Many Europeans, Americans, as well as our compatriots believe that Eastern culture is much higher and more humane than the values of the pragmatic Western world. However, they forget that it was in India that one of the most severe forms of social stratification arose - caste, condemning millions of people and their descendants to a lifetime of poverty and powerlessness, while the chosen minority is surrounded by honor and has access to all the benefits of civilization.
The division into castes (or, as they are called in India, "varnas") arose in the era of the decay of the primitive communal system, when property inequality appeared. The first written mention of the caste system dates back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The Rig Veda tells about the emergence of four varnas that exist in India to this day:
- the brahmanas are the priestly caste. Brahmanas today are also engaged in religious practices, often as officials or teachers;
- kshatriyas — the warrior caste. Today kshatriyas not only serve in the army and police, but also occupy important positions in the state administration;
- vaisya are farmers and merchants. Many Vaisyas could even surpass in wealth and influence the representatives of the higher castes. In modern India, Vaishyas continue to engage in trade and agriculture, as well as credit and banking operations;
- Sudras are a semi-subordinate caste of peasants and workers, usually in the service of representatives of the higher castes. Despite the low prestige of this caste, many sudras could accumulate substantial wealth and have large tracts of land.
There is also a separate group of the population, which includes everyone who is not included in the four above-mentioned castes - the untouchables or Dalits. Anthropologists and historians believe that the untouchable caste arose during the Aryan conquest of India (XII-VII centuries BC). The conquerors who came to the new lands wanted to keep the local Dravidian peoples in subjection, so they came up with a social system in which the aborigines could not normally integrate into society and take at least some significant position in it. So, all the Aryan invaders became members of certain castes (depending on their occupation), and all the defeated were declared untouchable. The Dalits did the dirtiest work. They made leather, removed dead animals from the streets, and cleaned toilets. They were strictly forbidden to enter the courtyards of representatives of other castes and use public wells. Although the untouchables were despised by all, these people also possessed a certain amount of power. It was believed that an untouchable person could defile a person from a higher caste. The most dangerous such contamination was for a brahmana. The simple touch of a Dalit on a brahmana's clothes meant for the latter many years of attempts to clear his karma.
The life of a representative of each varna is clearly regulated. It depends on the caste what kind of clothes a person can wear, what he can eat, how he should communicate with others. Representatives of different castes, with rare exceptions, are prohibited from marrying each other. Children born in a certain caste can no longer change their social status. Officially, the transition from one caste to another is only possible with a downgrade. It is impossible to move to a more prestigious caste. However, many Indians go for tricks that allow them to go beyond the strict Varna system. First, since each caste has its own set of surnames, you can bribe an official and take a high-caste surname. Secondly, you can abandon Hinduism and accept a religion where there is no caste division. Some of the Hindus then again return to Hinduism, but at the same time they claim that before the change of religion they were brahmanas or kshatriyas.
Religious explanation of human inequality
The caste system stems from the religious beliefs of the Hindus. According to the Rig Veda, the entire cosmos was created from the body of the first man, Purusha. Purusha was sacrificed by the gods for the creation of the world. From separate parts of his body arose: earth, air, wind and heavenly bodies. In addition, the Purusha gave rise to the entire human race. From his mouth emerged the brahmanas, from his hands the kshatriyas, from his thighs the vaisyas, and from his feet the sudras.
The doctrine of reincarnation is also aimed at preserving the existing social inequality in India. According to Hindu ideas, a person who strictly observes all the rules of his caste, after death, can be born in the body of a representative of a higher varna.
Division into castes today
Despite the fact that the division into castes seems cruel and undemocratic to Westerners, castes in modern India not only have not disappeared, but have become more structured. Each caste today is divided into additional subgroups - jati. There are over 80 different jati in total. Although there are no documents indicating a person's belonging to a particular varna, caste division is strictly guarded by religion and traditions.
The largest caste of modern India are the untouchables - about 1/5 of the total population of the country. The Dalits live in special ghettos where unemployment and crime are rife. Untouchables cannot receive a normal education or quality medical care. They are not allowed to enter shops, pharmacies, hospitals, temples and public transport used by members of other castes. Just like thousands of years ago, these people are doing the dirtiest and hardest work.
