The Tribes and Castes of Bengal Ethnographic Glossary (Set of 2 Volumes)

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THE following volumes contain the results of what is, I believe, the first attempt to apply to Indian ethnography the methods of systematic research sanctioned by the authority of European anthropologists.

I am painfully aware that in many respects the work is exceedingly imperfect, and can hardly claim to do more than map out and define in view of further inquiry the large field of research which had to be covered. In attempting within a given time to draw up an ethnographic description of the various castes and tribes found among the seventy millions of people inhabiting the territory administered by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, it is difficult, on the one hand, to secure complete information regarding all the groups which have to be dealt with, and on the other to avoid making general statements concerning castes as a whole, which are only true of particular sections of those castes. For this reason it has been decided to bring out at first an official edition, and to invite criticism with the object of supplying omissions and correcting mistakes. All suggestions will be carefully considered, and the conclusions to which they give rise embodied in a second edition. It is hoped that criticisms may be sent in promptly enough for this second edition to be brought out within eighteen months' or two years' time. All communications on this subject should be addressed to me at the Bengal Secretariat, Calcutta.

CASTE IN RELATION TO MARRIAGE On a stone panel forming part of one of the grandest Buddhist monuments in India-the great tope at Sanchi-a carving in low relief depicts a strange religious ceremony. Under trees with conventional foliage and fruits, three women, attired in tight clothing without skirts, kneel in prayer before a small shrine or altar. In the foreground, the loader of a procession of monkeys bears in both hands a bowl of liquid and stoops to offer it at the shrine. His solemn countenance and the grotesquely adoring gestures of his comrades seem intended to express reverence and humility. In the background four stately figures-two men and two women-of tall stature and regular features, clothed in flowing robes and wearing most elaborate turbans, look on with folded hands and apparent approval The race basis of at this remarkable act of worship. Anti- caste. quatrain speculation has for the most part passed the panel by unnoticed, or has sought to associate it with some pious legend of the life of Buddha. A larger interest, however, attaches to the scene, if it is regarded as the sculptured expression of the race sentiment of the Aryans towards the Dravidians, which runs through the whole course of Indian tradition and survivors in scarcely abated strength at the present day. On this view the relief would belong to the same order of ideas as the story in the Ramayana of the army of apes who assisted Rama in the invasion of Ceylon. It shows us the higher race on friendly terms with the lower, but keenly conscious of the essential difference of type and not taking part in the ceremony at which they appear as patronising spectators. An attempt is made in the following pages to show that the race sentiment, which this curious sculpture represents, so far from being a figment of the intolerant pride of the Brahman, rests upon a foundation of fact which scientific methods confirm, that it has shaped the intricate groupings of the caste system, and bas preserved the Aryan typo in comparative purity throughout Northern India.

**Contents and Sample Pages**