Brahmins are known by their significant traits: knowledge (vidya), virtue, action of the most exalted and beneficial kind, and the spread of virtue by example. One who promotes these and cultivates these and develops these is a brahmin, whoever one is. That is the qualification and the authority exercisable by the brahmin. Only the highly learned person and the person who conducts himself as befits that learning can deserve the status. Earning these qualifications is the effort to be made by those eager to justify that position. (DV, p. 115)