Attempts to establish social equality have been undertaken by many Indian civil rights activists, including Mahatma Gandhi. They were able to ensure that the Indian constitution recognized the equality of the untouchables with representatives of other castes, however, in fact, the attitude towards Dalits in modern India remains the same as it was 4 thousand years ago. Courts are lenient with criminals who commit illegal acts against untouchables, Dalits receive lower salaries compared to members of other castes.
Despite the fact that today India is open to Western liberal ideas, the untouchables have never dared to revolt. The centuries-old habit of being submissive and fear of karma pollution prevent these people from starting the struggle for freedom and equality.
For a long time, the dominant idea was that, at least in the Vedic era, Indian society was divided into four classes, called varnas, each of which was associated with professional activities. Outside the varna division were the so-called untouchables. Subsequently, within the varnas, smaller hierarchical communities were formed - castes, which also included ethnic and territorial characteristics, belonging to a particular clan. In modern India, the varna-caste system still operates, to a large extent determining the position of a person in society, but this social institution is being modified every year, partially losing its historical significance.
Varna
The concept of "varna" is first encountered in the Rig Veda. The Rig Veda, or the Veda of Hymns, is one of the four main and oldest religious Indian texts. It is compiled in Vedic Sanskrit and dates back to about the 2nd millennium BC. The tenth mandala of the Rig Veda (10.90) contains a hymn about the sacrifice of the first man Purusha. According to the hymn, Purusha-sukta, the gods throw Purusha on the sacrificial fire, pour oil on and dismember, each part of his body becomes a kind of metaphor for a certain social class - a certain varna. The mouth of the Purusha became brahmanas, that is, priests, the hands became kshatriyas, that is, warriors, the thighs became Vaisyas (farmers and artisans), and the legs became sudras, that is, servants. The untouchables are not mentioned in the Purusha-sukta, and thus they stand outside the varna division.
// Varna division in India (quora.com)
On the basis of this hymn, European scholars who studied Sanskrit texts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries concluded that Indian society was structured in this way. The question remained: why is it structured that way? The Sanskrit word varṇa means "color", and Oriental scholars decided that by "color" they meant skin color, extrapolating to Indian society the social realities of colonialism contemporary to them. So, the brahmanas, who are at the head of this social pyramid, should have the lightest skin, and the rest of the estates, accordingly, should be darker.
This theory has long been supported by the theory of the Aryan invasion of India and the superiority of the Aryans over the proto-Aryan civilization that preceded them. According to this theory, the Aryans (“aria” in Sanskrit means “noble”, the representatives of the white race were associated with them) subjugated the autochthonous black population and rose to a higher social level, consolidating this division through the hierarchy of varnas. Archaeological research has refuted the theory of the Aryan conquest. Now we know that the Indian civilization (or the civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro) really died unnaturally, but most likely as a result of a natural disaster.
In addition, the word "varna" means, most likely, not the color of the skin, but the connection between different social strata and a certain color. For example, the connection between the brahmins and the orange color reached modern India, which is reflected in their saffron robes.
Evolution of the varna system
A number of linguistic scholars of the 20th century, such as Georges Dumézil and Emile Benveniste, believed that even the Proto-Indo-Aryan community, before it split into the Indian and Iranian branches, entered into a three-stage social division. The text of Yasna, one of the components of the Zoroastrian holy book of the Avesta, whose language is related to Sanskrit, also speaks of a three-level hierarchy, where atravans (in today's Indian tradition, atornans) are at the head - priests, rateshtars are warriors, vastriya-fshuyants are shepherds-cattle breeders and farmers. In another passage from Yasna (19.17), a fourth social class is added to them - huitish (artisans). Thus, the system of social strata becomes identical to that that we observed in the Rig Veda. We cannot, however, say for sure to what extent this division played a real role in the II millennium BC. Some scholars suggest that this social professional division was largely arbitrary and people could freely move from one part of society to another. A person became a representative of a particular social class after choosing his profession. In addition, the hymn about the superman Purusha is a relatively later inclusion in the Rig Veda.
In the brahminical era, it is assumed that a more rigid consolidation of the social position of various strata of the population takes place. In later texts, for example in Manu-smriti (Laws of Manu), created around the turn of our era, the social hierarchy appears to be less flexible. An allegorical description of social classes as parts of the body, analogous to the Purusha-sukta, we find in another Zoroastrian text - Denkarda, created in the Middle Persian language in the 10th century.
