"Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7" by Edgar Thurston is a seven-volume encyclopedia published in 1909. This monumental work documents over 300 castes and tribes of South India, covering 40 million people across 150,000 square miles. Part of the British Ethnographic Survey of India, Thurston used anthropometric methods to record physical characteristics, customs, and traditions, though subjects often feared his measurements. The survey faced suspicions ranging from museum display fears to military recruitment concerns, limiting sample sizes and shaping this controversial colonial-era ethnographic record. (This is an automatically generated summary.)