The Caste System Explained

[allhailIndia]

Most people who know of India instantly think of the caste system when they think of the society of India. However, the history and origin of the caste system has never been fully understood by many non-Indians and quite a few Indians as well. So for the benefit of those interested in one of the most controversial social systems to have existed in the world, here is the caste system explained!

To go back in history, we must look at the first civilization in India, the Harappan or the Indus Valley civilization as it is called. This was mainly an urban civilization, a contemporary of the Ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations with which it had trading contacts. Its main focus was trade and the surplus from the fields irrigated by the Indus river system built the great cities of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro.
About 1500 BC onwards this civilization started declining and though no satisfactory reason has been discovered, it disappeared into the mists of time. Some theories suggest that it was destroyed by the Indo-Aryans who came from Central Asia, though it is not widely accepted either.
The Harappans were replaced by the Aryans, who settled around the Punjab region and later moved into the Gangetic plain. The contrast between the two peoples could not have been greater. While the Aryans were pastoralists and agriculturalists, the Harappans were merchants and traders. The Aryans were mainly nature worshippers, while the Harappans were idol worshippers.
At the time of the Aryans arrival, there also lived in India a third indigenous, tribal people whom the Aryans called the Dasas or Dasyus (literally slaves). They were the conquered people and were expected to do the more menial tasks of the Aryans.
Thus, the first caste divisions were on the basis of colour; the fair skinned Aryans, keeping themselves apart from the Dasyus on the basis of Varna (colour).

 

[allhailIndia]

The period from 1500 BC to c. 800 BC is called the early Vedic period, wherein the first Veda, the Rig Veda was composed. In this period, caste divisions among the Aryans were very loose and the Rig Veda describes it as such. There is a particular poem which describes the author's parents as a potter and a weaver, while the author himself is a poet. In this period, there was limited mobility between the castes and it was not unknown for a Bramhin( priestly class) to take up arms or a Vaisya(trading class) to rule a kingdom. This is also reflected in the Mahabharata which was written later but composed in this period.
However, from c.800 BC onwards was the second urbanization of India wherein, the Aryans moved into the Gangetic plain and used the surplus food from the agriculture to move into cities. This brought about a change in the society and polity as well.
During this period the remaining three Vedas, the Sama, Yajur and Atharvana were composed and these clearly show a demarcation of the caste society. The Bramhins or the priestly caste were placed highest, followed by the Kshatriya or warrior caste, then by the Vaisya or trading and commercial caste and the Sudra or the menial or labour caste.
This is justified by a verse in the Vedas which proclaims that when primeval man was sacrificed by the Gods, Bramhins emerged from his head, Kshatriyas from his hands and stomach, Vaisyas from his hip and waist and Sudras from his feet.
At the same time, with the urbanization came more and more increasingly complex society and the caste system also became more complex. Thus sub-castes also developed along with a concept of Gotra.

In my next post I shall deal with the evils of the caste system in Ancient India.

 

[Kshatriya]

Great thread, looking forward to the next post

Many people have a lot of misconceptions about the caste system Maybe this will help clarify things.

 

[Vrylakas]

India is a decidedly under-represented topic here in the History Forums, AllHail - a great read! Keep it coming!

 

[allhailIndia]