If you travel back to the era of the formation and prosperity of the Great Mughals, that is, in the 16th - early 18th centuries, the social structure of this state seems to be more mobile. At the head of the empire was the emperor, who was surrounded by the army and the closest ascetics, his court, or darbar. The capital was constantly changing, the emperor, along with his darbar, moved from place to place, different people flocked to the court: Afghans, Pashtuns, Tamils, Uzbeks, Rajputs, anyone else. They received this or that place in the social hierarchy depending on their own military merit, and not only because of their origin.
British india
In the 17th century, the British colonization of India began through the East India Company. The British did not try to change the social structure of Indian society; in the first period of their expansion, they were only interested in commercial profits. Subsequently, however, as more and more territories fell under the de facto control of the company, officials were concerned with successfully administering taxes, as well as learning about how Indian society was organized and the “natural laws” of its governance. For this, the first Governor-General of India, Warren Hastings, hired several Bengali Brahmins, who, of course, dictated to him the laws that consolidated the dominance of the higher castes in the social hierarchy. On the other hand, in order to structure taxation, it was necessary to make people less mobile, less likely to move between different regions and provinces. And what could have ensured their anchoring on the ground? Only placing them in certain socio-economic communities. The British began to conduct censuses, where caste was also indicated, thus it was assigned to everyone at the legislative level. And the last factor was the development of large industrial centers such as Bombay, where clusters of individual castes were formed. Thus, during the OIC period, the caste structure of Indian society acquired a more rigid outline, which forced a number of researchers, such as Niklas Derks, to speak of caste in the form in which they exist today, as a social construct of colonialism.
British Army Polo Team in Hyderabad (Hulton Archive
// gettyimages.com)
After the rather bloody Sipai Uprising of 1857, which in Indian historiography is sometimes called the First War of Independence, the Queen issued a manifesto on the closure of the East India Company and the annexation of India to the British Empire. In the same manifesto, the colonial authorities, fearing a repetition of unrest, promised not to interfere in the internal order of governing the country, concerning its social traditions and norms, which also contributed to the further strengthening of the caste system.
Castes
Thus, the opinion of Susan Bailey seems to be more balanced, who argues that although the varna-caste structure of society in its current form is largely a product of the British colonial heritage, the castes themselves as units of social hierarchy in India did not just come out of thin air. ... The notion of the mid-twentieth century about the total hierarchy of Indian society and the caste as the main structural element of it, which is best described in the work "Homo Hierarchicus" by Louis Dumont, is also considered unbalanced.
It is important to note that there is a difference between varna and caste (a word borrowed from Portuguese) or jati. “Jati” means a smaller hierarchical community, which implies not only professional, but also ethnic and territorial characteristics, as well as belonging to a particular clan. If you are a brahmana from Maharashtra, that does not mean that you will follow the same rituals as a brahmana from Kashmir. There are some nationwide rituals, such as tying a brahmana cord, but to a greater extent caste rituals (eating, marriage) are determined at the level of a small community.
Varnas, which are supposed to represent professional communities, practically do not play this role in modern India, with the exception, perhaps, of the pujari priests, which become the brahmins. It happens that representatives of some castes do not know which varna they belong to. The position in the socio-economic hierarchy is constantly changing. When India became independent from the British Empire in 1947 and elections began to be held on the basis of equal direct voting, the balance of power in different states began to change in favor of various varna-caste communities. In the 1990s, the party system was fragmented (after a long and almost undivided period of the Indian National Congress in power), many political parties were created, which at their core have varna-caste ties. For example, in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, the Socialist Party, which is based on the peasant caste of the Yadavs, who nevertheless consider themselves Kshatriyas, and the Bahujan Samaj Party, which proclaims the upholding of the interests of the untouchables, constantly replace each other in power. It doesn't even matter what socio-economic slogans are put forward, they simply meet the interests of their community.
Now there are several thousand castes on the territory of India, and their hierarchical relations cannot be called stable. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, for example, the sudras are richer than the brahmanas.
Caste restrictions
More than 90% of marriages in India take place within a caste community. As a rule, Indians by caste name determine to which caste a particular person belongs. For example, a person may live in Mumbai, but he knows that historically comes from Patiala or Jaipur, then his parents are looking for a groom or a bride from there. This happens through matrimonial agencies and family ties. Of course, the socio-economic situation is now playing an increasingly important role. The eligible groom should have Green Card or American work permit, however, the Varna-caste relationship is also very important.
