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The Caste System and the Stages of Life in Hinduism

The pattern of social classes in Hinduism is called the “caste
system.” The chart shows the major divisions and contents of the
system. Basic caste is called varṇa, , or “color.” Subcaste, or jâti, , “birth, life, rank,” is a traditional subdivision of varṇa. Sometimes “caste” is avoided as a word for varṇa.
Whether or not that is done, it is common for “caste” to be used for
the subcastes. Combined with the four “stages of life,” the âśramas, , the system becomes the varṇâśramadharma, , the “dharma of classes and orders.” One’s duty, or dharma, , in life depends on the variables of caste, sex, and stage of life.

The Bhagavad Gita says this about the varṇas:

[41] The works of Brahmins, Kṣatriyas, Vaiśyas, and Śûdras are different, in harmony with the three powers of their born nature.

[42] The works of a Brahmin () are peace; self-harmony, austerity, and purity; loving-forgiveness and righteousness; vision and wisdom and faith.

[43] These are the works of a Kṣatriya ():  a heroic mind, inner fire, constancy, resourcefulness, courage in battle, generosity and noble leadership.

[44] Trade, agriculture and the rearing of cattle is the work of a Vaiśya (). And the work of the Śûdra () is service.

[chapter 18, Juan Mascaró translation, Penguin Books, 1962; spelling of castes altered]

There are literally thousands of subcastes in India, often with
particular geographical ranges, occupational specializations, and an
administrative or corporate structure. When Mahâtmâ Gandhi
wanted to go to England to study law, he had to ask his subcaste, the
Modh Bania, for permission to leave India. (”Bania”, means “merchant,”
and “Gandhi” means “greengrocer” — from gandha, “smell,
fragrance,” in Sanskrit — and that should be enough for a good guess
that Gandhi was a Vaiśya.) Sometimes it is denied that the varṇas are “castes” because, while “true” castes, the jâtis, are based on birth, the varṇas are based on the theory of the guṇas (the “three powers” mentioned in the Gita). This is no more than a rationalization:  the varṇas came first, and they are based on birth. The guṇas came later, and provide a poor explanation anyway, since the guṇa tamas
is associated with both twice born and once born, caste and outcaste,
overlapping the most important religious and social divisions in the
system. Nevertheless, the varṇas are now divisions at a theoretical level, while the jâtis are the way in which caste is embodied for most practical purposes. Jâtis themselves can be ranked in relation to each other, and occasionally a question may even be raised about the proper varṇa to which a particular jâti belongs. As jâti members change occupations and they rise in prestige, a jâti may rarely even be elevated in the varṇa to which it is regarded as belonging.

The urge to deny that varṇas are “castes”
is part of a larger apologetic that we can understand as a project to
reform the more disturbing characteristics of traditional Hinduism.
Given the eternity of the Vedas, it should be, strictly speaking,
perplexing why and impossible that they need to be “reformed.” If it can be denied, however, the morally objectionable practices were ever proper parts of Vedic religion, then we get both reform and eternal truths at the same time. Thus, the theory of varṇas
was descriptive of individual talents and vocations, not of social
station by birth. And, since, indeed, things like Untouchability are
not even mentioned in sacred texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita, their illegitimacy is self-evident. Satî, (”suttee”),
was not a traditional sanctified practice of burning widows, but a
desperate measure by women to avoid rape by British soldiers [note].
“Thugee” was not a plague of murder and terror by devotees of Kâlî but
a fiction invented by the British to discredit Hinduism. All of this
may not seem entirely honest as history; but as a strategy for reform,
its point may be sympathetically well taken. The habit of such creative
interpretation, however, elicites less sympathy when it merely serves a
nationalistic mythology, as discussed elsewhere.

Associated with each varṇa there is a traditional color. These
sound suspiciously like skin colors; and, indeed, there is an
expectation in India that higher caste people will have lighter skin —
although there are plenty of exceptions (especially in the South of
India). This all probably goes back to the original invasion of the Arya,
who came from Central Asia and so were undoubtedly light skinned. The
people already in India were quite dark, even as today many people in
India seem positively black. Apart from skin color, Indians otherwise
have “Caucasian” features — narrow noses, thin lips, etc. — and recent
genetic mapping
studies seem to show that Indians are more closely related to the people
of the Middle East and Europe than to anyone else. Because
Untouchables are not a varṇa, they do not have a traditional color. I have supplied blue, since this is otherwise not found, and it is traditionally used for the skin color of Viṣṇu and his incarnations. Chief among those is Kṛṣṇa (Krishna), whose name actually means “black” or “dark,” but he is always shown blue rather than with some natural skin color.

