The Brahman body, however, lacked one very important element of strength. They were apparently never organised nor controlled by any central authority such as that which made the Roman church so powerful and cohesive. Colleges and seats of learning existed at Benares and other places, at which their youth were trained in the knowledge of religion and of the measure of their own pretensions, and the means by which these were to be sustained. But probably only a small minority can have attended them, and even these when they returned home must have been left practically to themselves, spread as the Brahmans were over the whole of India with no means of postal communication or rapid transit. And by this fact the chaotic character of the Hindu religion, its freedom of belief and worship, its innumerable deities, and the almost complete absence of dogmas may probably be to a great extent explained. And further the Brahman caste itself cannot have been so strictly organised that outsiders and the priests of the lower alien religions never obtained entrance to it. As shown by Mr. Crooke, many foreign elements, both individuals and groups, have at various times been admitted into the caste.
The early texts indicate that Brahmans were in the habit of forming connections with the widows of Rajanyas and Vaishyas, even if they did not take possession of the wives of such men while they were still alive. [401] The sons of Angiras, one of the great ancestral sages, were Brahmans as well as Kshatriyas. The descendants of Garga, another well-known eponymous ancestor, were Kshatriyas by birth but became Brahmans. Visvamitra was a Kshatriya, who, by the force of his austerities, compelled Brahma to admit him into the Brahmanical order, so that he might be on a level with Vasishtha with whom he had quarrelled. According to a passage in the Mahabharata all castes become Brahmans when once they have crossed the Gomti on a pilgrimage to the hermitage of Vasishtha. [402] In more recent times there are legends of persons created Brahmans by Hindu Rajas. Sir J. Malcolm in Central India found many low-caste female slaves in Brahman houses, the owners of which had treated them as belonging to their own caste. [403]