to say at the outset that the general caste-distinctions not only are
as old as the Indo-Iranian unity (among the Persians the same division
of priest, warrior and husbandman obtains), but, in all probability,
they are much older. For so long as there is a cult, even if it be of
spirits and devils, there are priests; and if there are chieftains
there is a nobility, such as one finds among the Teutons, nay, even
among the American Indians, where also is known the inevitable
division into priests, chiefs and commons, sometimes hereditary,
sometimes not. There must have been, then, from the beginning of
kingship and religious service, a division among the Aryans into
royalty, priests, and people, i.e., whoever were not acting as priests
or chieftains. When the people becomes agricultural, the difference
tends to become permanent, and a caste system begins. Now, the Vedic
Aryans appear in history at just the period when they are on the move
southwards into India; but they are no irrupting host. The battles led
the warriors on, but the folk, as a folk, moved slowly, not all
abandoning the country which they had gained, but settling there, and
sending onwards only a part of the people. There was no fixed line of
demarcation between the classes. The king or another might act as his
own priest--yet were there priestly families. The cow-boys might
fight--yet were there those of the people that were especially
'kingsmen,' _r[=a]janyas_, and these were, already, practically a
class, if not a caste[6]. These natural and necessary social
divisions, which in early times were anything but rigid, soon formed
inviolable groups, and then the caste system was complete. In the
perfected legal scheme what was usage becomes duty. The warrior may
not be a public priest; the priest may not serve as warrior or
husbandman. The farmer 'people' were the result of eliminating first
the priestly, and then the fighting factors from the whole body
politic. But these castes were all Aryans, and as such distinguished