A brief note on caste

Four goals of Hinduism:
Lesser goals:
Greater goals:
Artha - wealth and power
Kama - pleasure and satisfaction (esp sex)
Dharma - right conduct
Moksha - release from rebirth
Dharma: duty,
- encompasses whole range of social life and responsibilities:
- respect for priests and scriptures
-speaking well and politely
-refraining from taking lives,
-performing meritorious acts,
-obeying authority,
-worshiping gods.
-has everything to do with assigned position in life.
- differs for old and young
- men and women
-married and single.
And it differs according caste.
Caste: from the Portuguese (casta = race or breed or colour),
- refers to a principle of social division that comprises different jati
or varna.
-varna: means colour, but is used in Hindu philosophy to refer
to an individual’s ‘nature” – originally referred to someone’s
spiritual refinements, but later on was associated with
professions.
-“jati” refers to someone’s ethnicity: - you ask someone’s jati,
it’s like asking their heritage.
During the first yug Brahma constructed primordial man out of clay, and
from this Brahma made social man.
-from the mouth: Brahmins (priests)
-from the arms: Kshatriyas (kings, warriors, aristocrats,
landowners)
-from the thighs: Vaisyas (traders, merchants, shopowners,
etc)
-from the feet. Sudras: (cultivators, labourers, servants)
elaborations here: -in some ways, whole concept of “caste” a confusion of
two systems – jati and varna – and the British are by some thought to have
been fairly instrumental in promulgating this mistake.
-“caste” not an Indian term – from the Portuguese. A shorthand for putting
these two ideas of lineage/profession together. Actually stronger as jati
than as varna. Led to idea that you’d have professions as jati – ie the
“sweeper caste”.
-but the idea that there are 4 castes in India is really a myth.
-Vaisyas in Rajasthan not the same as Vaisyas in Punjab. Many many
subgroups. –much intermarriage: so thousands of names for castes
– possibly thousands of castes.
- in some ways the concept is as faulty as everything we studied in
the chart on “race”. Ultimately, a false doctrine, but one with strong
social support.
those not in one of these four principle varna/jati:
-some Dravidian groups, aboriginal groups,“scheduled tribes or
groups”
-those beneath these groups in a caste hierarchy were at one time
called outcastes or “untouchables”.
-Gandhi called them harijan (“children of god”).
-from about the 1930s, a movement on behalf of dalit peoples has
developed. (Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar)
Dalit is a slippery term, but in practice it denotes not only the
ex-Untouchable ‘Scheduled Castes’ but also “members of the
scheduled Castes and Tribes, neo-Buddhists, the working
people, the landless and poor peasants, women and all those
who are being exploited politically, economically and in the
name of religion” (Dalit Panther manifesto).
-term adivasi – literally “original inhabitants” – gaining
currency as way of talking about indigenous minority groups
(formerly “tribal” peoples).

Download Report