The division into castes in India is well known. The hymn to Puruslia names them as, 1, the Brahmanas; 2, Kshatrivas; 3, the Vaisyars; and, 4, the Sudras. There was a long conflict between the first and second of these castes, but the final subjection of the second left absolute power in the hands of the first, the Brahmans. or priests. They elaborated a system of laws, using some of _cam's code, in which they made no scruple to fortify and protect themselves. The very lowest class was of no importance, but the other three, however unequal to each other in privileges and social standing, united by a common bond of sacramental rites, traditionally connected from ancient times with certain stages and incidents in the life of the Aryan Hindu. such as conception, birth, name-giving, the first taking out of a child to see the sun, the first feeding with boiled rice, the rites of tonsure, the youth's investiture with the sacrificial thread, and his return home on completing his studies, with the ceremonies of marriages, funerals, etc. The most important of these family observances is the rite of conducting the boy to a spiritual teacher, with which is connected the investiture with the sacred cord, ordi narily worn over the left shoulder and under the right arm, and varying in material according to the class of the wearer. This ceremony is supposed to constitute the second or spiritual birth of the arya, and is the preliminary net to the youth's initiation into the study of the Veda, the management of the consecrated tire, and the knowledge of the rites of purification, including the solemn invocation to Saritrt (the sun), which has to be repeated every morning and evening before the rising and setting of that lumi nary. It is from their participation in this rile that the three upper classes are called the " twice born." The ceremony is enjoined to take place some time between the 8th and 16th year iu case of a Brahman; for a Kshatriya between the 11th and '22d, and of a Vaisya between the 1211i and 24th. Ile who has not been invested with the mark of Iris class within the prescribed time is forever excluded front uttering the prayer to the sun, and becomes an outcast, unless absolved from his sin by a council of Brahmans, when, after due purification, he resumes the badge of his caste. With one not duly initiated no righteous 11111/1 is allowed to associate or to enter into connections of affinity. The duty of the Sudra (the lowest caste) is to serve the twice-born classes, particularly the Brahmans. One of this caste is excluded from all sacred knowledge, and if he per form sacrificial ceremonies he must do so without wing holy utensils. No Brahman may recite a holy text. where a man of the servile cast might overhear him. nor may lie teach them the laws of expiating sin. The occupations of the Vaisya are connected with trade, agriculture, and the raising of cattle; while those of the Kshatriya consist in ruling and defending the people, administerine: justice, etc. Both these castes share with the I3ntliman the privilege of reading the Veda, hut only so far as it is taught and explained to them by their spiritual preceptors. To the Brahman belongs the right of teaching and expounding the sacred texts, and also that of interpreting and determin ing,' the laws and rules of caste. in spite of those formidable barriers between the several orders. the practice of inter-marrying appears to have been too prevalent in early times to have admitted of suppression. To marry a woman of higher caste. and especially of a caste not immediately above one's own, is positively prohibited, the offspring of such a union excluded from performing obsequies to lus ancestors, and incapable of inheriting the parent's property. But, according to Mann. a man mar marry a girl of any or each of the castes below his own. provided he has already a wire of his own class, since she only should perform the duties of personal attendance and religious observance devolving upon a married woman.
The self-exaltation of the highest.class was due. not altogether to priestly arrogance and ambition, but, like a prominent feature in the post-Vedic belief—the transmigration of souls—it was the natural consequence of the pantheistic doctrine. To the Brah manical thinker, who saw in the numberless individuals of animate nature but so many manifestations of the one eternal soul, to a union with which they must all tend as their final goal of supreme bliss, the greater or less imperfection of the material form in which they were embodied naturally presented a continuous scale of spiritual units from the lowest degradation up to the absolute purity and perfection of the supreme spirit. To prevent one's sinking yet lower, and by degrees to raise one's self in this universal gradation, or, if possible, to attain the ultimate goal immediately from any state of corporeal existence, there was but one way—subjection of the senses, purity of life, and knowledge of the deity. As Manu's code coneludeS: "He who in his own soul perceives the supreme soul in all beings, and acquires equanimity towards them all, attains the highest state of bliss." The life marked out for the Brahmans by that stern theory of class duties which they themselves had marked out, and which must have been practiced in the early times, at least in some degree, was by no means one of ease and amenity. It Was, on the contrary, well calculated to promote that complete mortifi cation of the instincts of animal nature which they considered as indispensable to final deliverance from the revolution of bodily and personal existence.
