The second comprises what are generally known as pure or good castes.

The principal mark of their caste status is that a Brahman will take water to drink from them, and perform ceremonies in their houses.

They may be classified in three divisions: the higher agricultural castes, higher artisan castes, and serving castes from whom a Brahman will take water.

The third group contains those castes from whose hands a Brahman will not take water; but their touch does not convey impurity and they are permitted to enter Hindu temples.

They consist mainly of certain cultivating castes of low status, some of them recently derived from the indigenous tribes, other functional castes formed from the forest tribes, and a number of professional and menial castes, whose occupations are mainly pursued in villages, so that they formerly obtained their subsistence from grain-payments or annual allowances of grain from the cultivators at seedtime and harvest.