al of the brotherhood of mankind, the artificial
barricading of class from class, the sacrifice of the individual to his
class--condemned by native reformers like Ramananda, Kabir, Nanak, and
Chaitanya long before the advent of European ideas. Whatever the origin
or original advantages of the caste system, it has long operated to
repress individuality.[9] It is a vast boycotting agency ready to hand
to crush social non-conformity.[10] One can easily understand that if
society is rigidly organised for certain social necessities (marriage
for example) into a number of mutually exclusive sets or circles,
admission to all of which is by birth only, an individual cast out from
any set must perish. No one will eat with him, no one will intermarry
with him or his sons and daughters. It is into such a society that
modern social ideas have been sown, the ideas let us say of John Stuart
Mill's book, _On Liberty_--the _individual's_ liberty, that is to
say--which used to be a common university text-book in India.

[Sidenote: Caste suggests an imperfect idea of the community.]

[Sidenote: Nevertheless, a practical solidarity in Hinduism.]

Besides setting the community too much above the individual, the caste
system is faulty in presenting to the Indian mind an imperfect idea of
the community. The caste is the natural limit to one's interest and
consciousness of fellowship, to the exclusion of the larger community.
According to Raja Rammohan Roy, writing in 1824, the caste divisions are
"_as_ destructive of national union as of social enjoyment." In _Modern
India_, Sir Monier Williams expresses himself similarly. Caste "tends to
split up the social fabric into numerous independent communities, and to
prevent all national and patriotic combinations." Too much, however, may
be made of this, for the practical solidarity of Hinduism, in spite of
caste divisions, is one of the most striking of social phenomena in
India. Whatever may have brought it about, the solidarity of Hinduism is
an undeniable fact. The supremacy of the priestly caste over all may
have been a bond of union, as likewise the necessity of all castes to
employ the priests, for the Jewish ritual and the tribe of Levi were the
bonds of union among the twelve tribes of Israel. Sir Alfred Lyall
virtually defines Hinduism as _the employment of brahman priests_, and
it is the adoption of brahmans as celebrants in social and religious
ceremonies that marks the passing over o