The devoted Brahman who desired to obtain the utmost good upon the dissolution of his body, was enjoined to pass successively through four orders or stages of life, viz.: 1. that of religious student; 2, that of householder; 3, that of anchorite; 4, that of religious mendicant. Theoretically, this course was open and recommended to every twice-born man, his distinctive occupations being in that case restricted to the second condition, or that of married life. Practically, however, persons of the second and third castes were doubtless in general content to go through a term of studentship in order to obtain a certain amount of religious instructicn before entering into the married state and performing their professional duties. In the case of the sacerdotal class, the practice was probably- all but universal in early titues; but a more and more limited proportion seem to have carried their religious zeal to the length of self-mortifi cation involved in the two final stages. When the youth had been invested with the sign
of his caste, he was to reside for some time in the house of some religious teacher, well read in the Veda, to be instructed in the knowledge of the scriptures and the scientific treatises attached to them, in the social duties of his caste, and in the complicated sys tem of purificatory and sacrificial rites. According to the number of Vedas he intended to study, the duration of the period of instruction was to be—probably in the case of Brahmanical students chiefly—of from 12 to 48 years; during which time the virtues of modesty, duty, temperance, and self-control were to be firmly implanted in his mind by unremitting observance of the most minute rules of conduct. During all this time the Brahman student had to subsist entirely on food obtained by begging from house to house; and his behavior towards the preceptor trnd his family was to be that prompted by respectful attachment and implicit obedience. In the case of (rids no investiture takes place, the nuptial ceremony being, considered an equivalent ''for that rite. On quitting the teacher's abode, the young man returns to his family and takes a wife. To die without leaving legitimate offspring, and a son to perform the peri odical rite of obsequies to his father, is considered by the true Hindu a very great misfor tune. There are three sacred debts which a man has to discharge in life: that which is due to the gods, of which he acquits himself by daily worship and sacrificial rites; that due to the ancient and inspired seers of the Vedic texts, discharged by the daily study of the scriptures; and the filial debt which he owes to his manes, and of which he relieves himself by leaving a son. Some authorities add a fourth—the debt owing to human kind. which demands the practice of kindness and hospitality; hence the neces sity of entering into the married state: When the husband lends the bride front her home to his own, the fire which has been used for the marriage ceremony goes with the new couple, to serve as their domestic fire; and it has to be kept up perpetually clay and night, either by themselves or their children, or, if the man be a teacher, by his pupils. If it should become extinguished by neglect or otherwise, the guilt thereby incurred must be atoned for by an act of expiation. The domestic fire serve the family for pre paring their food, for making the fire necessary daily for occasional offerings, and for performing sacramental rites. No food should be eaten that. has not been duly conse crated by a portion of it being offered to the gods, the beings, and the manes. These three daily offerings are also called by the collective name of the sacrifice to all the deities. The two are the offering to Brahma—that is, the daily lecture of the scriptures, accompanied by certain rites—and that to men, consisting in the entertain ment of guests. The domestic observances, many of which must be considered as ancient Aryan family customs, surrounded by the Hindus with a certain amount of adventitious ceremonial, were generally performed by the householder himself, with the assistance of his wife. There is, however. another class of sacrificial ceremonies of a more pretentious and expensive kind, called srauta rites, or rites based on revela tion, the performance of which, though not indispensable, was yet considered obligatory under certain circumstances. They formed a powerful weapon in the hands of 0.0 priesthood, and were one of the chief sources of their subsistenee. Owing to the com plicated nature of these sacrifices. and the great amount of ritualistic formulas :IA u.xts recited during their performauce, they required the employment of a number of profes sional Brahmans, frequently as many as 16, who had to be well rewarded for their ser vices. Priests who refuse money for their services are eulogized by Brahmanical writers; but such virtue was rare. The manuals of the Vaidak rituals enumerated three of these rites: ishlis, or oblations of milk, curds, clarified butter, rice, grain; annual offerings; and libations of soma. The soma, which is an intoxicating drink pre pared from the juice of a kind of milk-weed, sometimes called the moon-plant, must have played an important part in the ancient worship, at least as early as the Indo-Per sian period. It is coutiuu•lly alluded to both in the 'Zeno/ Avesta and the Rt,ryteda. In the latter work the hymns of a whole book are addressed to it, either in the shape of a mighty god, or in its original form, as a kind of ambrosia endowed with wonderfully exhilarating powers. In post-Vedic mythology soma has become identified with the lunar deity, to whom it seems to have had some relation from the beginning. Among the Vaidik rites the soma-saerifices are the most solemn and complicated, and those to which the greatest efficacy is ascribed in remitting sin, conferring offspring and even immortality. They require the attendance of 16 priests, and are divided into three groups, according as the actual pressing and offering of the soma occupies only 1 day, or between 1 and 12 days. The performance of all srauta sacrifices require two other fires besides that used for domestic rites. The act of first placing the tires in their respective receptacles, after due consecration of the ground, constitutes the essential part of the first duty, which the householder should have performed by four Brahmans immediately after the wedding. To the same class of sacrificial ceremonies belong those performed on the days of the new and full moon, the oblation at the couunencement of the three scasous, the offerings of first-fruits, and other periodical rites. Besides these regular sacrifices, the srauta ceremonial includes a number of most solemn rites, which, on account of the objects for NvIiich they are instituted, and the enormous expenditure they involve, could be performed only on rare occasions and by powerful princes. Of these the most important are the inaugural ceremony of a monarch who claims supreme rule, and the horse sacrifice, one of great antiqnity, enjoined by the Brahmanic:al ritual upon kings desirous of attaining universal sovereignty. The efficacy ascribed to this later times was so great that the performance of a hundred such sacrifices was considered to deprive India of his position as chief of the immortals.