cantile and
manufacturing industries; and finally the Sudras, or servants
who attended the other castes, toiled in the fields and did the
heavy labor of the community.

Gradually these grand divisions became divided into sections
or social groups. Trades, professions, tribes and clans, and
particularly those who worshiped the same god, naturally drifted
together and were watchful of their mutual interests. As there
are as many gods in the Hindu pantheon as there are inhabitants of
India, these religious associations are very numerous. Occupation
is not a sign of caste. Every caste, and particularly the Brahmins,
have members in every possible occupation. Nearly every cook
in India is a Brahmin, which is a matter of almost imperative
necessity, because no man can partake of food cooked or even
touched by persons of lower caste. The Brahmins are also more
numerous than any other caste. According to the recent census
they number 14,888,000, adult men only being counted. The soldier
caste numbers more than 10,000,000, the farmer caste and the
leather workers have nearly as many. Nearly 20 per cent of the
population of India is included in those four castes, and there
are forty or fifty sub-castes, each having more than 1,000,000
members.

There are more than 1,800 groups of Brahmins, who have become so
numerous and so influential that they are found everywhere. The
number in the public service is very large, representing about
35 per cent of the entire mass of employes of the government in
every capacity and station, and they have the largest proportion
of educated men. It is a popular delusion that every Brahmin is a
priest, when the fact is that they are so numerous that not more
than a small percentage is employed in religious functions. But
for more than 2,000 years they have maintained their superiority
unchallenged. This is not only due to their pretensions, but
to their intellectual force. They have been the priests, the
writers, the rulers, the legislators of all India, because of
their force of character and mental attainments, and will always
preserve their supremacy through the same forces that enabled
them to acquire it.

The laws of caste, as explained by Mr. Shoshee Chunder Dutt, the
Hindu writer referred to above, provide:

1. That individuals cannot be married who do not belong to the
same caste.

2. That a man may not sit down to eat with another who is not
of his own caste.

3. That his meals m