Note 154 — Volume II. (continued 2)

2. But, as Dr. Muir goes on to say:154—“Though towards the close of the Vedic period the priesthood probably became a profession, the texts do not contain anything which necessarily implies that the priests formed an exclusive caste or at least a caste separated from of all others by insurmountable barriers as in later times. There is a wide difference between a profession and even a hereditary order in caste in the fully developed Brâhmanical sense. There is, therefore, no difficulty in supposing that in the Vedic era the Indian priesthood, even if we admit its members to have been for the most part sprung from priestly families, may have often admitted aspirants to the sacerdotal character from other classes of their countrymen.” This theory, then, that even the Brâhmans themselves are probably of mixed origin, and that the caste, as we find it now, is in a great measure occupational in origin, goes to the very root of the Brâhmanical caste system of modern India, and deserves to be established by some examples from the immense mass of evidence which might be adduced in support of it.