Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 71

CASTE IN PALESTINE AND EGYPT
31
cannot say that I ever observed a single one, however
unimportant and simple, and, I may add, however filthy
and disgusting, which did not rest on some religious prin-
Nothing is left to chance everything is
ciple or other.
laid down by rule, and the foundation of all their customs
It is for this reason that the
is purely and simply religion.
Hindus hold all their customs and usages to be inviolable,
for, being essentially religious, they consider them as sacred
1
;
as religion
itself.
it noted, this plan of dividing the people into
not confined to the lawgivers of India. The
and most famous of all lawgivers, Moses, availed
himself of the same institution, as being the one which
offered him the best means of governing the intractable
and rebellious people of whom he had been appointed the
And, be
castes
wisest
is
patriarch.
The division of the people into castes existed also amongst
the Egyptians. With them, as with the Hindus, the law
assigned an occupation to each individual, which was
handed down from father to son. It was forbidden to
any man to have two professions, or to change his own.
Each caste had a special quarter assigned to it, and people
of a different caste were prohibited from settling there.
Nevertheless there was this difference between the Egyptians
and the Hindus with the former all castes and all pro-
fessions were held in esteem
all employments, even of
the meanest kind, were alike regarded as honourable
and, although the priestly and military castes possessed
peculiar privileges, nobody would have considered it
anything but criminal to despise the classes whose work,
whatever it happened to be, contributed to the general
good 1
With the Hindus, on the other hand, there are
professions and callings to which prejudice attaches such
degradation that those who follow them are universally
despised by those castes which in the public estimation
exercise higher functions.
It must here be remarked, however, that the four great
professions without which a civilized nation could not
exist, namely, the army, agriculture, commerce, and weav-
:
;
;
.
1
See what the illustrious Bossuet says on this point in his DivcuiM*
sur VHistoire UniverseUe, Part III.
Dubois.