As I explained int he previous post, there were the four castes, each with its own set of numerous sub-castes, which caused more and more division in the Aryan Society. At this time, there was a fifth "casteless" group, the Panchamas. They were the Untouchables in the society. It is imperative to note here that while the Bramhins considered ALL other castes to be impure, ALL other castes considered the Panchamas to be impure!
This group faced the worst possible discrimination akin to apartheid and slavery. They were technicaly "freemen", but they had no rights at all. They were not allowed into the villages and could not even approach a person of the higher caste without being cursed and shooed off. They were allowed into the village only when a cow died of a disease or any animal was killed, and they were supposed to get rid of the carcasses. They did most of the dirtiest and filthiest jobs to be done, including cleaning nightsoil from toilets and carrying it away to a far off place. they did not have the right to perform rituals or even worship in a temple. Even the shadow of a Panchama was not suppoed to fall on the shadow of the Bramhin.
Some historians suggest that the reason was that the Panchamas were more likely the oppressed tribal people of India, who lived in the forests cleared away by the expanding Aryans. Furthermore, the more technologically advanced Aryans saw these people to be outside civilization and more akin to animals. This concept also spread to South India, but its vigour lessened as one moved below the Vindhyas. In the far South, where the Aryan civilization was melded with the local culture, untouchablility was restricted to the snobbery of the Bramhins and there was not particularly an untouchable caste, though the Sudras were equally ill-treated.
All this did affect India as a whole and still does affect India.
This is most evident in the fall of Indian science and technology which reached its height around the 3-4th Century AD. The knowledge was restricted to the skills of each caste and sub-caste and there was no spread of general education to the people to preserve and enhance the knowledge. Education was limited only to what function the members of the caste were supposed to do and nothing more. No "outsider" was allowed access to this information and it was sacrilege to disseminate this knowledge. This is most evident in the most educated caste at that time, the Bramhins. It was their closed mindset, not only to foreign ideas, but even to ideas from others not of their own caste which damned Indian science and technology till modern times. Further, a foreigner was immediately casteless and hence, could never integrate into Indian society, even if he wanted to. Alberuni, a famous Arab historian of the 10th Century AD, says of the Indians, "They think there is no country like theirs, no knowledge like theirs, no kings like theirs and have contempt for our ideas and beliefs."
Only with the coming of Western education and the nationalist movement did the average Indian in the city start shedding his/her inhibitions relating to caste. Yet, the exploitation continues, though paradoxically not from the Bramhins or the Kshatriyas, but from the so called middle castes, who form the majority of Hindus after the lower castes. They form a majority in the political sections of the so-called Hindi belt of North India, the most populous part of India and hence control the government with casteist politics. A clear example of this is the legislation involving reservations for the so-called Other Backward Classes or OBC's. This included reservations, irrespective of merit or skill, in govt. jobsfor anyone who was not a Bramhin. Yet, the exploitation of the REAL backward castes and classes continues.
There is now a demand for reservations in the private sector, although the ruling party has not really endorsed it and serious second thoughts have arisen about the whole idea of caste-based reservations itself.

In my last post on this topic, I'll discuss the response to caste, from Buddha and Mahavira to Gandhi and Ambedkar.

 

[samildanach]

Is there much inter-caste violence All-hail India? Are muslims part of the caste system? What about Sikhs? Are they given special treatment in Indian society because of their militarism?

 

[LouLong]

Question :

What are/about Dravidians ?
I thought they were the original people in the South.

 

[Kshatriya]

I'm not allhailindia (obviously ) but I'll answer that question.

Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India. Presently, they are inhabitants of south India and Sri Lanka. They had a great civilization, one of the oldest and most advanced in the world.

When the Aryans invaded from the north, they drove the Dravidians southwards. The Aryan invaders were originally a destructive force. Evidence of this is that after the Aryans invaded, writing dissapeared. The Dravidians had a system of writing, but starting around 1500 BC, no new documents were written. It was not for another thousand years that writing was reinvented (although even this was before many other nations in the world developed writing )

The Aryans were the ones who implemented the caste system. They wanted to keep the Dravidians separate from them. There were originally two castes: the light-skinned Aryans and the dark-skinned Dravidians.

 

[allhailIndia]

IN this post I shall seek to answer some of the questions raised by the others and also discuss the various responses to the caste system in Indian history.

