Caste

The varna

In Sanskrit, the varna (perhaps related to the color of the skin) means the color, the aspect, physical shape or the characteristic. One of the anthems of the Rig-Veda, one of the Hindu writings holiest, gives the following enumeration in the famous anthem Purusha Sukta (RV 10,90):

मुखंकिमस्यकौबाहूकाऊरूपादाउच्येते ||

ब्राह्मणोअस्यमुखमासीदबाहूराजन्यःकर्तः |

ऊरूतदस्ययदवैश्यःपद्भ्यांशूद्रोअजायत ||

Its literal translation said: “ What is it occurred of its face (or of mouth) (of the cosmic spirit)? What is it occurred of its two arms? What is it occurred of its two thighs? Of what (products) the two feet were called? From its face (or mouth) came the brahmanas . From its two arms the rajanya came (kshatriyas). From its two thighs the vaishyas came. From its two feet the came will shudras . ”

It is the only anthem in Rig-Veda, which belongs to this book (Xe) that many historians claim to be a not very posterior addition with the nine existing books, which enumerates the four varnas for the first and the last time (without defining anything). The others three Vedas and Upanishads have the extremely rare mention of Varna. In the most primitive Hindouisme, people interpreted this anthem in the sense that the company must be divided into four varnas or castes, who are:

the Brâhmane S (brāhmaṇa, ब्राह्मण, related to crowned ), priests, teachers and professors;
the Kshatriya S (kṣatriya, क्षत्रिय, which has the temporal power , also - râjanya), king, princes, administrators and soldiers;
the Vaisya S (vaiśya, वैश्य, related to the clan , also - ârya), craftsmen, tradesmen, business men, farmers and shepherds;
the Sudra S (will śūdra, शूद्र, servant ), servants.

However, in the primitive hindouism still, as claimed by the Manu Smriti , came to constitute another class of people who do not have any position in one from these four varnas , and which consequently, was associated with work more degrading. The higher castes, who are supposed to maintain the purity ritual and body, had suddenly regarded these last as Intouchable S , constituting a kind of fifth varna , which some indicate like coming from subst: nowhere. These people are also called: the Dalits (“ opprimés ”) or the Harijans (“ children of Dieu ”).

It is very clear that in the recent periods of the vedic religion, the meant classes of system of varna (if necessary there existed) with the free mobility of work and the intermarriage. An anthem of Rig-Veda known as:

कारुरहंततोभिषगुपलप्रक्षिणीनना | (RV 9,112,3)

“ I am a bard, my father is a doctor, the work of my mother must rectify corn… ”

While the intermarriages between young grooms of Brahmans and the princesses Kshatriya were extremely current (even sanctioned by the old writings of the Manu Smriti ), in much of case, of the marriages between the princes Kshatriya and the young girls of Brahmanes were also observed (but severely condemned by the Manu Smriti ). One of these examples is the marriage of Dushyanata, prince Kshatriya, with Shakuntalâ, girl of wise Vishvâmitra and adopted girl of wise Kanva.

During posterior time, with the development of the ritualism, the sytème of caste became absolutely hereditary (the historians are in dissension over the period) and one did not even allow the Shudras to hear the crowned word of Veda.

“ If listening will shudra it intentionally and memorizes the veda, its ears should be filled of wire and lacquer (dissolves); if he sings the veda, then its language should be cut out; if it controlled the veda its body should be crossed with the morceaux. ” (Manu Smriti XII. 4)

By rigid contrast with this, one finds one will mantra white Yajur Veda itself:

यथेमांवाचंकल्याणीमावदानिजनेभ्यः ।

ब्रह्मराजन्याभ्याँशूद्रायचार्यायचस्वायचारणाय ।

प्रियोदेवानांदक्षिणायैदातुरिहभूयासमयंमेकामःसमृध्यतामुपमादोनमतु । । (White Yajur Veda 26.2)

“ I address by this speech salutary (the Vedique voice) to the profit of humanity - for Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Shudras, Vaishyas, the kinsfolk and the men of the minimum position it in the company. Can I be expensive with educated in this monde. ”

According to Guy Deleury, the term of “pure” was employed in an ironic intention by the Portuguese, as it was to it two centuries before by the Inquisition in connection with the Cathare S. It would have been used first of all to indicate the group of the brâhmanes, very worried by the problems of purity and stain, before being wide with the whole of the varnas .

