and thus became
separate castes in the Hindu order.

As in the past, so "all over India at the present moment there is
going on a process of the gradual and insensible transformation of
tribes into castes. The stages of this operation are in themselves
difficult to trace.... They usually set up as Rajputs, their first
step being to start a Brahman priest, who invents for them a mythical
ancestor, supplies them with a family miracle connected with the
locality where their tribes are settled, and discovers that they
belong to some hitherto unheard-of clan of the great Rajput
community." (Census 1901, Vol. II, p. 519.) It is precisely the same
process which brought the many Dravidian and even more primitive
tribes of South India into the Hindu fold; and it is a curious fact
that these same people are to-day the greatest sticklers in the land
for caste and its myriad rules.

(_c_) _The Social Theory._--Some hold with Sir Denzil Ibbetson, in the
Census Report of 1881, "that caste is far more a social than a
religious institution; that it has no necessary connection whatever
with the Hindu religion, further than that under that religion
certain ideas and customs common to all primitive nations have been
developed and perpetuated in an unusual degree." This is acknowledged
to be an exaggerated statement. It may possibly be true that "caste
has no _necessary_ connection with Hinduism," but it is emphatically
true that caste, as understood by all, does not exist apart from that
faith.

It is, however, a fact that divisions have occurred within castes,
owing to the development of slight social differences between the
members. For instance, several castes have been created by the
degradation of members of the existing castes on account of their
marriage of widows. The Pandarams of South India are held in
distinction among the begging castes because of their abstention from
meat, alcohol, and widow marriage. Indeed, it is interesting to note
that a former caste status has been more frequently lost by, and
degradation to a new caste has been consequent upon, the adoption of
widow marriage, than through almost any other act. And, at present,
this prohibition of the marriage of widows, including child widows, is
the most tenaciously and unrighteously enforced caste custom in India.

(_d_) _The Occupational Theory._--All regard fellowship in the same
trade, or occupation, as the most prolific source of caste alignment,
in modern