So long as the king and priest were one—so long, that is to say, as the king conducted the ceremonies and sacrifices of religion—the authority of the king was unchallenged.[5] But there came a moment when the kings grew weary of a tedious ritual and delegated their religious duties to substitutes. That was the opportunity of the priestcraft, who, as the intercessors between the people and their gods—a powerful position indeed—were able to claim a rank higher than that of the king himself. Here was the beginning of Caste. When Buddha entered upon his ministry there were four castes: (1) The Brahmans, or priests; (2) the Kshatriya, the warrior and governing class, to which the kings and princes belonged—a class analogous to the Samurai or Bushi of Japan; (3) the Vaisiyas—farmers, traders, etc. These three classes, all of Aryan descent, were, and are, “the twice-born,” whose second birth is symbolized by their being invested with the sacred cord at an age which more or less corresponds to that of confirmation with us. (4) The Sudras were the fourth class; they were the lowest of all—despised as the descendants of the Dasyu, the enemies of the bright gods, the aborigines who were defeated by the migration of the white Aryan herdsmen descending upon India from the lofty plains of the Pamirs. We talk glibly enough of Caste, yet there are not many of us who have any glimmering of light as to its real meaning or origin. The majority of Europeans speak of the word as if it were of Hindu origin, whereas it is simply a Portuguese word signifying race or family. In its present sense, indeed, it is of quite modern birth, for the old Portuguese Barbosa, writing in the sixteenth century, only uses the word _casta_ in the sense of family, speaking of men and women _de boa casta_, of good family. When he wished to indicate the mysterious divisions of Indian society, he used the word _leis_, laws, _leis de gentios_, laws of the heathen. (Sir Henry Yule’s glossary.) Apart from the word, we are apt to speak of Caste as if it were an institution, respectable at any rate on account of its hoary antiquity. Old it certainly is, yet it was not known to the sacred poets of the Rig Veda.