Hindu Castes and Sects: an Exposition of the Origin of the Hindu Caste System and the Bearing of the Sects towards each other and towards other Religious Systems

Abstract

IN spite of all the books, essays and census reports dealing with the subject of Hindu castes, the problem of the origin of caste still remains one of the most difficult ethnological and sociological problems. We owe excellent treatises on the caste system as prevailing in certain parts of India at the present day to the industry of men like John Wilson (“Indian Caste,”1877), M. A. Sherring (“Hindu. Tribes and Castes as Represented in Benares,”1872), D. C. J. Ibbetson (“Report on the Census of the Panjâb,”1881), E. J. Kitts (“Compendium of the Castes and Tribes found in India,”1885), J. C. Nesfield (“Brief View of the Caste System of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh,”1885), H. H. Risley (“The Tribes and Castes of Bengal,”1891–92), W. Crooke (“The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh,”1896), and others. Eminent Sanskrit scholars, too, have devoted their attention to the caste system as represented to us in the most important works of Sanskrit literature, e.g. A. Weber (“Collectanea über die Castenverhältnisse,” in his “Indische Studien,” vol. x.), and J. Muir (“Original Sanskrit Texts,” vol. i., 3rd ed., 1890). Hindu Castes and Sects: an Exposition of the Origin of the Hindu Caste System and the Bearing of the Sects towards each other and towards other Religious Systems. By Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya Pp. xvii + 623. (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, and Co., 1896.)