There are two social strata whose representatives do not strictly observe the varna-caste matrimonial traditions. This is the highest stratum of society. For example, the Gandhi-Nehru family, which was in power in India for a long time. The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a brahmana whose ancestors came from Allahabad, from a very high caste in the brahminical hierarchy. Nevertheless, his daughter Indira Gandhi married a Zoroastrian (Parsa), which caused a big scandal. And the second stratum that can afford to violate the varna-caste prohibitions is the lowest strata of the population, the untouchables.
Untouchable
The untouchables stand outside the varna division, however, as Marika Vaziani notes, they themselves have a caste structure. Historically, there are four hallmarks of untouchability. First, the lack of overall food intake. The food consumed by the untouchables is “dirty” for the higher castes. Secondly, the lack of access to water sources. Thirdly, the untouchables do not have access to religious institutions, temples where the higher castes perform rituals. Fourth, the absence of matrimonial ties between untouchables and pure castes. This kind of stigmatization of the untouchables is fully practiced by about a third of the population.
Until now, the process of the emergence of the phenomenon of untouchability is not completely clear. Orientalist researchers believed that the untouchables were representatives of a different ethnic group, race, possibly those who joined Aryan society after the end of the Indian civilization. Then a hypothesis arose, according to which those professional groups whose activities for religious reasons began to have a "dirty" character became untouchable. There is an excellent, even for some period banned in India book "The Sacred Cow" by Dvigendra Dha, which describes the evolution of the sacralization of the cow. In early Indian texts we see descriptions of cow sacrifices, and later cows become sacred animals. People who were previously engaged in slaughtering cattle, finishing cow skins, and so on, became untouchable due to the process of sacralizing the image of the cow.
Untouchability in modern India
In modern India, untouchability is largely practiced in villages, where, as already mentioned, about a third of the population fully observes it. At the beginning of the 20th century, this practice was deeply rooted. For example, in one of the villages of Andhra Pradesh, untouchables had to cross the streets, tying palm leaves to their belt to cover their tracks. Representatives of the higher castes could not step on the traces of the untouchables.
In the 1930s, the British changed their policy of non-intervention and began a process of affirmative action. They established the percentage of that part of the population that belongs to the socially backward strata of society, and introduced reserved seats in representative bodies created in India, in particular, for Dalits (literally "oppressed" - this term borrowed from Marathi is usually politically correct to call untouchables today) ... Today this practice has been adopted at the legislative level for three groups of the population. These are the so-called "Scheduled Castes" (Dalits or actually untouchable), "Scheduled Tribes", and also "other backward classes." However, most often all these three groups can now be defined as "untouchable", recognizing their special status in society. They make up more than a third of the inhabitants of modern India. Seat reservations create a tricky situation since casteism was banned back in the 1950 Constitution. By the way, its main author was the Minister of Justice, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, who himself was from the Maharashtrian caste of blizzard-mahars, that is, he himself was untouchable. In some states, the percentage of reservations already exceeds the constitutional bar of 50%. The most violent debate in Indian society is about the lowest socially positioned castes involved in manual cesspool cleaning and the most severe caste discrimination.
India's caste system continues to attract interest. Castes in India are indeed a curious social phenomenon, but a tourist who travels to India is unlikely to encounter it; there are many Indian travelers who live there for months, but are not interested in castes because they are not necessary for life.The caste system is not exotic, it is part of the complex organization of Indian society, a multifaceted phenomenon that has been studied by Indologists and ethnographers for centuries, dozens of thick books have been written about it, so I will publish here only 10 interesting facts about Indian castes - about the most popular questions and misconceptions.
1. What is the Indian caste?
The Indian caste is such a complex phenomenon that it is simply not possible to give an exhaustively complete definition!
Castes can only be described through a number of signs, but there will still be exceptions.
Caste in India is a system of social stratification, a separate social group related to the origin and legal status of its members. Castes in India are built on the principles of: 1) common religion (this rule is always observed); 2) one profession, usually hereditary; 3) members of castes marry only among themselves, as a rule; 4) caste members generally do not eat with outsiders, with the exception of other Hindu castes of a significantly higher social position than their own; 5) caste members can be determined by who they can receive water and food from, processed and raw.
