Under more favourable political conditions,[1] the sacerdotal class might perhaps, in course of time, have succeeded in imposing something like an effective common creed on the heterogeneous medley of races and tribes scattered over the peninsula, just as they certainly did succeed in establishing the social prerogative of their own order over the length and breadth of India. They were, however, fated to fall far short of such a consummation; and at all times orthodox Brahmanism has had to wink at, or ignore, all manner of gross superstitions and repulsive practices, along with the popular worship of countless hosts of godlings, demons, spirits and ghosts, and mystic objects and symbols of every description. Indeed, according to a recent account by a close observer of the religious practices prevalent in southern India, fully four-fifths of the people of the Dravidian race, whilst nominally acknowledging the spiritual guidance of the Brahmans, are to this day practically given over to the worship of their nondescript local village deities (grama-devata), usually attended by animal sacrifices frequently involving the slaughter, under revolting circumstances, of thousands of victims. Curiously enough these local deities are nearly all of the female, not the male sex. In the estimation of these people "Siva and Vishnu may be more dignified beings, but the village deity is regarded as a more present help in trouble, and more intimately concerned with the happiness and prosperity of the villagers. The origin of this form of Hinduism is lost in antiquity, but it is probable that it represents a pre-Aryan religion, more or less modified in various parts of south India by Brahmanical influence. At the same time, many of the deities themselves are of quite recent origin, and it is easy to observe a deity in making even at the present day."[2] It is a significant fact that, whilst in the worship of Siva and Vishnu, at which no animal sacrifices are offered, the officiating priests are almost invariably Brahmans, this is practically never the case at the popular performance of those "gloomy and weird rites for the propitiation of angry deities, or the driving away of evil spirits, when the pujaris (or ministrants) are drawn from all other castes, even from the Pariahs, the out-caste section of Indian society."

Caste.

As from the point of view of religious belief, so also from that of social organization no clear line of demarcation can be drawn between Brahmanism and Hinduism. Though it was not till later times that the network of class divisions and subdivisions attained anything like the degree of intricacy which it shows in these latter days, still in its origin the caste-system is undoubtedly coincident with the rise of Brahmanism, and may even be said to be of the very essence of it.[3] The cardinal principle which underlies the system of caste is the preservation of purity of descent, and purity of religious belief and ceremonial usage. Now, that same principle had been operative from the very dawn of the history of Aryanized India. The social organism of the Aryan tribe did not probably differ essentially from that of most communities at that primitive stage of civilization; whilst the body of the people--the Vis (or aggregate of Vaisyas)--would be mainly occupied with agricultural and pastoral pursuits, two professional classes--those of the warrior and the priest--had already made good their claim to social distinction. As yet, however, the tribal community would still feel one in race and traditional usage. But when the fair-coloured Aryan immigrants first came in contact with, and drove back or subdued the dark-skinned race that occupied the northern plains--doubtless the ancestors of the modern Dravidian people--the preservation of their racial type and traditionary order of things would naturally become to them a matter of serious concern. In the extreme north-western districts--the Punjab and Rajputana, judging from the fairly uniform physical features of the present population of these parts--they seem to have been signally successful in their endeavour to preserve their racial purity, probably by being able to clear a sufficiently extensive area of the original occupants for themselves with their wives and children to settle upon. The case was, however, very different in the adjoining valley of the Jumna and Ganges, the sacred Madhyadesa or Middle-land of classical India. Here the Aryan immigrants were not allowed to establish themselves without undergoing a considerable admixture of foreign blood. It must remain uncertain whether it was that the thickly-populated character of the land scarcely admitted of complete occupation, but only of a conquest by an army of fighting men, starting from the Aryanized region--who might, however, subsequently draw women of their own kin after them--or whether, as has been suggested, a second Aryan invasion of India took place at that time through the mountainous tracts of the upper Indus and northern Kashmir, where the nature of the road would render it impracticable for the invading bands to be accompanied by women and children. Be this as it may, the physical appearance of the population of this central region of northern India--Hindustan and Behar--clearly points to an intermixture of the tall, fair-coloured, fine-nosed Aryan with the short-sized, dark-skinned, broad-nosed Dravidian; the latter type becoming more pronounced towards the lower strata of the social order.[4] Now, it was precisely in this part of India that mainly arose the body of literature which records the gradual rise of the Brahmanical hierarchy and the early development of the caste-system.

