become three,
the priests having been able to assume a prominence unknown elsewhere
and to stamp on literature their claim to the highest rank. This claim
was probably never admitted in practice so completely as the priests
desired. It was certainly disputed in Buddhist times and I have myself
heard a young Rajput say that the Brahmans falsified the Epics so as
to give themselves the first place.

It is not necessary for our purpose to describe the details of the
modern caste system. Its effect on Indian religion has been
considerable, for it created the social atmosphere in which the
various beliefs grew up and it has furnished the Brahmans with the
means of establishing their authority. But many religious reformers
preached that in religion caste does not exist--that there is neither
Jew nor Gentile in the language of another creed--and though the
application of this theory is never complete, the imperfection is the
result not of religious opposition but of social pressure. Hindu life
is permeated by the instinct that society must be divided into
communities having some common interest and refusing to intermarry or
eat with other communities. The long list of modern castes hardly
bears even a theoretical relation to the four classes of Vedic
times.[423] Numerous subdivisions with exclusive rules as to
intermarriage and eating have arisen among the Brahmans and the
strength of this fissiparous instinct is seen among the Mohammedans
who nominally have no caste but yet are divided into groups with much
the same restrictions.

This remarkable tendency to form exclusive corporations is perhaps
correlated with the absence of political life in India. Such ideas as
nationality, citizenship, allegiance to a certain prince, patriotic
feelings for a certain territory are rarer and vaguer than elsewhere,
and yet the Hindu is dependent on his fellows and does not like to
stand alone. So finding little satisfaction in the city or state he
clings the more tenaciously to smaller corporations. These have no one
character: they are not founded on any one logical principle but
merely on the need felt by people who have something in common to
associate together. Many are based on tribal divisions; some, such as
the Marathas and Newars, may be said to be nationalities. In many the
bond of union is occupation, in a few it is sectarian religion. We can
still observe how members of a caste who migrate from their original
residence tend to