To find the first "fightback " against the caste system, we should go back to the 6th century BC, a period of great religious ferment in the country as such. The second urbanization of India and the growth of the regional kingdoms called the Janapadas, had brought wealth and prosperity to the Kshatriya and Vaisya castes, being traders and warriors respectively. They greatly resented the power of the Bramhins to control their lives and were sore that they had to spend so much in fulfilling ritual obligations laid down by the Bramhins.
This period also great progress in philosophical thought and gave rise to several heterodox sects which sought to break away from Hinduism or the Vedic religion as it was known then, with their radical, new, materialistic philosophy. Two of these are Jainism and Buddhism, started by Mahavira and Buddha respectively.
Both these religions gained great popularity among the masses, especially Buddhism because of its simpler teachings as compared to the rigid Jainism, and patronage from Kings trying to break away from the influence of the powerful Bramhins.
Buddhism and Jainism were at their height under the Maurya rulers who spread them to all corners of the world. However, corruption and venality also entered the erstwhile simple monasteries and soon Buddhism and Jainism all but disappeared from the Indian scene around the 12th c. AD
Their effect on Hinduism was significant though. Seeing the popularity of the their own religion under threat, Hindu thinkers and philosophers came up with new ideas and theories to make it more appealing to the masses.
Here lies the strength of Hinduism. Hindu philosophers accepted Buddha as one of the incarnations of Vishnu ( one of the Hindu trinity), who came down to save Hinduism and that non-violence, as preached by Mahavira, is in reality a fundamental dharma or duty in Hinduism! Thus Hinduism literally swallowed up Jainism and Buddhism and the effect of this was the serious weakening of caste.
Moreover, a parallel movement within Hinduism, the Bhakti cult, which started in South India and was spread by local saints throughout the country, preached a more simple religion, devoid of caste or rituals and thus made Hinduism more egalitarian.
The advent of Islam and Christianity, the two "new" religions of the medieval period also affected Hinduism. Lower castes were immediately attracted to these two religions to escape Bramhinical persecution and converted in large numbers, especially to Islam, as it was more aggressively propagated by the Sultans and some Mughal rulers. However, the biggest contribution mut be accorded to the efforts of the Sufi saints, whose efforts at bringing Hindu-Muslim harmony are significant and noteworthy.
Sikhism should also be mentioned here, as it first started out as a religion trying to find common ground between Hinduism and Islam and eventually distinguished itself from Hinduism and Islam.

I shall continue this topic in the next post where I'll discuss the role of Gandhi and Ambedkar in breaking caste barriers in India.

 

[LouLong]

Originally posted by Kshatriya
I'm not allhailindia (obviously ) but I'll answer that question.

Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India. Presently, they are inhabitants of south India and Sri Lanka. They had a great civilization, one of the oldest and most advanced in the world.

When the Aryans invaded from the north, they drove the Dravidians southwards. The Aryan invaders were originally a destructive force. Evidence of this is that after the Aryans invaded, writing dissapeared. The Dravidians had a system of writing, but starting around 1500 BC, no new documents were written. It was not for another thousand years that writing was reinvented (although even this was before many other nations in the world developed writing )

The Aryans were the ones who implemented the caste system. They wanted to keep the Dravidians separate from them. There were originally two castes: the light-skinned Aryans and the dark-skinned Dravidians.

So Dravidians and the people call "the Dasas or Dasyus (literally slaves)" are the same, correct ?
I heard once the expression "black blood Indians" about them, is it an Aryan way of separating good and bad blood along a color which is actually much more skin-based ?

BTW very interesting thread. Knew about the origins of it but you definitely fill in many gaps here

 

[samildanach]

Interesting stuff All Hail - are the current Hindu-Muslim tensions a result of the Muslims still being percieved as lower caste upstarts by the Hindus rather than being due to religous intolerance?

 

[aneeshm]

Actually , the tensions are usually found in the uneducated or lower sections of society . This is because certain political parties use this anger and sense of historic exploitation , along with ignorance , to fuel their own political interests . Most educated Indians view the carnage in Gujarat with disgust and shame .

And no , Muslims are not percieved as lower caste , it is mostly religious intolerance and historic anger (generated by politicians' portrayal of Muslims as a threat to society ) .

How would you react if you were told that a rather long-standing dispute , which has been the source of much political milking for the last 40+ years , concerns the placement of a temple over land allegedly the birthplace of Ram , supposed do be an incarnation of Vishnu ?

The temple in question was supposed to be built on the birthplace of Ram , and subsequently destroyed by the Mughals rulers to make way for a mosque on the same site . A few years ago , a group of political fanatics (it would be insulting to Hinduism to call them religious fanatics) destroyed the mosque , and attempted to rebuild the temple . The issue is still being debated , and is still being milked for votes from either communtiy , depending on the politician's stance .

 

[aneeshm]

Excellent article , allHail . Pray continue .

 

[ss3goku]

I can explain a little more from what i've gathered over the years:

First of all, i'm a Kshatriya Sikh, of the warrior class, but i do not believe in the caste system. And here is the funny thing, the main divisions of the caste system are divided themselves! Even though i am a Kshatriya, i am a Jatt, a higher warrior, yea, i know that is confusing. It all goes to hell from there. The Indian government denies the claims and allegations of the Aryan invasions, but there is proof.

