Introduction
A friend insisted that I write about the Caste System in India so that others in society can be enlightened on the topic. For the purposes of this article, I am treating Caste as synonymous with Varna, though the purists might be displeased.
In ancient India, the ranked occupational groups were referred to as varnas, and the hereditary occupational groups within the varnas were known as jatis.
There are four Castes/Varnas in India – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vysyas, and Shudras. At some point in time, some people began to be considered as being outside the pale of the caste system, so-called Untouchables or Dalits (SCs/STs). We will delve into them at greater depth later on in this article.
Caste (derived from the Portuguese word “Casta”, meaning “race, lineage, tribe, or breed”) as we all know is a much maligned and controversial topic, one that can get people animated into endless debate and discussions on it, and sometimes even leading to violent responses.
To be sure, however, since any society needs people with different aptitudes, interests, skills, and abilities, we do not want all people being similar in nature. For instance, a society needs teachers, researchers, writers, poets, artists, and public intellectuals, as much as it needs politicians, administrators, policemen, army men, businessmen, farmers, doctors, engineers, architects, cooks, carpenters, plumbers, weavers, barbers, washermen, garbage collectors, etc. to function efficiently.
And, almost all societies and countries have such a division of labour. So, why then is it thought that only India has a caste system whereas other countries do not. For one thing, at one point in time in India, somehow the concept of caste sprang up.
If it remained just that, a way of looking at the various occupational categories in society, it perhaps would have been fine. Where it became problematic is that with the rise of endogamy (marrying within one’s caste) and people adopting/being expected/forced to adopt their father’s profession/occupation, caste system got solidified into a rigid structure, with caste being assigned by birth, and with no mobility whatsoever people got confined to a particular caste throughout their lives and across generations.
Herein lies the rub. People in modern times have started rebelling against this caste system because unjustifiably it restricts and obstructs one’s life aspirations based on one’s birth. One did not have till very recently the ability to get educated nor could they choose their occupation that did not belong to their caste traditionally.
However, the Bhagavad Gita does not sanction such a caste system by birth as it says in Verse 13 of Chapter 4 that ”The four castes were created by Me according to people’s guna (qualities) and karma (activities). Although I am the Creator of this system, know Me to be the Non-doer and Eternal.”
The Vedic philosophy explains this variety in a more scientific manner. It states that the material energy is constituted of three guṇas (modes): sattva guṇa (mode of goodness), rajo guṇa (mode of passion), and tamo guṇa (mode of ignorance). The Brahmins are those who have a preponderance of the mode of goodness. They are predisposed toward teaching and worship. The Kshatriyas are those who have a preponderance of the mode of passion mixed with a smaller amount of the mode of goodness. They are inclined toward administration and management. The Vaishyas are those who possess the mode of passion mixed with some mode of ignorance. Accordingly, they form the business and agricultural class. Then there are the Shudras, who are predominated by the mode of ignorance. They form the working class. This classification was neither meant to be according to birth, nor was it unchangeable. Shree Krishna explains in this verse that the classification of the Varṇāśhram system was according to people’s qualities and activities.1
In addition to the varnas, there is a fifth class in Hinduism. It encompassed outcasts who, literally, did all the dirty work. They were referred to as “untouchables” because they carried out the menial tasks associated with disease and pollution, such as cleaning up after funerals, dealing with sewage, and working with animal skin.2
Brahmins were considered the embodiment of purity, and untouchables the embodiment of pollution. Physical contact between the two groups was absolutely prohibited. Brahmins adhered so strongly to this rule that they felt obliged to bathe if even the shadow of an untouchable fell across them.2
In recent years, the Untouchables have become a politically active group and have adopted for themselves the name Dalits (SCs/STs), which means “those who have been broken.”2
Origins of the Caste System
Origins of the caste system can almost be traced back to the Vedas, though one will be hard put to say that back then one’s caste was determined by one’s birth and one which they could not change for the rest of their lives.
Earliest mention of the Caste System is found in the Purusha Sukta. The Purusha Sukta is a hymn in the Rigveda that is dedicated to Purusha, the “Cosmic Being”. The hymn describes the Parama Purusha, Purushottama, Narayana, in his form as the ViraaT Purusha, and describes this form of Narayana as having countless heads, eyes, and legs, and as being manifested everywhere. The hymn is also found in the three other Vedas but in slightly different forms.
This “Hymn of the Cosmic Man” (Purusha Sukta) explains that the universe was created out of the parts of the body of a single cosmic man (Purusha) when his body was offered at the primordial sacrifice. The four classes (varnas) of Indian society also came from his body: the spiritual leaders and teachers (Brahmins) emerging from the mouth, rulers and warriors (Kshatriyas) from the arms, the merchants and producers (Vaishyas) from the thighs, and the labourers (Shudras) from the feet.2,3
This hymn is considered to have been a relatively late addition to the scripture—probably, to accord theological sanction to an increasingly unequal Kuru polity—and is the only hymn to mention the four varnas in explicit, alluding to a hierarchical division of the society. Vedic scholar V. Nagarajan believes that the Sukta was a later “interpolation” to give “divine sanction” to an unequal division in society that was in existence at the time of its composition. He states, “The Vedic Hymns had been composed before the Varna scheme was implemented. The Vedic society was not organized on the basis of varnas. The Purusha Sukta might have been a later interpolation to secure Vedic sanction for that scheme”.4
According to one long-held theory about the origins of India’s caste system, Aryans from central Asia invaded India and introduced the caste system as a means of controlling the local populations. The Aryans defined key roles in society, then assigned groups of people to them. Individuals were born into, worked, married, ate, and died within those groups. There was no social mobility.2
The Aryans supposedly arrived in India in around 1500 BC. The Aryans disregarded the local cultures. They began conquering and taking control over regions in north India and at the same time pushed the local people southwards or towards the jungles and mountains in north India.
