one religion; the public panegyrics
embraced the whole people; every Egyptian was the child and friend of
the gods. The kings were generally warriors, and latterly adopted into
the sacerdotal caste. Intermarriage was the rule, except between the
swineherds and all other classes. "Every shepherd is an abomination unto
the Egyptians" (Gen. xlvi. 34).

The comprehensive essay by Sir H.H. Risley in the introductory volume
of the Indian Census Report for 1901 is the best recent account of
caste in India. See also, besides the works mentioned in the text, Sir
Denzil Ibbetson's _Report on the Punjab Census_ (1881); W. Cropke