Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/166

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THEORY OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION
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even necessary by-products, of efforts towards unification and equality. The history of caste in India is not then a history of the increase of social division and inequality, but a history of less rapid, or to use the popular but inexact word "arrested," development, arrested organization and arrested integration.

Thus, the name "History of Caste" itself becomes to a certain extent inappropriate. The proper name for the study would be a history of the development of Hindu society.

There is another reason to make the name "History of Caste" inappropriate. In a society the relations of classes and castes are affected and determined by political changes, religions, revolutions, economic changes, and also by changes in social philosophy. They are also greatly influenced by immigration of foreigners. Under these conditions the treatment of the caste system or any other social phenomena in an isolated manner is impossible. It is somewhat easy to isolate to a moderate extent any particular phase of social life at any given period; but if a writer is dealing with a period extending over three or four millenniums, the interconnexion of the phenomena becomes so great that the separation becomes well-nigh impossible.

Nevertheless, the name "History of Caste" will be maintained. Though I shall have to write a history of the development of the Hindu society and its civilization, an attempt will be made to give greater prominence to facts directly relating to social organization and distinctions, than to other phases of civilization.

A proper application of the factors which contribute to nation-making, or to use a wider term, of social integration, and a realization of their absence in India hitherto,

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