WIKIPEDIA: Definitions of Caste

 

WIKIPEDIA: Definitions of Caste

Various definitions have been given by the

authorites. However some of them are given as under of the word caste. 

(i) Riskey - has defined as 'a' collection of families or group of families bearing a common name; claiming a common desent from a my the calancestor, human or diven: prifessing to follow the same hereditary ealling, and regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community.

(ii) According to Lundberg

A caste is merely a rigid social class into which member are born and from which they can withdraw or es cpae only with extreme dificulty. It is the type of stratification system which is most rigid in matters of mobility and distnctness of status.

(iii) E.A.H. Blxmt Defines Caste as :

"An endogamous or a collection of endogamous groups, bearing a common name, membership of which is hereditary; imposing on the members certain restrictions in the matter of social intercourse; either following a common traditional off occupation or clarming a common origin; and generally regarded as forming a single homogenous community.

(iv) H. Cooley Says :

"When a class is some what strictly hereditary, we may call it a caste".

(v) According to Maclver :

"When status is wholly predetermined, so that men are born to their lot without any hope of changing it, than class takes the extreme from of caste."

(vi) According to Henry Maine :

Caste started as natural devision of occupational classes and eventually upon receiving the religious senction, became solidified into the existing caste system. The caste system comes into being when it

becomes an integral part of a religious dogma which divides the people into superior and integral part of a religious dogma which divides the people into superior and inferior groups with different responsibilities, functions and standards of living. 

(vii) Ketkar Savs : 

A caste is a group having two characteristics. 

(a) Membership is confined to those who are born of members and include all person so born. 

(b) The membership is forbidden by an inexorable social low to men outside the group.

(viii) Martindale and Monochesi Define :

Caste as an aggregate of persons whose share of obligations and privileges are fixed by birth sanctioned and supported by religion and usage. 

(ix) According to E.A. Gait :

"Caste is an endogamous group or collection of such groups bearing a common name, having the same tradittional occupation claiming descent from the same source, and commonly regarded as forming a single

homogenous community."

(x) According to Gree :

Caste is a system of stratification in which

mobility, up and down the status ladder, at least ideally may not occur.

(xi) According to Anderson and Parket :

"Caste is that extreme form of social class

organization in which the position of individuals in the status hierarchy is determined by descent and birth".

(xii) According to w-i n i ama :

Caste is a system in which an individual's rank and its accompanying rights and obligations is ascribed on the basis of birth into a particular group".

Thus thinkens have hvariously defined the term caste' But s Ghurye states, "with all the labours of these students, however, we do not possess a real gineral definition of caste. The best way to understand the term caste is to examine the various factors underlying the caste system. 

Megasthenes, the Greek traveller in the third century B.C. to India, mentions two of the features characterizing the institution of caste. He say, "It is not permitted to contract marriage with a person of another caste, nor for the more for the same person to undertake more than one, except if he is of the caste of philosophers, when permission is given or account of degnity.

Thus according to Megasthenes two elements of caste system arc.

(a) There is no intermarriage and

(b) There can be no change of profession.