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The vast and complicated organization of caste is mainly a post-Vedic growth and in the Buddha’s time was only in the making.[417] His order was open to all classes alike, but this does not imply that he was adverse to caste, so far as it then prevailed, or denied that men are divided into categories determined by their deeds in other births.  But on the whole the influence of Buddhism was unfavourable to caste, especially to the pretensions of the Brahmans, and an extant polemic against caste is ascribed (though doubtfully) to Asvaghosha.[418] On the other hand, though caste is in its origin the expression of a social rather than of a religious tendency, the whole institution and mechanism have long been supported and exploited by the Brahmans.  Few of them would dispute the proposition that a man cannot be a Hindu unless he belongs to a caste.  The reason of this support is undisguised, namely, that they are the first and chief caste.  They make their own position a matter of religion and claim the power of purifying and rehabilitating those who have lost caste but they do not usually interfere with the rules of other castes or excommunicate those who break them.[419] That is the business of the Pancayat or caste council.

Sometimes religion and caste are in opposition, for many modern religious leaders have begun by declaring that among believers there are no social distinctions.  This is true not only of teachers whose orthodoxy is dubious, such as Nanak, the founder of the Sikhs, and Basava, the founder of the Lingayats,[420] but also of Vallabhacarya and Caitanya.  But in nearly all cases caste reasserts itself.  The religious teachers of the sect receive extravagant respect and form a body apart.  This phenomenon, which recurs in nearly all communities, shows how the Brahmans established their position.  At the same time social distinctions make themselves felt among the laity, and those who claim to be of good position dissociate themselves from those of lower birth.  The sect ends by observing caste on ordinary occasions, and it is only in some temples (such as that of Jagannath at Puri)[421] that the worshippers mix and eat a sacred meal together.  Sometimes, however, the sect which renounces caste becomes itself a caste.  Thus, the Sikhs have become almost a nation and other modern castes arising out of sects are the Atiths, who are Sivaites, the Saraks, who appear to have been originally Buddhists, and the Baishnabs (Vaishnavas), a name commonly given in Bengal to those followers of Caitanya who persist in the original rule of disregarding caste regulations within the sect, and hence now form a separate community.  But as a rule sect and caste are not co-extensive and the caste is not a religious corporation.  Thus the different subdivisions of the Baniyas belong to different sects and even in the same subdivision there is no religious uniformity.[422]