Note 64 — Chapter I · OF THE ORIGIN AND NAME OF CARDS

This is Mr. Colebrooke's conclusion. Sir John Malcolm gives a different account, the correctness of which may be very justly doubted, both as regards the present time and the past: "The four divisions of Hindoos, viz. the priests, soldiers, merchants, and labourers, appear to have existed in every human society, at a certain stage of civilization; but in India alone have they been maintained for several thousand years with prescriptive vigour."—Essay on the Bhills (Beels) by Sir John Malcolm, in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i, p. 65, 1824.