The Hindu Caste System Essay Research Paper — страница 2

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missionary Abbe Dubois, Bougle writes, ?The Brahmins strive most to keep up appearances of outward purity . . .It is chiefly to the scrupulous observance of such customs that the Brahmins owe the predominance of their illustrious caste? (58). The oldest religious justification for the division of society into the four varnas is found in the tenth mandala (circle) of the Rig-Veda, the oldest and holiest Hindu scripture. This passage describes the creation of the universe as the sacrifice of a gigantic original man, Purusa, whose ?mouth became the Brahmin; his arms were made into the Warrior, his thighs the People, and from his feet the Servants were born. . .?(Fieser and Powers 8). Because the Brahmins came from his mouth, they were the keepers of the holy word and law, and

therefore the most prestigious. The Kshatriya are warriors because they came from the part used for fighting, the arms; Vaishya are the tradesmen because they came from the legs; and Sudras are servants because they came from the lowest part of the cosmic body, the feet. These four classes seem to have actually existed in the ancient Aryan society in northern India. The members of the three higher varnas were probably mostly Aryans, while the fourth and lowest varna was probably mostly darker-skinned, conquered peoples (Basham 137). 2 However, the original varnas were not the castes that exist today, for there is evidence that people could, and did, change their varnas, and inter-marriage between persons of different varnas was allowed (Basham 146). The rigidity of the caste

system came about later, possibly due to the development and acceptance of such religious ideas as karma and reincarnation. Neither of these concepts were Aryan ideas, and it is possible that they were the indigenous tribes? contribution to the religion that became Hinduism (Glucklich 28). If one believed in reincarnation, one saw one?s place in the caste system as determined by one?s character in a previous life. If one was reborn an Untouchable, one had obviously been more sinful than if one was reborn a Brahmin: The status of a Brahmana is incapable of acquisition by a person belonging to any of the three other orders. Travelling through innumerable orders of existence, by undergoing repeated births, one at last, in some birth, becomes born as a Brahmana. The status of a

Brahmana is incapable of acquisition by persons begotten on uncleansed souls. (Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva, XXVIII) Concerns about purity seem to have developed during the same time period as the caste system. The Laws of Manu, a holy Hindu book that contains rules for personal conduct, which date, at the latest, in the third century AD, refer to impurity from outcasted persons, as well as from death and menstruation (Dumont 53). The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fa-hsien, who traveled to India during the reign of Candra Gupta II (ruled 376-415 AD), refers to ?pollution on approach?; that is, pollution from coming close to an Untouchable or outcast (Basham 66). During these early times, leather workers (who are impure because they work with dead animal skin) were already disliked, as

evidenced by their being heavily taxed (Basham 107). B. Modern Evidence A well-known modern study of the formation of castes was one overseen by Jan Breman during the 1960s in two villages in India that focused on the integration of tribal people into the Hindu caste system. The tribal peoples are poor natives of India who were not integrated in the past into Aryan society or Hinduism because they lived in remote areas. During Breman?s period of observation, they became agricultural workers for the land-owning, higher caste Brahmins. Breman quotes J.A. Baines, who suggested that the migration of Brahmins into new regions, previously occupied by tribals, created a system of land servitude. Because the Brahmin?s own religion did not allow them to touch plows, the tribal people

became their farming servants (39). Besides doing work in the fields, the tribes also did other kinds of work that only Untouchables would do (Breman 40). Their willingness to do so is presumably accounted for by the absence, in their tribal culture, of the pollution complex of Hinduism. Once settled in Hindu villages, however, they are treated as Untouchables because of the pollution attitudes of their Hindu employers (Breman 256). 3 This study illustrates that castes likely developed from immigrants, tribal groups, or groups with a newly developed craft becoming integrated into one social system. Both Hinduism and the caste system then spread from northern India to the southern part of the peninsula, absorbing, and eventually defeating, the rival religions of Buddhism and