Christian missions in the Telugu country - Uecf.net

MALAS, MADIGAS, AND SUDRAS 79
have remained heathen. It is still more striking when
such a thing takes place in the more conservative country
parts. But in our Telugu country it is not unknown for
a Christian teacher of Mala origin, known to the Sudras
through his teaching of their boys as a man of high
character and abilities, to be admitted to eat and drink
with them.
It wiU be seen from the above that the system of
caste, neither in its origin nor in its present working,
is outside the operation of the laws of human
nature. The economical conditions of the country
favoured its rise, and it is at the least not unre-
sponsive to the newer social and economical forces of
the present time.
As might be expected, castes show more tendency to
multiply than to diminish in numbers. It is easier for
sections of a caste to drift apart, and finally, so far at
least as intermarriage is concerned, to become separate,
than for two sections to reunite. There is, however, a
movement, started in educated circles, to reunite the
sections of some of the greater castes.
From the nature of the case the caste system must
have progressively extended its boundaries during the
ages. The great majority of the people of India are of
a stock which originally was not Hindu at all. Their
ancestors, in every case, must have been drawn into the
system from without. This process is still going on.
The communities which stand outside or below caste are
brought piecemeal into the system. The attractive
force is the higher civilisation to which they are thereby
admitted. But such classes are, as a rule, still more