[The occupational origin of the Vaisyas.] 19. The same remarks largely apply to the so-called modern representatives of the Vaisya class, the aggregate of tribes now grouped under the general name of Banya. Some of these, such as the Agarwâlas and Oswâls, are in appearance perhaps among the best bred races of Northern India. Others are obviously occupational groups recruited from the lower races which have grouped themselves under the generic title of Banya or Mahâjan. The Bohra asserts Brâhmanical origin. Others again in name and function are in all probability connected with various classes of artizans—the Kasarwâni and Kasaundhan with the Kasera, the Lohiya with the Lohâr, and the same inference may perhaps be drawn from the grades of Dasa and Bîsa, “the tens” and “the twenties,” which appear among the Agarwâlas, and can hardly indicate anything but a gradation in purity of descent. [The Sûdra group.] 20. As to the congeries of castes known to the early Hindus as Sûdras we find all the varying grades of social respectability from industrious artisans and cultivators down to vagrants like the Sânsya or Gandhîla and scavengers like the Dom or Bhangi. The word Sûdra has now no determinate meaning; it is merely used as a convenient term of abuse to designate persons who are, or are assumed to be, of degraded caste. It is probably a term derived from the languages of one of the inferior races. [23] As has been already remarked, it is a comparatively modern word and appears only once in the Rig Veda. It may have been a synonym for Dasyu, “those of the black skin,” who represented the contrast between the aborigines and the conquering Aryans. The stress that is laid in the old hymns on the breadth of their noses would perhaps go to identify them with the broad-nosed Dravidians. But the accounts of their forts and cities show that when they came into contact with the writers of the Vedic hymns they had already attained a considerable degree of culture. [Anthropometry the only safe basis of enquiry.] 21. The only safe criterion of the relation of these races to the so-called “twice-born” tribes can be gained from the evidence of anthropometry, which must be left for another chapter. [Summary of theories of origin of caste.] 22. Meanwhile to sum up the results of these remarks—