Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/104
to the negroes. The admission of persons of low status to a body whether religious or social, always tends to pull down the body in the public eyes. This fact is keenly appreciated by the sampradāyas, and many of them to-day show some aversion to admit persons of the lowest caste to the fold. The sampradāya of Christ has the same difficulty to overcome. As the Christian religion draws most of its recruits from the lowest caste, the Christian caste itself is often called by the name of the lowest caste.[1] The de facto status of the Christian caste to-day is not the lowest, but the next above the lowest. The man from the lowest caste who joins this sampradāya gains in status, while the man from any of the higher castes loses by joining it.
Comparing the two types of castes, the old tribal caste, and the religious castes, we find that each has some advantage which to-day the other does not possess.
Those who join sampradāyas are brothers, but with them the feeling of democracy and brotherhood is not quite so strong as it is in the older caste. A Brāhmaṇa, however poor he may be, is equal of any other Brāhmaṇa, even if the latter is a millionaire. No Brāhmaṇa of a high rank would be at all ashamed to marry the daughter of a Brāhmaṇa cook. The same strong feeling of democracy exists in other castes also.
The advantage which lies with the sampradāyas is this. They have the capability to expand, they admit members from other castes into their own. If this spirit of expansion of a caste by the absorption of foreign elements could be infused into castes, then a great deal of trouble, due to the caste system, would disappear.
- ↑ Many ignorant people in the Maratha country, when they see any person become a Christian, say that he has become a Mahāra.