The Aryans organised themselves in three groups. The first group was of the warriors and they were called Rajanya, later they changed its name to Kshatriyas. The second group was of the priests and they were called Brahmanas. These two groups struggled politically for the leadership among the Aryans. In this struggle the Brahmanas emerged victorious. The third group was of the farmers and craftsmen and they were called Vaisyas. The Aryans who conquered and took control over parts of north India subdued the locals and made them their servants (Shudras). The Shudras consisted of two communities. One was of the locals who were subdued by the Aryans and the other was the descendant of Aryans with locals.5
In Hindu mythology there are many stories of wars between the good Aryans and the dark skinned demons and devils. The different Gods also have dark skinned slaves. Many believe that these incidents really occurred in which, the Gods and the positive heroes were people of Aryan origin. And the demons, the devils and the dark skinned slaves were in fact the original residents of India whom the Aryans coined as monsters, devils, demons and slaves.5
Like most societies of the world, in India also the son inherited his father’s profession. And so there developed families with the same family profession for generations. Later on, different families who professed the same profession developed social relations between themselves and organised as a common community, meaning Jati.5
But 20th-century scholarship has thoroughly disproved this theory. Most scholars believe that there was no Aryan invasion from the north. In fact, some even believe that the Aryans—if they did exist—actually originated in India and spread from there to Europe. Varnas are not racial groups but rather classes.2
A Dissection of the Caste System
Whatever be the origins and evolution of the caste system in India, thinking about it in the present day society of the 21st century, these things strike one as true.
The most acceptable definition of or assignment to caste is the one mentioned in Verse 13 of Chapter 4 of the Bhagavad Gita, as quoted above, that is, caste is determined by one’s guna and karma.
And since gunas are always three in prakriti or nature (maya is thought to be a three-stranded rope, each strand being one of the three gunas), that is, sattva, rajas, and tamas, people are bound to differ in the composition and combination of these three gunas.
Moreover, it stands to reason that people should differ in the composition and combination of the three gunas in themselves because we do need people to fill the various occupations in society.
You might argue that even if all people are only sattvic, what is the problem? This problem is tied to the concept of Svadharma (one’s own dharma) mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita. Gita advises that one should follow one’s svadharma, that is, choose one’s occupation (karma) based on one’s svadharma, that is, one’s own dharma or qualities (guna).
It is easy to see why following one’s svadharma is important because if one’s nature or guna is sattvic, then one is more likely to take interest in acquiring and advancing knowledge through scholarship and research, that is, be a “Brahmin”, and so one is highly unlikely to be happy if he/she were forced to or had to voluntarily take up the occupation of a ruler or administrator. To understand this concept easily, think how we now have career counselling and vocational guidance, wherein we try to help the student choose a career based on its suitability to one’s aptitude, ability and interests.
And, with education and occupations being thrown open to all sections of society, we can now more easily allow individuals to follow the occupations of their choice based on their individual svadharma irrespective of their jati or father’s profession. It is indeed a win-win situation for the individual concerned and the society at large because by following one’s svadharma one can not only be happier and fulfilled in one’s career but also is more likely to be successful and productive in the occupation of one’s choice rather than in one taken up based on one’s birth, and thereby the society is benefited.
Moreover, the modern society turning a blind eye to the caste system as it existed, is the ideal one because one’s qualities or guna, and thus one’s aptitude and interests, can change with time, and such a person has the choice nowadays to change his/her profession (karma) based on the changed guna.
The Final Word on Caste and Caste System
Those who have realized the Truth as espoused in the Advaita philosophy state that the individual to whom the caste is ascribed is a non-entity qua the ego because that individual (the body-mind complex) is only a name-and-form whose underlying substance is Consciousness or Brahman (for why that is the case, see https://selfrealization.blog/2018/09/18/everything-is-consciousness/).
That is why Verse 18 of Chapter 5 of the Gita says, “The truly learned, with the eyes of divine knowledge, see with equal vision a Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a dog-eater,” because they see that all these are different forms of Brahman.
Hence, it is high time we in India got rid of our archaic notions of the caste system and accepted the division of labour in society based on education, merit and aptitude without feeling the need for a caste system to either justify or make sense of such a division of labour, as other countries are managing to do.
References
- https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/4/verse/13
- https://www.ushistory.org/civ/8b.asp
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hinduism/The-Brahmanas-and-Aranyakas#ref30362
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purusha_Sukta
- https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/origin-of-caste-system-in-india/story-hDFTTyuT6nxBhDqydEil3M.html
Know Thyself 