தமிழர் மதம்
13
even now by the name of the profession which it follows. Before the time of Manu the Aryans had no caste, but Manu introduced the fourfold classification among them simply for the sake of giving stability to their calling which were otherwise in a fluidic condition, on account of their long nomadic life which bred in them a disinclination for honest work and led them to live upon plunder and cattle-lifting. What was intended at first to confer social benefit to the Aryan settlers, was seized upon with avidity by the self- interested section of the Dravido-Aryans who had the sagacity enough to perceive the high rank to which the caste system would raise them, if it could be so hardened that it could not by any means be broken through with impunity. What was at first a pliant group became in course of time an impenetrable body like steel. For this deplorable state of Hindu community the vegetarian part of the Tamilians is chiefly responsible.
I pointed out this fact thirty-eight years ago in an article on Tholkappiam which appeared in the first volume of my magazine Jnanasagaram, but no oriental scholar took notice of it then. Recently, Dr. Slater who was Professor of Economics in the University of Madras had the shrewdness of mind to discern this important fact and state that the invention of caste and its rigid observance were the work of no other people than the Tamilians. Even at the present day, no other Hindu community, as far as my knowledge goes, pays so much care and attention to cleanliness of food and chastity of their women as the Tamils, especially the community of vegetarian Velalas. In northern India, caste is not so rigidly observed as in the south, since the Aryans had no caste, since those who instituted it were the ancient civilized Tamils only. The fact must be borne in mind that while in the north most of the Brahmins are out and out flesh eaters, those in the south and the Velalas are strict vegetarians. So great an importance came to be attached to clean food and women's chastity that these two have ever stood as the prime factors actively working at the bottom of the Tamil community to split it up into innumerable small groups that can never cohere with each other.
