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The origin of caste is a subject of much uncertainty and debate. In ancient Vedic times, caste was unknown. Society, in those days, was more elastic and free, and resembled that of other lands. And yet it showed a tendency toward a mechanical division which later grew into the caste system. It was not until the time of the great lawgiver, Manu, about twenty-five centuries ago, that the system crystallized into laws, and the organization became so compact as to force itself upon all the people and become an integral part of recognized Hindu law. Manu and other lawgivers found the basis of caste rules in the traditions of an ancient Brahman tribe. These they elaborated and enforced.

The ancient name for caste was varna, which means "colour." This name is suggestive, and has led many authorities to trace back the whole system to original race-purity, as indicated by the colour of the skin. The first incursion of the fair Aryans from the northwest settled down, it is claimed, in the northern portions of the country. They gradually mingled and intermarried with the dark-skinned Dravidian and aboriginal population, with the natural consequence of a loss of race-purity and of whiteness of complexion. A subsequent descent of a new Aryan host upon the plains of northern India found the descendants of their predecessors of darker hue than themselves, which bespoke their race degeneracy; so they kept aloof from them. Later, however, they began to mingle with the former inhabitants, so that their descendants partly lost the ancestral complexion. A still later Aryan incursion declined to have intercourse with the descendants of those who last preceded them. Thus we have four classes divided upon the basis of colour, or varna, which may correspond with the four great original castes of India.

The traditional theory of the Hindus themselves, in reference to caste origin, is admirably simple and quite adequate to satisfy ninety-nine per cent of the devotees of that faith to-day. Brahmâ, the first god of the Hindu triad, the Creator, was the immediate source and founder of the caste order; for he caused, it is said, the august Brahman to proceed out of his divine mouth, while the warlike and royal Kshatriya emanated from his shoulders, the trading, commercial Vaisya, from his thighs, and the menial Sudra, from his feet. And from these four primal classes have descended, through myriads of permutations and minglings, the present hydra-headed caste organization.

But modern and scientific students of the social order of India entirely discard and ignore all Hindu mythical explanations and Puranic legends concerning this subject, and endeavour to trace the present system to its sources and primal causes through patient historic research and through a most elaborate system of anthropometric and ethnographic examinations conducted all over the land. The subject, however, is so vast and complicated that authorities upon the subject are still considerably at variance in their theories of origin. We may conveniently classify the prevailing theories, according to their emphasis, as follows:—

(a) The Religious Theory.—This gives emphasis to the religious influence as the dominant one in the formation of the social order of the land. It is maintained that the clever and unscrupulous Brahman has, to a large extent, originated it and nursed it into its present wonderful proportions, in order to create and perpetuate his own supremacy among the people of India. As the spiritual head of Hinduism, and the recognized source of religious power among its devotees, he required and devised this organization, with himself as its undisputed head, and with a distinct recognition by all others of his supremacy in the Hindu faith as a conditio sine quâ non of their admission as castes into the Hindu system. Up to the present day, the public acceptance of the supreme religious authority of the Brahman is one of the two conditions which qualify any people to admission into the sisterhood of Hindu castes. The other condition is separation from all other peoples in matters which will be hereafter mentioned.

There are potent reasons for accepting this theory; for the strongly entrenched position which religion still holds in the system, both as a basis and as a regulator, notwithstanding other antagonizing influences, is a testimony to its original place and power therein. Any social order whose direction is regulated by social injunctions and whose forms and ritual are enforced by religious penalties must be recognized as a mighty religious system.

(b) The Tribal Theory.—Moreover, there were many aboriginal tribes which entered the ranks of Hinduism through the formation of new castes. Mr. Risley, in the Census of 1901, refers to such. (See Vol. I, p. 521). They gradually abandoned their old tribal customs and entered upon new paths which brought them into conformity with Hindu usages. Or in some cases they preserved tribal habits and even their tribal totems, and baptized them into the new faith and thus became separate castes in the Hindu order.

As in the past, so "all over India at the present moment there is going on a process of the gradual and insensible transformation of tribes into castes. The stages of this operation are in themselves difficult to trace. … They usually set up as Rajputs, their first step being to start a Brahman priest, who invents for them a mythical ancestor, supplies them with a family miracle connected with the locality where their tribes are settled, and discovers that they belong to some hitherto unheard-of clan of the great Rajput community." (Census 1901, Vol. II, p. 519.) It is precisely the same process which brought the many Dravidian and even more primitive tribes of South India into the Hindu fold; and it is a curious fact that these same people are to-day the greatest sticklers in the land for caste and its myriad rules.