The problem that now lay before the successful invaders was how to deal with the indigenous people, probably vastly outnumbering them, without losing their own racial identity. They dealt with them in the way the white race usually deals with the coloured race--they kept them socially apart. The land being appropriated by the conquerors, husbandry, as the most respectable industrial occupation, became the legitimate calling of the Aryan settler, the Vaisya; whilst handicrafts, gradually multiplying with advancing civilization and menial service, were assigned to the subject race. The generic name applied to the latter was Sudra, originally probably the name of one of the subjected tribes. So far the social development proceeded on lines hardly differing from those with which one is familiar in the history of other nations. The Indo-Aryans, however, went a step farther. What they did was not only to keep the native race apart from social intercourse with themselves, but to shut them out from all participation in their own higher aims, and especially in their own religious convictions and ceremonial practices. So far from attempting to raise their standard of spiritual life, or even leaving it to ordinary intercourse to gradually bring about a certain community of intellectual culture and religious sentiment, they deliberately set up artificial barriers in order to prevent their own traditional modes of worship from being contaminated with the obnoxious practices of the servile race. The serf, the Sudra, was not to worship the gods of the Aryan freemen. The result was the system of four castes (varna, i.e. "colour"; or jati, "gens"). Though the Brahman, who by this time had firmly secured his supremacy over the kshatriya, or noble, in matters spiritual as well as in legislative and administrative functions, would naturally be the prime mover in this regulation of the social order, there seems no reason to believe that the other two upper classes were not equally interested in seeing their hereditary privileges thus perpetuated by divine sanction. Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable in the whole development of the caste-system than the jealous pride which every caste, from the highest to the lowest, takes in its own peculiar occupation and sphere of life. The distinctive badge of a member of the three upper castes was the sacred triple cord or thread (sutra)--made of cotton, hemp or wool, according to the respective caste--with which he was invested at the upanayana ceremony, or initiation into the use of the sacred savitri, or prayer to the sun (also called gayatri), constituting his second birth. Whilst the Arya was thus a dvi-ja, or twice-born, the Sudra remained unregenerate during his lifetime, his consolation being the hope that, on the faithful performance of his duties in this life, he might hereafter be born again into a higher grade of life. In later times, the strict adherence to caste duties would naturally receive considerable support from the belief in the transmigration of souls, already prevalent before Buddha's time, and from the very general acceptance of the doctrine of karma ("deed"), or retribution, according to which a man's present station and manner of life are the result of the sum-total of his actions and thoughts in his former existence; as his actions here will again, by the same automatic process of retribution, determine his status and condition in his next existence. Though this doctrine is especially insisted upon in Buddhism, and its designation as a specific term (Pali, Kamma) may be due to that creed, the notion itself was doubtless already prevalent in pre-Buddhist times. It would even seem to be necessarily and naturally implied in Brahmanical belief in metempsychosis; whilst in the doctrine of Buddha, who admits no soul, the theory of the net result or fruit of a man's actions serving hereafter to form or condition the existence of some new individual who will have no conscious identity with himself, seems of a peculiarly artificial and mystic character. But, be this as it may, "the doctrine of karma is certainly one of the firmest beliefs of all classes of Hindus, and the fear that a man shall reap as he has sown is an appreciable element in the average morality ... the idea of forgiveness is absolutely wanting; evil done may indeed be outweighed by meritorious deeds so far as to ensure a better existence in the future, but it is not effaced, and must be atoned for" (Census Report, i. 364).