Blood tests of northern Indians, myself being a Punjabi Aryan, show the DNA and basic makeup is amazingly different from the Southern states.

Second, the higher castes of India, the Bharmins, kick around the lowest caste, and won't even let them worship even though they are also Hindus! That is very messed up. Then they get mad when the lower castes convert.

The Brahmins came with the Aryans and eventually enforced their ways onto the egalitarian ways of the Dravidarians. A really sad thing IMO.

Finally, look at some of the highest jobs of India, and you'll see that it is the Brahmins who have the job, such as our current Prime Minister, Vajpayee.

Aneeshm, i'm glad you bring up the temple dispute, and how it is indeed an insult to call those people religious fanatics.

And yes, the current problems are not just caused by religious disputes, but also by Hindutava, some powerful people's belief that India should be a pure Hindu nation, with the eradication of the minorities: Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, and all others. They even burned alive an Australian Christian missionary and his 2 sons for conversions and preaching Christianity. I'm going to do more research, but that is what comes from my memory.

 

[allhailIndia]

Thank you for bearing with me, I'll bring this article to an end with a post on the impact of Gandhi and Ambedkar on the caste system and its effects on modern India.

After the fall of the Mughal Empire, the British filled the vacuum of power a bit reluctantly at first, and went whole-heartedly into it after the Mutiny. The coming of the British also opened up Western education to a lot of Indians and this is primarily responsible for the death of the caste system. It was after the Mutiny, that both the British govt. and the Indians set up a large number of universities and colleges leading to an education explosion, hitherto unseen in India. The movement to modernise India can be traced back to the efforts of "Raja" Ram Mohan Roy, a western educated Bengali reformer, who managed to convince the British to outlaw some of the more reprehensible practices among the HIndus like Sati( the forced suicide of widows on their husbands' pyres) and child marriage, as well as thugee.
From the 1860's and 1870's onwards, a new class was created in India, which did not exist before, the middle class. Western educated, they sought to try and reform Indian society and bring about change under the British, whose rule they believed beneficial to India. However, they were still a minority and rarely connected with the masses in the rural areas.
All this changed with the arrival of Gandhi. It was his fearless campaigns in South Africa for the rights of the Indian minority there which had made him a celebrity even before he hit Indian shores after he had left them. People from the most remote corners of India looked upto him as the saviour of the people from the British and were willing to follow him to the distance. Despite the fact that there was no radio, television or telephones in most parts of India, Gandhi's image spread like wildfire and somehow, he managed to connect with the ordinary peasant like no other before him.
Gandhi also realized that for India to be truly free, he had to emancipate the low castes or the casteless, who were still brutally exploited by all sections of society. He praised the efforts of the Maharaja of Tanjavur, who ordered the temples to open their doors to the low castes or Harijans( children of God), as Gandhi had named them, and urged others to follow his example.
Gandhi believed that the Harijans were an essestial part of the Hindu religion and it was only the repression of the Bramhins which had kept them at a low status. He broke all taboos when he ate with them, talked and lived with them and even slept under their roofs. Gandhi realized that bringing the arijans into the mainstream Hindu religion was just one of the steps needed to reform the whole religion and India itself. It is important to note that Gandhi was firmly against conversions of any kind, as it led to more divisions in society and it went against his personal philosophy that all Gods were One.
Opposite to Gandhi, was Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, a dynamic lawyer and leader of the Harijans, who was himself a Harijan, and though was denied access at every level to a good education, came up through sheer dint of hard work and his own brilliance. HIs view was that the Hindu religion itself had kept Harijans out of the mainstream and hence should convert to another religion, his choice was Buddhism, to escape oppression from the higher castes.
This was the crux of the serious disagreement between Gandhi and Ambedkar, as both fought for essentially the same cause, the emancipation of the Hariajans. Eventually, though Ambedkar reluctantly ceded to Gandhi and discouraged conversions away from Hinduism. Even today, the most remote village in the farthest corner of India, where the Dalits, as the Harijans are now called, a statue of Ambedkar, his right arm pointing towards a distant future, will be found next to Gandhi's smiling bust.

