India is the typical specimen of the institution of caste--the only case
in which we are certain that it ever really existed, for its existence
anywhere else is a matter of more or less probable inference in the
remote past. But in India, where the importance of the sacerdotal order
was greater than in any other recorded state of society, the king not
only was not a priest, but, consistently with the religious law, could
not be one: he belonged to a different caste. The Brahmins were invested
with an exalted character of sanctity, and an enormous amount of civil
privileges; the king was enjoined to have a council of Brahmin advisers;
but practically he took their advice or disregarded it exactly as he
pleased. As is observed by the historian who first threw the light of
reason on Hindoo society,[19] the king, though in dignity, to judge by
the written code, he seemed vastly inferior to the Brahmins, had always
the full power of a despotic monarch: the reason being that he had the
command of the army, and the control of the public revenue. There is no
case known to authentic history in which either of these belonged to the
sacerdotal caste.
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