2. There are 4 castes in India
In India, there are not 4, but about 3 thousand castes, they can be called differently in different parts of the country, and people with the same profession may have different castes in different states. For a complete list of castes by state, see http: // socialjustice ...
What anonymous people on tourist and other near-Indian sites call 4 castes are not castes at all, these are 4 varnas - chaturvarnya in Sanskrit - an ancient social system.
The 4 varnas (वर्ना) are the ancient Indian system of estates. Varna brahmins (more correctly, brahmins) historically are worshipers, doctors, teachers. Varna kshatriyas (in ancient times it was called rajanya) are rulers and warriors. Varna vaisya are farmers and traders, and varna sudras are workers and landless peasants who work for others.
Varna is a color (in Sanskrit again), and each Indian varna has its own color: for the Brahmins it is white, for the Kshatriyas it is red, for the Vaisyas it is yellow, for the Sudras it is black, and before, when all the representatives of the varnas wore a sacred thread - it was just the color of their varna.
Varnas correlate with castes, but in very different ways, sometimes there is no direct connection, and since we have already gone deep into science, I must say that Indian castes, unlike varnas, are called jati - जाति.
Read more about Indian castes in modern India http://indonet.ru/St ...
3. The Untouchable caste
The untouchables are not a caste. In the days of ancient India, everyone who was not part of the 4 varnas was automatically "overboard" of the Indian society, these strangers were avoided, they were not allowed to live in the villages, which is why they are called untouchable. Subsequently, these untouchable aliens began to be used in the dirtiest, lowest paid and shameful jobs, and formed their own social and professional groups, that is, castes of untouchables, there are several of them, as a rule, this is associated either with dirty work, or with the murder of living beings or death, so that all hunters and fishermen, as well as gravediggers and tanners, are untouchable.
At the same time, it is not correct to think that every untouchable is uneducated and poor, this is not true. In India, even before its independence and the adoption of a number of legislative measures to prevent discrimination against the lower castes and tribes, there were untouchables who were able to achieve outstanding success in society, an example of which is the most famous untouchable of India - an outstanding Indian political figure, public figure, fighter for human rights and the author of the Indian Constitution is Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, who received his law degree in England. And more recently, not only Dalit, but also Hijra has become the mayor of a city in India http://indonet.ru/fo. ..
4. When did the Indian castes appear?
Normally, that is, legislatively, the caste jati system in India was fixed in the Laws of Manu, which date back to the 2nd century BC.
The system of varnas is much older, there is no exact dating. I wrote in more detail about the history of the issue in the article The Castes of India, from varnas to the present http://indonet.ru/ar ...
5. Castes in India abolished
Castes in India are not abolished or prohibited, as is often said.
On the contrary, all castes in India are recounted and listed in the appendix to the Indian Constitution, which is called the Table of Castes. In addition, after the census, changes are made to this table, as a rule, additions, the point is not that new castes appear, but that they are recorded in accordance with the data indicated about themselves by the census participants.
Only discrimination on the basis of caste is prohibited, it is written in article 15 of the Indian Constitution, see the test at http://lawmin.nic.in ...
6. Every Indian has a caste
No, this is also not true.
Indian society is very heterogeneous in its structure, and besides the division into castes, there are several others.
There are caste and non-caste Indians, for example, representatives of Indian tribes (aborigines, adivasis), with rare exceptions, do not have castes. And the part of non-caste Indians is quite large, see the census results http: //censusindia.g. ..
In addition, for some misdeeds (crimes) a person can be expelled from the caste and thus deprived of his status and position in society.
7. Castes are only in India
No, this is a delusion. There are castes in other countries, for example, in Nepal and Sri Lanka, since these countries developed in the bosom of the same huge Indian civilization, as well as in Bali. But there are castes in other cultures, for example, in Tibet, and the Tibetan castes do not correlate with the Indian ones at all, since the estate structure of Tibetan society was formed independently from India.
For the castes of Nepal, see Ethnic Mosaic of Nepal http://indonet.ru/St ...
8. Only Hindus have castes
No, this is not so now, you need to delve into history.