The varnas are presented in the Bhagavad-gîtâ in the following way (according to the translation of Emile Senart quoted in the Hindu model ):

The varna is closely related on the Hindouisme and the concept of Karma. Each one of these parts of the social body is supposed to come from part of the body of Brahma, the Brahmane S obviously leaving the head of the god. In-outside this religious justification of the place of each one, and hierarchy between the castes, it is obvious that these castes recut the trifonctionnnality Indo-European: the functions crowned, warlike and of production are clearly identifiable here.

If one accepts the assumption of the Théorie of the Aryan invasion, one coarsely obtains the following organization of the Indian company: the three first varnas , those of the “ twice né ”, correspond then to the groups made up of the Indo-European invader, groups which one finds in the zones where the Indo-Europeans were established. The fourth varna gathers, in this case, the members of pre-Aryan civilizations like that of the Civilization of the valley of Indus or Dravidiens of the south of India, and the untouchable ones as for them, not civilized, correspond to the Aborigènes of India, the original, impure inhabitants because non-hindouized. Concerning the traditional colors associated with the varnas , white for the brâhmanes, red for the kshatriyas, yellow for the vaisyas, black for will sudras, beyond of a possible bond with the complexion of the members of each one of it which is however contradicted by the fact that there always was, for example, of the brâhmanes to the black skin, they rather seem to be symbols related to the role of the varnas in the company, the white of the search for purity of the brâhmanes; red, the glory and the blood of the warriors kshatriyas; yellow, symbol of gold and the richness, the goal of the vaisyas; and the black, the tasks degrading of will sudras.

The jâti

Beside the system of the varna exists another cutting of the Indian company, the system of the Jāti (जाति, birth ), 4635 - according to a study of the Anthropological Survey off India of 1993 - and which rather precisely recovers cutting in professions. Perhaps this last system, which approaches enough an organization of the Indian company in Corporation S, preexisted to the system of the varna . It will be noted that no jâti crosses linguistic Frontière and that thus all the Indian linguistic zones have their own system of jâti .

According to the Hindu Orthodoxy , the members of two jâtis different live in manner completely separate. In particular, they do not share food and do not marry between them (it is a system endogame). In fact, each jâti has its own culinary practices, vestimentary, sometimes a clean language, often its own divinities and serving them of these divinities who belong to the jâti and are thus not brâhmanes. A member of the jâti of the shoe-makers will be able to become tailor, in condition of expatrier (like the heroes of “the Balance of the world” of the Canadian author of Indian origin, Rohinton Mistry).

Because of the modernization of the Indian company, this separation of the people tends to grow blurred gradually, although it remains strong in the rural areas, where always saw the majority of the Indian population, and among the most underprivileged layers of the population.

The system of the castes was strongly fought by several Indian reformers, most known of them is Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, writer of the Constitution of the India and itself Intouchable S Mahars before converting with the Bouddhisme.

It was theoretically abolished and any discrimination is prohibited by the Indian law. Even if the varna often coincides with social prosperity, that does not have anything systematic. Thus, among the most prosperous men of Vârânasî, one finds the untouchable ones who dealt with the trade related to death, the supply of wood necessary to the cremations for example, a trade refused by the varna because impure since concerning with death.

The problem of the castes in democratic India

The brahmanisation of the jâti

The Indian sociologist Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas which worked during five decades on the system of the castes, has, seems, be the first to use the term of brahmanisation to describe the process, old and current, of the rise in a jâti in the varnic scale (One also speaks about process of sanskritisation ).

