Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo (1748-1806) was an Austrian Carmelite missionary - of Croatian origin - who worked in India and published a Systema Brahmanicum liturgicum mythologicum civile (The Brahmanical Liturgical, Mythological and Civil System) in 1791 which was edited and translated into German in 1797 as Darstellung der brahmanisch-indischen G?tterlehre, religionsgebr?uche und b?rgerlichen Verfassung (An Account of the Brahmanical Indian Mythology, Religious Customs and Civil Constitution) by the naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798). The present translation of four chapters from this work dealing with the four main castes of India makes available to the English-speaking reader one of the earliest European accounts of the caste system as it existed in India at the end of the eighteenth century.