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Paria

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is the name given to the lowest class of the population of India to that class which, not belonging to any of the castes of the Brahminical system, is shunned even by the lowest Hind professing the Brahminical religion, as touching a Paria would render him impure. The Paria seem to belong to a negro race, as appears from their short woolly hair, flat nose, and thick lips; they are, besides, of short stature, and their propensities are of the coarsest kind. Despised by the Hind s, and ill-used by the conquerors of India, they have, in some parts of India, gradually sunk so low that, to judge from the description which is given of their mode of living by different writers. it is scarcely possible to imagine a more degraded position than that which is occupied by these miserable beings. (See CASTE).