Indeed, if the modification of the statute of an individual is inenvisageable in the system of the varna , it is not the same for the position of the jâti . In other words, in the Indian company, a man can evolve/move, within the meaning of the varnic scale, only as a member of the community in which it is born, which shows that the system of the jâti is more important with the eyes of the majority of the Indians than that of the varna and than it perhaps preceded it historically. This way of seeing does not satisfy obviously the brâhmanes which are at the top of the pyramid.

This rise of the jâti can be obtained only in certain conditions:

it must touch totality or at least an important part of the jâti ,
this one must engage in a modification of its practices, to approach those of the brâhmanes, in particular:

to change its dietary habits - a characteristic of the jâti - and to tend towards the vegetarianism,
to follow the habits of the brâhmanes concerning the marriage,
to raise the educational level of the jâti and to avoid the brahmanic impurity with the direction.

A emblematic jâti concerning this varnic evolution is that of untouchable the Mâhar, which gave its name to the State of the Maharashtra and to which Dr. Ambedkar belonged, the writer of the Indian constitution. Ambedkar worked with the suppression of the intouchability, but at the end of its life, indicator which this objective still remained very remote, militated so that Mâhar are converted into mass with the Bouddhisme and adopt new practices in rupture with those of their jâti , in particular encourage their children to make studies, observe a greater body cleanliness, give up the bovine meat consumption, tend towards the vegetarianism and burn their deaths instead of burying them. All these changes made that, for fifty years, the statute of Mâhar which followed these recommendations has been largely improved and that they enjoy a new consideration, their conversion being included/understood by the social body only like one adhesion with a sect particular of the hindouism.

All Mâhar, however, did not follow this way, some had been previously converted with the Christianisme. This decision, not being an emanation of the jâti but on the basis of the level of the family or a group of families, left them the varnic scale. Like, moreover, the missionaries were foreign, that marked more still the appearance of this conversion. Lastly, with the image of what had been done with the Paraguay, the families were gathered within “denominational reserves”. According to the formula of Deleury, “the untouchable ones that they had been, they had become foreign” without space recognized in the Indian company.

A famous example of brahmanisation is that of the peasants Koumbi pertaining to the varna of will sudras. Those enlisted in the armies Marathe S of Shivaji and accompanied its successors in their campaigns. Obtaining grounds in thanks of their engagement, they there founded dynasties and became, in fact, of the kshatriyas.

This brahmanisation is even accessible to untouchable, like the Gâkwâd which, thanks to their incorporation in the armies marathes and in spite of their origin, founded the reigning dynasty of Baroda, or the Holkar of Indore, of source indigenous, with which nobody would dispute the statute of kshatriya.

It is probable besides that the system was not also rigid at the beginning of our era. What is certain, on the other hand, it is that the English presence solidified the Indian policy by institutionalizing the reigning dynasties with which it signed treaties, consequently prohibiting the progression of some jâti towards the local authority and thus their possibility of brahmanisation. In the same way, institution of civil statue modern risks to be obstacle with this movement, because if it makes it possible to set up the mechanisms of Positive discrimination, which already involved appreciable results besides, has tendency to lock up more still the people in a category.

The system of the castes with Bali

The system of the Balinese castes is based on that of India. It is a heritage of the kingdoms hindouists in Indonesia - Shrîvijaya, Empire Majapahit - but much simpler because primarily structured around the varnas.

Thus one finds there the four castes with names sometimes rather close:

the pedana : the equivalent of the brâhmanes,
the satria : the caste of the princes and kings,
the wesia : here regarded as the caste of the warriors, integrating the nobility and the merchants,
the will sundra : farmers forming the 90% of the Balinese population, but without comprising the untouchable ones.

Each caste uses her own dialect of the Balinese language. A fifth dialect is used when one addresses to somebody which one does not know the caste. However this linguistic system almost disappeared these last years and the system of the castes seems to fall in obsolescence.

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