trade, to lend money at interest, and to cultivate land. And he directed that the Sudra should serve all the three mentioned castes, namely, the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas, and the Vaisyas, and that he should not depreciate nor make light of them. Since the Brahmin sprang from the mouth, which is the most excellent part of Brahma, and since he is the first-born and possesses the Veda, he is by right the chief of the whole creation. Him Brahma produced from his own mouth, that he might perform holy rites; that he might present ghee to the gods, and cakes of rice to the Pitris, or progenitors of mankind.”—Code of Hindoo Law, I, pp. 88, 94.
The Bhagvat Geeta, their most sublime treatise, repeats the same arrangement, and makes their observance a condition of salvation and moral perfection. Each class had thus a separate creation, constituting it, in fact, a distinct species, involving a denial of the doctrine that “God hath made of one blood all men.” The Hindoos thus reject our common humanity, and hold it to be heresy to believe that all men are fellow-creatures, scouting the idea that we should “honor all men,” or “love our neighbors as ourselves.”
Brahmin is a derivative from Brahm, the Deity, and signifies a Theologist or Divine. The caste is analogous to the tribe of Levi under the Mosaic economy, but without the family of Aaron. All the benefits of the Hindoo religion belong to this class, and the code secured to them rights, honors, and immunities that no other order could claim, so that their persons were to be considered sacred and inviolate, and they could not be held amenable to the penalties of law even for the worst of crimes. The intention of the legislator was, that from this learned class alone the nation was to take its astronomers, lawyers, prime ministers, judges, philosophers, as well as priests. They were to hold the highest offices, and to be supreme. The Brahmin is invested with that sacred string of three cotton strands, and the ceremony is called regeneration, and gives the Brahmin his claim to the title of the “twice born.” For him, and for him alone, has the law-giver laid down in detail the duties of life, even to his devotions. Each morning he may be
