and impure trades and transmitted them to their descendants, stood outside and far below the main castes, like the castes arising out of mixtures, partly real and partly fictitious. At present the Brahmans are divided into twenty-five different societies, which do not intermarry, and in part refuse to eat with each other; the Kshatriyas are divided into thirty-six societies similarly closed; the pure and impure Vaiçyas, the better and worse Çudras, are divided into some hundred groups.[315] On a rough calculation it is assumed that now only about a tenth of the Brahmanic population of India carries on the occupation assigned in the law to the four great orders; the great majority in these castes has descended to the permitted vocations, and the greater part of the whole population belongs to the classes below the four chief orders. We have already stated how closely the clans held together. The weight given by the caste system to pure blood did not suppress even among the Brahmans the pride in ancient and distinguished family descent. In the fourth century B.C. the Brahmans who continued to be occupied with the Veda and the sacred worship fell into forty-nine clans, which claimed to be derived from the saints of old time: Jamadagni, Gautama, Bharadvaja, Viçvamitra, Vasishtha, Kaçyapa, Atri, and Agastya. They were arranged in eight large tribes (_gotra_) named after these progenitors. At the consecration of the sacrificial fire the members of these clans invoked the series of their ancestors.[316] We may assume the same pride in descent among the Kshatriyas. We shall see how definitely the book of the law and the forms of ritual require that the ancestors should be mentioned up to the great-great-grandfather in the suit for any maiden, and at this day the wealthy families in all the castes are desirous to conclude alliances with houses of ancient origin for their children.