The first three varṇas are called the twice born — dvija, . This has nothing to do with reincarnation. Being “twice born” means that you come of age religiously, making you a member of the Vedic religion, eligible to learn Sanskrit, study the Vedas, and perform Vedic rituals. The “second birth” is thus like Confirmation or a Bar Mitzvah. This understanding may be interestingly compared with the assertion of the Śatapatha Brâhmaṇa that:

But sacrifice is performed by a householder, not by a student. The Brâhmaṇa
posits three births, first from the womb (which is compared to a fire
and even to an altar in its own right), then from sacrifice (on the
household fire altar), and finally in the cremation fire. But if we
compare this to the four stages of life, there is a curious parallel.
The student is born again but actually labors in preparation to become a
householder, who is characterized by sacrifice (which cannot be done
without marriage). This parallels the stage of the wandering ascetic,
who ritually dies at the moment of renunciation but then labors in
preparation for actual death and cremation. So, if cremation is a form
of rebirth, then renunciation is the rehearsal for this as studenthood
is for sacrifice. I am not aware, however, that much is ever really
made of this comparison.

According to the Laws of Manu (whose requirements may not
always be observed in modern life), boys are “born again” at specific
ages:  8 for Brahmins; 11 for Kṣatriyas; and 12 for Vaiśyas. A thread
is bestowed at the coming of age to be worn around the waist as the
symbol of being twice born. The equivalent of coming of age for girls
is marriage — although women are not always considered part of the âśrama
system at all. Nevertheless, the bestowal of the thread is part of the
wedding ceremony. That part of the wedding ritual is even preserved in
Jainism. Ancient Iran also had a coming of age ceremony that involved a thread. That and other evidence leads to the speculation that the three classes of the twice born are from the original Indo-European social system — the theory of Georges Dumézil. Even the distant Celts believed in three social classes. The three classes of Plato’s Republic
thus may not have been entirely his idea. Although there must have
been a great deal of early intermarriage in India, nowhere did such an
Indo-European social system become as rigid a system of birth as there. The rigidity may well be due to the influence of the idea of karma, that poor birth is morally deserved.

According to the Laws of Manu, when the twice born come of age, they enter into the four âśramas, ,
or “stages of life.” I notice that dictionaries I have, both of
Sanskirt and Hindi, say that these apply to Brahmins. But there is no
doubt, from the Laws of Manu and from the history, that all they
apply to all the twice born. Nevertheless, various anomalous
constructions of the system occur.

Thus the Vâmana Purâṇa confines the stage of wandering
ascetic to Brahmins, denies studenthood to Vaiśyas, and allows
householdership to Śûdras. Denying studenthood to Vaiśyas and allowing
any âśrama to Śûdras contradicts almost every authority on dharma, including other parts of the Vâmana Purâṇa
itself. These provisions apparently result from the kind of
systematizing beloved of the tradition, i.e. that Brahmins live four
stages, Kṣatriyas three, Vaiśyas two, and Śûdras one. An element of
that may reflect the actual debate that, since marriage defines
householdership, and since Śûdras do legitimately marry, then they
legitimately become householders. Nevertheless, the âśramas were
only rarely allowed to include the once born, and at times Śûdras were
sanctioned with death for ascetic practices. More orthodox but still
anomalous is the version in the Vaikhânasa Dharmasûtra, which allows all four âśramas
for Brahmins, the first three for Kṣatriyas, and the first two for
Vaiśyas. This excludes Śûdras and provides studenthood for Vaiśyas, but
it limits or abolishes the ascetic stages outside the Brahmin varṇa.

Less systematized was how long the stages should each last, and various versions can be found. The Nâradaparivrâjaka Upaniṣad
specified 12 years for a student and 25 years for both householder and
forest dweller. Adding the 8 years of childhood for a Brahmin, this
adds up to 70 years — coincidentally the Biblical “three score and
ten.” The ideal Indian lifespan, however, was more like between 100 and
116 years, which leaves a very long time for the Brahmin to be a
wandering acetic. I suspect that it would have been unusual, however,
for a Kṣatriya or Vaiśya to have lived with a teacher even as much as
the share of the first 20 years allowed by their later coming-of-age.

1. The first is the brahmacarya, , or the stage of the student (brahmacârî ). For boys, the student is supposed to go live with a teacher (guru, ), who is a Brahmin, to learn about Sanskrit, the Vedas, rituals, etc. The dharma, ,
   of a student includes being obedient, respectful, celibate, and
   non-violent. “The teacher is God.” The student is supposed to be
   respectful of the teacher even behind his back. A comparable status of
   the teacher, without quite the same religious dimension or obligation,
   can be found in China.
   For girls, the stage of studenthood coincides with that of the
   householder, and the husband stands in the place of the teacher. Since
   the boys are supposed to be celibate while students, Gandhi used the
   term brahmacâri to mean the celibate practitioner that he thought made the best Satyagrahi, the best non-violent activist. There may be an echo in this of the provision in the Laws of Manu
   that a student, a Brahmin in particular, may remain with his teacher’s
   family for his entire life. This is one of the points in the tradition
   that conflicts with another proposition in Manu, that “if a
   twice-born seeks renunciation without studying the Vedas, without
   fathering sons, and without offering sacrifices [i.e. discharged the
   “three debts”], he will proceed downward [The Law Code of Manu,
   translated by Patrick Olivelle, Oxford, 2004, 6:37, p.101]. In
   completing his time with a teacher, the student takes a ritual bath, and
   thus becomes a , snâtaka,
   a “bath-graduate.” This may be regarded as the equivalent of becoming a
   householder, but it is distinct both from the ritual return to the
   parents, the samâvartana, and from the marriage that genuinely
   establishes a householder. These ritual separations are also consistent
   with the practice of disfavored alternatives, such as continuing as a
   student for life or renouncing ordinary life as a forest dweller or
   wandering ascetic. Because of this possibility, one dharma authority called the pre-graduate student a vidyârtha, , “desirous of knowledge,” and only the post-graduate student a true brahmacârî. This distinction, however, did not catch on.

