Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 88

CASTE SUBDIVISIONS
4S
human race divided mankind into different
they exist at the present day *.
saviour of the
castes, as
The many subdivisions into which these four great
original castes were broken up date undoubtedly from
They were due to the absolute necessity of
later times.
assigning to each person in a special manner his particular
place in the social organization.
There are some Hindu
authors who assert that the individuals composing the first
ramifications of the large Sudra caste were the bastard
offspring of the other higher castes, and owed their origin
to illicit intercourse with the widows of the four great
caste divisions.
It is said that these bastard children,
born of a Brahmin father and a Kshatriya mother, or of
a Vaisya father and a Sudra mother, &c, were not recog-
nized by any of the four primary castes, and so they were
placed in other caste categories and were assigned special
employments, more or less humble, according to their
extraction.
A few of these many subdivisions are said to be of quite
recent origin.
For instance, the five artisan classes are
said to have originally formed only one class, as also the
barbers and washermen, the Gollavarus and Kurubas, and
a large number of others who in recent times have split up
into new sub-castes.
CHAPTER V
The Lower
—
Chucklers, or Cobblers, and
Classes of Sudras.
Pariahs.
others equally low.
Contempt in which they are held. Pariahs
strictly speaking Slaves.
Washermen, Barbers, and some others.
Disrepute into which Mechanical Skill has fallen. Nomads and
Vagabonds. Gypsies. Quacks. Jugglers. Wild Tribes, &c.
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We
have already remarked that amongst the immense
of classes of which the Sudra caste is composed, it
is impossible to give precedence to any one class in par-
ticular
the natives themselves not being agreed on that
number
;
and the
social scale varying in different parts of the
country. There are certain classes, however, who, owing
to the depth of degradation into which they have fallen,
The appellation Mahanuim is well worthy of remark. It is a com-
pound of two words Maha great, and Nuvu, which undoubtedly is
the same as Noah.
Dubois.
point,
1
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