VI. Essay on the Bhills

Abstract

The four divisions of Hindus, viz . the Priests, Soldiers, Merchants, and Labourers, appear to have existed in every human society, at a certain stage of civilization; but in India alone have they been maintained, for several thousand years, with prescriptive rigour. The mixture of races, caused by the operation of human passions (beyond the power of rules to controul), which in most countries has tended to destroy such distinctions among the four primitive classes, has in India only extended to an indefinite number of tribes, or castes, exclusive customs and privileges, of which the lowest are as tenacious as the highest.