and third castes, in the same way as the Herald’s office would settle the number of quarters of an earl or a baron.” 8. Before leaving the consideration of caste as found in Manu’s “Institutes,” it may be noted that we find side by side two discrepant views as to the connubium of the orders. According to the milder, and apparently the older view, caste is determined by descent from the father, and a Dvija or twice-born man may take a wife from among Brâhmans, Kshatriyas or Vaisyas. With a Sûdra woman alone he could not intermarry. By the other view a man was advised to marry a virgin of his own caste as his first wife, and after that he may proceed according to the rank of the castes. There is some reason to believe that under this rule he might take even a Sûdra woman as a second wife. [8] This, it is needless to say, represents a very different state of things from that which prevails under the modern rigid law of caste endogamy. [Caste subsequent to Manu.] 9. It was caste in or about the stage of its development exhibited in the “Institutes” of Manu which Megasthenes, first of all the barbarians, observed in his embassy to the court of Sandrocottus or Chandragupta (306–298 B.C.). He found seven, not four, castes—the philosophers, husbandmen, shepherds, artizans, soldiers, inspectors and counsellors of the king. The philosophers were the Brâhmans, and the traveller indicates the prescribed stages of the Brâhmanical life. He distinguishes the Brachmanes from the Sarmanai, the latter of whom are supposed to represent the Buddhist Sramanas or monks, while the inspectors were the Buddhist supervisors of morals, afterwards referred to in the sixth edict of Asoka. 10. This hasty survey of the historical development of caste sufficiently disposes of the popular theory that caste is a permanent institution, transmitted unchanged from the dawn of Hindu history and myth.