Historically, when the overwhelming majority of the Indian population professed Hinduism, all Hindus belonged to some caste, the only exception were pariahs expelled from the castes and the indigenous tribal peoples of India who did not profess Hinduism and were not part of the Indian society. Then other religions began to spread in India - Buddhism, Jainism, India was invaded by other peoples, and representatives of other religions and peoples began to adopt from the Hindus their caste system of varnas and the system of professional castes - Jati. Now there are castes in Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Christianity, but they are different from the Hindu castes.
It is curious that in northern India, in the modern states of Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir, the system of Buddhist castes is not Indian, but of Tibetan origin.
It is even more curious that even Europeans - Christian missionaries-preachers - were drawn into the system of Indian castes: those who preached the teachings of Christ to high-born Brahmins ended up in the Christian "Brahmin" caste, and those who communicated with untouchable fishermen became Christian untouchables.
9. The caste of the Indian with whom you communicate, you need to know and behave accordingly
This is a common misconception, replicated by travel sites, it is not known for what, it is not based on anything.
It is impossible to determine which caste an Indian belongs to only by his appearance, and by his occupation - often too. One acquaintance worked as a waiter, although he came from a noble Rajput family (that is, he is a Kshatriya). I was able to identify an acquaintance Nepalese waiter by his behavior as an aristocrat, since we had known each other for a long time, I asked and he confirmed that it was true, and the guy does not work because of lack of money at all.
An old friend of mine started his career at the age of 9 as a handyman, cleaning up trash in a shop ... do you think he is a sudra? no, he is a brahmin (brahmin) from a poor family and 8 children in a row ... another brahmin acquaintance trades in a shop, he is the only son, you have to earn money ...
Another friend of mine is so religious and bright that one would think that he is the real, ideal Brahmin. But no, he was just a sudra, and he was proud of this, and those who know what seva means, it will become clear why.
And even if an Indian says what caste he is, although such a question is considered not decent, it will still not give a tourist anything, a person who does not know India will not understand what and why is arranged in this amazing country. So you should not be puzzled by the caste question, because sometimes it is difficult for India to establish even the gender of the interlocutor, and this is probably more important :)
10. Caste discrimination
India is a democratic country and, in addition to prohibiting caste discrimination, has introduced benefits for representatives of lower castes and tribes, for example, there are quotas for admission to higher educational institutions, for holding positions in state and municipal bodies.
The problem of discrimination against people from the lower castes, Dalits and tribal people in India is quite serious, casteism is still the basis of the life of hundreds of millions of Indians outside of large cities, it is there that the caste structure and all the prohibitions arising from it are still preserved, for example, in some temples India is not allowed to Indians-Shudras, it is there that almost all caste crimes occur, for example, a very typical crime http://indonet.ru/bl ...
If the caste system in India interests you seriously, I can seriously recommend, in addition to the section of articles http://indonet.ru/ca ... on this site and publications in the Hindunet, read the books of major European Indologists of the 20th century:
1. Academic 4-volume work of R.V. Russell's "Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India"
2. Monograph by Louis Dumont "Homo hierarchicus. Experience in describing the caste system"
In addition, in recent years, a number of books on this topic have been published in India, unfortunately she herself did not hold them in her hands.
If you are not ready to read scientific literature - read the novel by the very popular modern Indian writer Arundhati Roy "The God of Little Things", it can be found on the Russian Internet.
The first castes appeared in India at the stage of state formation. Approximately one and a half thousand years BC, the first settlers appeared on the territory of modern India. They were divided into four classes. Much later, called varnas, this word, literally translated from Sanskrit, means color. The word caste itself bears a semantic concept as a pure breed.
Belonging to some community of people exposed by power has always been highly valued by all peoples. It's just that in antiquity, intertwined with the Indian religion, this concept acquired the status of an unshakable law. At the very beginning, these were brahmanas, priests, in their hands was the right to interpret the word of God. Thanks to this, this caste occupied the highest position. Since above them there was only a divine essence, with which only they could communicate. Any word they said was law and was not subject to discussion. Next came the Kshatriya warriors. Very numerous and powerful caste of india... At all times and, among all peoples, professional military personnel participated in the government. Only in India did they become a separate group of people who inherited their skills and traditions.
How the life of people differs in different parts of India, in more detail:.