It would be foolhardy to say that caste no longer has a role in Indian society anymore. A casual glance at the classifieds shows the importance of caste in the search for prospective brides or grooms. Caste is also an important factor in several constituencies, where candidates vie for the attentions of a particular caste. However, one can safely say that the institution of caste is slowly dying. Today, when I, of the Bramhin caste, travel in a bus, sit in a classroom, eat in a restaurant or walk on the streets, it bothers me in the least whether the other is of a high caste or a low caste, just as long he or she is a fair and decent human being. Not only me, but in all of the major towns, cities and villages, the institution of caste is slowly being dumped into the wastebin of history.

 

[allhailIndia]

To respond to some of your questions, while Bramhinical influence in politics has diminished considerably in the South, it is still powerful in the North. THis is because the anti-caste movement in the South is much older and the lower castes have been more greatly empowered than their Northern counterparts.
The current Hindu-Muslim problem is clearly a political issue, which party can claim to be the true defender of Hinduism or Islam. Hindus and Muslims, who live by large in a peaceful manner next to each other, are incited to violence by politicians seeking votes. This happens mainly in the poorer sections of both communities.
The otehr problem lies in the misconception of HIndus by Muslims and vice versa. Add to this the whole issue of Pakistan and Islamic fundamentalists, and you have a powder-keg waiting to be lit.
The best way to solve this problem would be to marginalise the Hindu fundamentalists and bring the Muslim minority into the economic mainstream. It is not an unknown fact that the Muslim community lags behind the others in terms of education, health, infant mortality and poverty. This has mostly been a result of bad leadership, whose main goal seems to be to keep Islamic law in the medieval age and kick up the Ayodhya issue every few days. The Indian press should also stop following firebrands like Togadia, whose hate-filled speeches have been banned in almost every state, yet keeps getting news coverage for no real reason.

 

[allhailIndia]

A point I missed mentioning.
Despite the oppressive nature of Hinduism, there were no mass conversions to Christianity or Islam as seen in many other places. Only much later, due to the influence of Sufi saints and the arrival of large nmbers of Afghans and Turks did the Muslim population in India really pick up.
The reason for this is the belief of every Hindu in Karma. According to it, your birth as an upper caste or lower caste is because of your deeds in your past life and the deeds of your current life will determine your next birth , until your spirit attains a state of birthlessness. The lower castes, were very reluctant to convert because they believed that only by performing their duties as a low caste would they gain status as a high caste and hence, were not very keen on conversion till the 17-18th centuries, when the Bhakti movement changed the face of Hinduism, giving it a more monotheistic character.
Even today, everything bad or disastrous that happens in India or to an Indian is almost involuntarily blamed on Karma!

 

[andrewgprv]

Wow great thread! good read.....

 

[ss3goku]

Originally posted by allhailIndia
A point I missed mentioning.
Despite the oppressive nature of Hinduism, there were no mass conversions to Christianity or Islam as seen in many other places. Only much later, due to the influence of Sufi saints and the arrival of large nmbers of Afghans and Turks did the Muslim population in India really pick up.
The reason for this is the belief of every Hindu in Karma. According to it, your birth as an upper caste or lower caste is because of your deeds in your past life and the deeds of your current life will determine your next birth , until your spirit attains a state of birthlessness. The lower castes, were very reluctant to convert because they believed that only by performing their duties as a low caste would they gain status as a high caste and hence, were not very keen on conversion till the 17-18th centuries, when the Bhakti movement changed the face of Hinduism, giving it a more monotheistic character.
Even today, everything bad or disastrous that happens in India or to an Indian is almost involuntarily blamed on Karma!

To add on to this great history, i wanted to say that another reason the Muslim population of India really picked up was because of forced conversions by the Mughals, you had a choice between Islam or a torture filled execution. And from what you are posting, it seems you're saying that the Muslims purposely bring up the Ayhoda issue, or did you mean the Indian government as a whole?

 

[allhailIndia]

@ss3goku
It is a bit of a controversial issue whether the Mughals took up mass conversions. The evidence to this is little, and is mainly a result of Hindutva propaganda. Apart from Aurangzeb, no other Mughal ruler was a zealot and even in Aurangzeb's rule, conversion also had economic reasons; Hindus were taxed more than Muslims.
The people were attracted to Islam more because of the Sufi saints like Kabir and Salim Chisti, who preached a simple religion and a loving God.
By the post I meant that the government of the day (since the last decade or so) seems to encourage the bigots who want to keep the Ayodhya issue alive (on both sides) for a few more votes.