Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 62

VAISYAS AND SUDRAS
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know who was the ancient Muni or devotee
they descend, and they always take care, in
order to avoid intermarriage with a female descendant of
this remote priestly ancestor, to marry into a gotram other
than their own.
Hindus who cannot contract a suitable marriage amongst
to say, they
from whom
their
their own relations are nevertheless bound to marry in
own caste, and even in that subdivision of it to which
they belong. In no case are they permitted to contract
marriages with strangers. Furthermore, persons belonging
to a caste in one part of the country cannot contract
marriages with persons of the same caste in another part,
even though they may be precisely the same castes under
different names.
Thus the Tamil Yedeyers and the Canarese
Uppareru would never consent to take wives from the
Telugu Gollavaru and the Tamil Pillay, although the first
two are, except for their names, identical with the second
two.
The most distinguished of the four main castes into
which the Hindus were originally separated by their first
legislators is, as we have before remarked, that of the
Brahmins. After them come the Kshatriyas, or Rajahs.
Superiority of rank is at present warmly contested between
the Vaisyas, or merchants, and the Sudras, or cultivators.
The former appear
to have almost entirely lost their
superiority except in the Hindu books, where they are
invariably placed before the Sudras. In ordinary life the
latter hold themselves to be superior to the Vaisyas, and
consider themselves privileged to mark their superiority in
many respects by treating them with contumely.
With regard to the Vaisya caste an almost incredible
but nevertheless well-attested peculiarity is everywhere
observable.
There is not a pretty woman to be found in
the caste.
I have never had much to do with the women
of the Vaisya caste
I cannot therefore without injustice
venture to add my testimony to that of others on this
subject
but I confess that the few Vaisya women I have
seen from time to time were not such as to afford me
an ocular refutation of the popular prejudice. However,
Vaisya women are generally wealthy, and they manage
to make up for their lack of beauty by their elegant attire.
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