The caste was so closed that for many centuries ordinary people could not even imagine becoming a military man. Such heresy was punishable by death. Vaisyas, merchants, farmers, pastoralists were included here. This caste was also numerous, but the people who belonged to it did not have any political influence, since representatives of the highest castes of india, at any moment, they could deprive them of all their property, home, family, simply by saying that this is pleasing to the gods. Shudr is the servant of the worker. The most numerous and powerless caste, the people who belonged to it, were actually equated to the level of animals. Moreover, some animals in India lived much better, since they had the status of sacred.
Further division into castes in India
Later, after a long enough time. The first castes began to divide into smaller ones, with an even more rigid assignment to a certain group of people, some privileges and rights. Religion played an important role in this division.In Hinduism, it is believed that after death, the soul can be reincarnated into a person more high caste India, if he strictly adheres to all the rules of this division during his lifetime. If not, then it will be reborn into a lower caste. It was impossible to leave the caste limit, even if a person possessed some excellent qualities, he could not rise during his lifetime.
With the passage of time, this system of building a society only strengthened. Not the conquest of the people by the Mughals, who brought with them the Muslim religion, nor the later conquest by the British, could not shake the very foundations of this system. The very nature of caste looks quite logical. If the family is engaged in agriculture, then the children will do the same. Only the Indians have abolished the very possibility of making a decision in this matter, everything is decided only by birth. Where you were born and you wake up to do. To the main four, one more, untouchables, was added. This is the lowest caste. It is believed that communication with members of this caste can desecrate anyone, especially members of the higher castes. Therefore, they never, directly, communicated with representatives of the untouchables.
Modern caste division
In modern India, there are a huge number of castes. Priests, warriors, merchants and even untouchables have their own divisions. It is quite difficult to understand all these intricacies. Yes, with the advent of the possibility of leaving the country, young people are increasingly beginning to think about the expediency of this order of things. But in the provinces in the depths of the country, these laws are very jealous. And at the state level, this tradition is supported by the government of the country. There is a constitutional table of castes. So, this is not medieval savagery and a relic of the past, but an absolutely real, state structure. Each state has a caste division. No matter how visitors feel about it, this whole cumbersome mechanism works. Perfectly coping with its purpose.
It should be noted since modern India is a democratic state, all freedom rights associated with obtaining caste certificates are very strictly observed, to support the lower castes, various ways of state support are provided. Up to quotas for them special seats in parliament. At present, all peoples living in India recognize caste division and follow this tradition. Even the Spanish and British priests who remained on the territory of the state after the departure of the colonialists created their own caste system of India and stick to it. This underlines the fact that with the right, competent approach, any system of government can work, no matter how conservative and orthodox it looks in the eyes of newcomers. In modern India, a change of castes has become possible. It is enough for one or several families to change their occupation and that's it, a new caste is ready. In modern reality, especially in large industrial cities, they are quite loyal to such changes.
Before traveling to India, you should definitely get acquainted with the cultural characteristics of the country, in more detail:.
Untouchable
This is a completely separate category of people. It is considered the lowest; people get there, whose soul sinned very much in the previous incarnation. But even this last rung of the Indian social ladder has its own division. At the very top, there are working people or those who have some kind of craft. For example, hairdressers or trash cleaners. The bottom of this staircase is occupied by petty thieves who hunt for theft of small livestock. The most mysterious in this hierarchy is the Hijru group, which includes representatives of any sex minorities. It is striking that representatives of these seemingly dregs of society are invited to weddings and births of children. They are often felt in numerous church ceremonies. But the worst thing in India is considered to be a person without caste, even the lowest rank. Such people are called pariahs here. These are people born from other pariahs or as a result of inter-caste marriages and not recognized by any of the castes. More recently, one could become a pariah simply by touching one of them.
Indian castes, video:
What determines the life of Hindus in modern ashrams and megacities? Is it a European-style government system or a special form of apartheid that the castes in ancient India supported and continue to embody today? The clash of the norms of Western civilization with Hindu traditions sometimes leads to unpredictable results.
Varna and Jati
Trying to understand what castes existed in India and continue to influence its society today, one should turn to the basics of the structure of tribal groups. Ancient societies regulated the gene pool and social relations using two principles - endo- and exogamy. The first permits to create a family only within its own area (tribe), the second prohibits marriages between representatives of a part of this community (clan). Endogamy acts as a factor in the preservation of cultural identity, while exogamy opposes the degenerative consequences of closely related ties. To one degree or another, both mechanisms of biosocial regulation are necessary for the existence of civilization. We turn to the experience of South Asia, because the role of endogamous caste in modern India and Nepal continues to be the most prominent example of the phenomenon.
