ABSTRACT
THE position of the Brahman, in classic Hinduism as well as today, can be understood only in connection with caste, without an understanding of which it is quite impossible to understand Hinduism. Perhaps the most important gap in the ancient Veda is its lack of any reference to caste. The Veda refers to the four later caste names in only one place, which is considered a very late passage; nowhere does it refer to the substantive content of the caste order in the meaning which it later assumed and which is characteristic only of Hinduism.'
