sweeper), instead of contenting himself with the menial offices to which he was born, will, if he be an aspiring character, seek and obtain a situation in the police or the army, and may rise to high rank. I have known a choomar to be a commissioned officer. So among bunneas, cowherds, gardeners, ploughmen, boatmen, common day-labourers, and others, may be constantly found one brother pursuing his hereditary vocation, and another entering the army, or hiring himself as a domestic servant. I have seen a bunnea who, having failed as a shopkeeper, hired himself as a boatman; and among the crew of one boat consisting of ten men, were actually found the following variety of castes:—two Rajpoots, four Kuhars, one Kisan, one Goojur, one Bhat, and only one regular mullah, or boatman by profession[1].
There are other circumstances besides the caste, which I am inclined to think have had a much greater effect in throwing difficulties in the way of the lower orders, and preventing able and intelligent individuals among them from rising in the scale of society. Their poverty, and the circumstance that the business of a large portion of India has, for several centuries, been carried on in a foreign language, for the acquisition of which the lower classes have neither time nor means, must have operated very strongly.
It would be almost a hopeless attempt to define, within any exact limits, the institution of caste, or its practical operation, so as to give a clear and accurate idea of the subject: its influence is so extensive, so minute, and so intricate, as almost to defy generalization: all that can be done is to endeavour to describe, as far as one’s knowledge extends, its peculiarities in detail, both what it is, and what it is not. None of the works yet written on the subject convey any clear idea of it; the authors have almost all fallen into the same mistake that Government has done, regarding the Hindu law. They have given us a picture drawn
- ↑ It is as impossible to translate these names of castes into English, as it would be to find terms in Hindostanee to denote a Protestant, a Socinian, a Baptist, &c.; it may, however, be observed, that a Bhat is a bard, who usually claims the privilege of being a hanger-on upon great men to sing their praises; there are also village bards, and wandering bards in some parts of India.