(c) The Social Theory.—Some hold with Sir Denzil Ibbetson, in the Census Report of 1881, "that caste is far more a social than a religious institution; that it has no necessary connection whatever with the Hindu religion, further than that under that religion certain ideas and customs common to all primitive nations have been developed and perpetuated in an unusual degree." This is acknowledged to be an exaggerated statement. It may possibly be true that "caste has no necessary connection with Hinduism," but it is emphatically true that caste, as understood by all, does not exist apart from that faith.

It is, however, a fact that divisions have occurred within castes, owing to the development of slight social differences between the members. For instance, several castes have been created by the degradation of members of the existing castes on account of their marriage of widows. The Pandarams of South India are held in distinction among the begging castes because of their abstention from meat, alcohol, and widow marriage. Indeed, it is interesting to note that a former caste status has been more frequently lost by, and degradation to a new caste has been consequent upon, the adoption of widow marriage, than through almost any other act. And, at present, this prohibition of the marriage of widows, including child widows, is the most tenaciously and unrighteously enforced caste custom in India.

(d) The Occupational Theory.—All regard fellowship in the same trade, or occupation, as the most prolific source of caste alignment, in modern times at least. Ibbetson contends that "the whole basis of diversity of caste is diversity of occupation. The old division into Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, Sudra, and Mlechha, or outcast, who is below the Sudra, is but a division into the priest, the warrior, the husbandman, the artisan, and the menial. … William Priest, John King, Edward Farmer, and James Smith are but the survivals in England of the four varnas of Manu." (Census of 1881.) This statement needs serious qualification. Farming, which is followed to-day by a majority of the population of India, is an occupation which is subsidized by no caste and is followed practically by the members of all castes. The Brahmans are the only ones who are degraded by following the plough. And there is a growing number of trades, introduced by modern civilization, which have not yet been touched by the caste system, and which the enterprising youth of different grades of Hindu society are entering with eagerness. And yet, while this is a fact, it is equally true that the functional type of castes is developing and spreading much more rapidly than any other. In the town of Madura, a few of the families, from the weaver caste, opened a remunerative trade in the manufacture of fireworks. They at first began it as an extra, to add to their very meagre income. Gradually it encroached upon their time until it became their sole occupation. To-day they are prospering in their new trade. But to them and their castemen their change of trade involves the transfer of caste relations. No longer being weavers, they do not see how they can continue to be bound by ties to their former castemen or former fellow-tradesmen; hence the old connubial and convivial bonds of caste are relaxing, and the weavers decline to have fellowship with them as formerly on these lines. Thus, in all parts of the land, we have present-day illustrations of the creation of functional castes. And it is an interesting inquiry whether this mania for creating a new caste for every rising trade and occupation will finally overcome and absorb all occupations created by the demands of modern life and advancing civilization, or whether it will in time succumb to the spirit of modern progress until all occupations shall be emancipated from the tyranny of caste and shall be open to all men who desire to enter them.

(e) The Crossing Theory.—According to Manu's Dharma Sastra one might be led to believe, as Hindus do stoutly maintain, that nearly all modern castes have been created by interbreeding. Those caste laws of twenty-five centuries ago taught that the offspring of the union of a woman of higher with a man of lower caste could belong to the caste of neither parent, and therefore formed a new and a separate caste. The names of castes thus formed are given with much detail in Manu's works. But it does not require much wisdom for one to perceive the absurdity of the working out of such a system, and the impossibility connected with it as an adequate basis for the caste organization of the present day. Yet interbreeding has doubtless been an important element in the elaboration of the stupendous caste organization. We have abundant illustration of this very process and its results in modern times. Among the Dravidians, especially, there are many castes which trace their origin to miscegenation. Among the Munda tribe we find nine such divisions; also five among the Mahilis, who themselves claim their descent from the union of a Munda with a Santhal woman.

This will not be unexpected when it is remembered that endogamy is the prime law of most Hindu castes; and this, too, in a land where immorality and adultery are so prevalent. Other sources of Hindu castes are mentioned. Some, like the Mahrattas, have behind them national traditions, and a history to which they refer and of which they are proud. Others, still, have, by migrating from the home of the mother caste, severed their connection from the parent stock and have formed a separate and independent caste.

It is unnecessary to state that not one of the above theories is adequate to account for all the existing castes of the land. These forces have entered, with varying degrees of efficiency, into their structure—one being dominant as a causal power in one, and another in another. And yet it may be stated that of all these caste-producing forces religion and occupation have had marked preëminence; and they are more influential to-day than ever before.