ABSTRACT
THE division of society into castes 1 is a peculiarly Indian phenomenon. In India itself it has been made the subject of theories which justify rather than explain it. European science has been hardly less active in theorizing. When an attempt has been made to go into the facts thoroughly, for example in the Census Reports of 1901 and 1911, the accepted hypotheses have been shown to be grossly inadequate and arbitrary. Nevertheless, those evolved by Indian thought, although they hardly correspond to reality, have this advantage over those of Europe as evidence, that they are part of the Indian state of mind. We must therefore pay due attention to them, even if we do not take them as an exact representation of the real state of society.
