A caste may be defined as a collection of families or groups of families bearing a common name which usually denotes or is associated with a specific occupation; claiming common descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine, professing to follow the same professional calling, and regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community. A caste is almost invariably endogamous in the sense that a member of the large circle denoted by the common name may not marry outside that circle, but within the circle there are usually a number of smaller circles each of which is also endogamous. Thus it is not enough to say that a Brahman at the present day cannot marry any woman who is not a Brahman; his wife must not only be a Brahman, she must also belong to the same endogamous division of the Brahman caste.

By the side of this rigid definition I may place the general description of caste which is given by M. Emile Senart in his fascinating study of the caste system of India. After reminding his readers that no statement that can be made on the subject of caste can be considered as absolutely true, that the apparent relations of the facts admit of numerous shades of distinction, and that only the most general characteristics cover the whole of the subject, M. Senart goes on to describe a caste as a close corporation, in theory, at any rate, rigorously hereditary; equipped with a certain traditional and independent organization, including a chief and a council; meeting on occasion in assemblies of more or less plenary authority, and joining in the celebration of certain festivals; bound together by a common occupation, observing certain common usages which relate more particularly to marriage, to food, and to questions of ceremonial pollution; and ruling its members by the exercise of a jurisdiction the extent of which varies, but which succeeds, by the sanction of certain penalties and above all by the power of final or revocable exclusion from the group, in making the authority of the community effectively felt.¹

It has been agreed by Risley and other students of caste that the problem of caste formation cannot be solved completely, and this is true of every historical process. Caste like language is structuralized partly by unobserved and unobservable accretions. But it is possible to indicate the situations contributing to the development of the caste pattern.

It has been emphasized, especially by Senart,² that in historical time a prejudiced situation had been prepared by the successive invasions and settlements of superior light-colored groups called Aryans, whose relation to the aborigines became comparable to that of the Boers and Kaffirs in Africa and the whites and negroes in America, and that caste distinctions are largely a projection and elaboration of the prejudice of the invaders against the smaller, dark-skinned aborigines.

¹Risley, H. H.n/an/an/an/a, : 517–518.

² Senart, E., Les Castes dana l’Inde.