For the proper comprehension of what I have just said, it is necessary to make a few comments on the knowledge which the Hindus had concerning other peoples. There did exist commercial relations between India on one hand and on the other the peoples of Western Asia and beyond (the Greeks and the Romans), Southern Asia (including Kambodia and Java) and with those of Northern, especially Northeastern Asia. But although the Pandyas might have been acquainted with the Javanese, and although the Shakas and people of Ceylon might have known the Romans, it does not follow that the people of Pataliputra were necessarily acquainted with them. Not only that, but the different peoples of the continent of India did not necessarily know each other, though one nation might know of their next-door neighbors and the latter again know or know of peoples dwelling further away.
This is not all. It was a strange irony of fate that the people who came forth as the expounders of dharma were persons who had the least knowledge of the world. The Brâhmanas with their ideals of purity remained aloof from the rest, and the difficulties in the transmission of knowledge from one layer of society to another were becoming greater and greater. These facts account for the nonmention in the caste-lists of many races of Southern India, of Romans, and of people of the islands in the Indian ocean, in a book which had for its object to explain the existence of all castes and to determine their status.
Let us now come to a rather vexing question as to whether we should draw any conclusion from the writer's treatment of the degree of sacredness of