In the era of the development of the territory (1500 - 1200 BC. Varna, presumably, once were homogeneous formations without additional class division.
During the early Middle Ages, with the growth of the population and the development of social interaction, the main groups underwent further social stratification. The so-called "jati" appeared, the status of which is associated with the original origin, the history of the group's development, professional activity and the region of residence.
In turn, the jati themselves contain many subgroups of different social status. One way or another, a slender pyramidal structure of subordination can be traced both in the jati and in the case of generalizing superclans - varnas.
Brahmins are considered the highest caste in India. Priests, theologians and philosophers among them play the role of a link between the worlds of gods and people. The kshatriyas bear the burden of government and military leadership. Gautama Siddhartha Buddha is the most famous representative of this varna. The third common category in the Hindu hierarchy, the Vaisyas, are predominantly clans of merchants and landowners. And, finally, the "worker ants" of the sudras are servants and hired laborers of a narrow specialization.
The lowest caste in India - the untouchables (the Dalit group) - is outside the varna system, although it represents about 17% of the population and is involved in active social interaction. This group "brand" should not be taken literally. After all, even priests and warriors do not consider it shameful to have a haircut at a hairdresser - a Dalit. An example of the fantastic emancipation of a representative of the untouchable caste in India was the Dalit KR Narayanan, who was the country's president in 1997-2002.
The synonymous perception by Europeans of untouchables and pariahs is a common misconception. Pariahs are completely declassed and completely powerless people, deprived of even the very possibility of group unification.
Mutual reflection of economic classes and castes in India
The last time information about the class belonging was studied in 1930 during the population census. Then the amount caste in india was more than 3000. If a bulletin table were used at such an event, it would have up to 200 pages. According to ethnographers and sociologists, the number of Jati by the beginning of the 21st century has decreased by about half. This may be due to both industrial development and the ignorance of caste differences among the Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas who were educated in Western universities.
Technological progress leads to a certain decline in handicraft. Industrial corporations, trade and transport companies need armies of identical sudras - workers, detachments of middle-level managers from among the vaisyas and kshatriyas in the role of top managers.
The mutual projections of economic classes and castes in modern India are not obvious. Most modern politicians are vaisyas, not kshatriyas, as one might suppose. The management of large trading firms is mainly those who, according to the canon, should be warriors or rulers. And even impoverished Brahmins live in the countryside, cultivating the land ...
Neither recreational tourist trips nor search queries like "India caste photos" will help to understand the contradictory reality of the modern caste society. It is much more effective to get acquainted with the opinions of L. Alaev, I. Glushkova and other orientalists and Hindus on this issue.
Only tradition can be stronger than the law
The 1950 Constitution affirms the equality of all estates before the law. Moreover, even the slightest manifestation of discrimination - the issue of origin at the time of recruitment - is a criminal offense. The irony of the collision of the modernist norm with reality lies in the fact that Hindus unmistakably determine the group affiliation of the interlocutor in a couple of minutes. Moreover, the name, facial features, speech, education and clothing do not have a determining value here.
The secret to preserving the meaning of endogamy lies in the positive role it can play in social and worldviews. Even the lower class is a kind of insurance company for their members. The castes and varnas in India are cultural treasures, moral authority and a club system. The authors of the Indian constitution were also aware of this, recognizing the initial endogamy of social groups. In addition, universal suffrage, unexpectedly for modernizers, became a factor in strengthening caste identification. Group positioning facilitates the tasks of advocacy and political programming.
This is how the symbiosis of Hinduism and Western democracy develops in a contradictory and unpredictable manner. The caste structure of society demonstrates both illogicality and high adaptability to changing conditions. In ancient India castes were not considered eternal and indestructible formations, despite the fact that they were sanctified by the law of Manu from the "code of honor of the Aryans." Who knows, perhaps we are witnessing the implementation of the ancient Hindu prediction that "in the era of Kali-yuga, everyone will be born as sudras."
Hereditary orientalist Allan Rannu talks about human destiny and the four varnas as tools for understanding the world and oneself.
