What does caste forbid and punish?  Freedom of thought, if not translated into social act, has not been an offence against caste at any time in the period under review, neither has caste taken cognisance of sins against morality as such.  The sins that caste has punished have been chiefly five, as follows:  Eating forbidden food, eating with persons of lower caste, crossing the sea, desertion of Hinduism for another religion, marrying with a person of a lower caste, and, in many communities also, marrying a widow.  The Hindustani proverb, “Eight brahmans, nine cooking-places,” hits off with a spice of proverbial exaggeration the old punctiliousness about food.  The sin of eating forbidden food is thus described by Raja Rammohan Roy in 1816:  “The chief part of the theory and practice of Hinduism, I am sorry to say,” writes the Raja, “is made to consist in the adoption of a peculiar mode of diet; the least aberration from which (even though the conduct of the offender may in other respects be pure and blameless) is not only visited with the severest censure, but actually punished by exclusion from the society of his family and friends.  In a word, he is doomed to undergo what is commonly called loss of caste."[13] Now, in respect of the first three of these offences, in all large centres of population the general attitude is rapidly changing.  In the light of modern ideas, these prohibitions of certain food and of certain company at food, and of sea voyages, are fading like ghosts at dawn.  An actual incident of a few years ago reveals the prevailing conflict of opinion, especially with regard to the serfdom which ties down Indians to India.

[Sidenote:  An actual case.]

Two scions of a leading family in a certain provincial town of Bengal, brave heretics, made a voyage to Britain and the Continent, and while away from home, it was believed, flung caste restrictions to the winds.  On their return, the head of the family gave a feast to all of the caste in the district, and no one objected to the presence of the two voyagers at the feast.  This was virtually their re-admission into caste.  But shortly after, a document was circulated among the caste complaining, without naming names, of the readmission of such offenders.  The tactics employed by the family of the offenders are noteworthy.  The demon of caste had raised his head, and they dared not openly defy him.  So the defence set up was the marvellous one that, while on board ship and in Europe, the young men had never eaten any forbidden or polluted food.  They had lived upon fruit, it was said, which no hand except their own had cut.  The old caste sentiment was so strong that the family of the voyagers felt compelled to bring an action for libel against the publishers of the circular.  They lost their case, as no offender had been mentioned by name, and the tyranny of caste thus indirectly received the support of the courts.