or hereditary
title to land, as seen above; a feeling which must certainly have been
based on some religious belief, and not on any moral idea of equity
or justice; no such deep moral principle was possible in the Hindu
community at the period in question. The Hindu religious conception of
rights to land was thus poles apart from the secular English law of
proprietary and transferable right, and if the native feeling could
have been, understood by the early British administrators the latter
would perhaps have been introduced only in a much modified form.

24. The cultivating status that of the Vaishya.

The suggested conclusion from the above argument is that the main
body of the Aryan immigrants, that is the Vaishyas, settled down in
villages by exogamous clans or septs. The cultivators of each village
believed themselves to be kinsmen descended from a common ancestor, and
also to be akin to the god of the village lands from which they drew
their sustenance. Hence their order had an equal right to cultivate
the village land and their children to inherit it, though they did
not conceive of the idea of ownership of land in the sense in which
we understand this phrase.

The original status of the Vaishya, or a full member of the Aryan
community who could join in sacrifices and employ Brahmans to perform
them, was gradually transferred to the cultivating member of the
village communities. In process of time, as land was the chief source
of wealth, and was also regarded as sacred, the old status became
attached to castes or groups of persons who obtained or held land
irrespective of their origin, and these are what are now called the
good cultivating castes. They have now practically the same status,
though, as has been seen, they were originally of most diverse origin,
including bands of robbers and freebooters, cattle-lifters, non-Aryan
tribes, and sections of any castes which managed to get possession
of an appreciable quantity of land.

25. Higher professional and artisan castes.

The second division of the group of pure or good castes, or those from
whom a Brahman can take water, comprises the higher artisan castes:

Barhai.
Bharbhunja.
Halwai.
Kasar.
Komti.
Sansia.
Sunar.
Tamera.
Vidur.

The most important of these are the Sunar or goldsmith; the Kasar
or worker in brass and bell-metal; the Tamera or coppersmith; the
Barhai or carpenter; and the Halwai