Sacred caste and the sage who sees equally
It is seriously felt that the scale of classes is a scale of spiritual values
The distinction has a recognizable textual basis, but the word 'India' makes it much too comprehensive. The Laws of Manu, in Georg Bühler's 1886 translation (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 25; inspected in the Wikisource transcription), locates the four social orders in different parts of the creator's body (1.31), assigns them separate duties (1.87–91), and grounds Brahman superiority in sacred origin and knowledge (1.93–100). This is considerably stronger than an appeal to wealth or manners: social precedence receives a religious explanation. Yet even this text ranks Brahmans internally by learning, conduct, and knowledge of Brahman (1.97), and denies the fruits of Vedic learning to one who abandons proper conduct (1.109). Sacred birth does not dispense with moral requirements. Manu, chapter 1.
A different emphasis appears in the Bhagavad-Gita 5.18: the sage sees equally the learned Brahman, animals, and the socially excluded dog-eater. Edwin Arnold's verse translation, first published in 1885 and inspected here in the 1900 New York edition reproduced by Project Gutenberg, makes that equality emphatic. The same work nevertheless retains differentiated social duties in 18.41–48. Spiritual equality and social hierarchy can therefore coexist within an Indian text, just as they can within Christianity. Neither passage establishes modern political equality; together they prevent Chesterton's contrast from becoming a complete account of Indian religious thought. Song Celestial, chapters V and XVIII.
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