2. The second stage is the gârhasthya, , or the stage of the householder, which is taken far more seriously in Hinduism than in Jainism or Buddhism
   and is usually regarded as mandatory, like studenthood, although debate
   continued over the centuries whether or not this stage could be skipped
   in favor of a later one (especially with Brahmins). Being a
   householder is the stage where the principal dharma of the person
   is performed, whether as priest, warrior, etc., or for women mainly as
   wife and mother. Arjuna’s duty to fight the battle in the Bhagavad Gita comes from his status as a householder. Besides specific duties, there are general duties that pay off the three Ṛṇa, , “Debts”:
   1. a debt to the ancestors, the Manes in the
      comparable and probably related Roman practice, that is discharged by
      marrying and having sons. One may not be regarded as a true householder
      until married;
   2. a debt to the gods that is discharged by the household rituals
      and sacrifices, which in general cannot be performed except by man and
      wife together; and
   3. a debt to the teacher and the seers that is discharged by
      becoming a student and then appropriately teaching one’s wife, children,
      and, for Brahmins, other students.

   The three debts are sometimes associated with the three Gods of the Trimûrti
   — the ancestor debt with Brahmâ, the gods debt with Viṣṇu, and the
   teacher debt with Śiva. One way the debts were discharged is through
   the five daily Mahâyajña, , or “Great Sacrifices”:

   1. the pitṛyajña, ,
      offerings of food and water to the ancestors, without which the Manes
      were originally believed to suffer in the afterlife, a reference to
      which still occurs at Bhagavad Gita 1:42;
      
   2. the devayajña, , sacrificial offerings to the gods, as a fire oblation, requiring that a sacred fire be kept in the house (like the Persian fire altar), a ritual act that, again, can only be performed by husband and wife together;
      
   3. the brahmayajña, , Vedic recitation or study as devotion;
      
   4. the bhûtayajña, , offerings to all beings, the bali, , offering, which may be food thrown into the air and largely consumed by birds; and
      
   5. the manuṣyayajña, , human (manuṣyâ) offerings, through charity or hospitality.
      

   What we do not see in these specific practices it anything that would discharge the debt to the teacher, unless it is the brahmayajña.
   Nevertheless, while the number the debts is all but universally given
   as three, there are texts that add a debt of hospitality as a fourth.
   Thus, there is a curious connection between the three debts and the five
   sacrifices, which is reminiscent of that between the three guṇas and the five elements, seen elsewhere. The original three elements clearly match up with the guṇas,
   but later expand, while the sacrifices may easily be seen as
   discharging particular debts — hence the temptation to posit a debt of
   hospitality. The two systems, however, have resisted complete
   systematization and identification.

   The burden of the debts and the sacrifices
   addresses the first and socially most important of the four aims or
   values of life, the puruṣârtha, . While it has become common to link the puruṣârtha to the âśramas,
   this is a recent occupation that is based on no classic texts.
   Nevertheless, it is reasonable to wonder how the aims and the stages of
   life do relate to each other.

   1. dharma, ,
      the manner of one’s duties, determined by caste, sex, and stage of
      life. Dharma applies in being a student, a householder, and, in
      attenuated form, a forest dweller. The wandering ascetic is beyond
      dharma and beyond caste but, however, is restricted to men.

   2. artha, ,
      is material success in life, and the word can mean business, work,
      profit, utility, wealth, money, and also political experience and
      knowledge. It can involve practical wisdom at both the personal and public level, like οἰκονομία
      in Greek. As such, it is a concern only for householders, and not in
      the least for students, forest dwellers, or wandering ascetics. The
      householder, indeed, surrenders his possessions to his sons on becoming a
      forest dweller. However, the wisdom of the forest dweller or even the
      wandering ascetic sometimes may have application in public affairs. The
      study, theory, or text on artha is arthaśâstra, . Although previously including works that might be compared to Machiavelli’s The Prince, in Hindi, arthaśâstra now just means “economics.” For politics, Hindi has a new word, râjtantra, , which is the tantra, the “basis, chief doctrine, theory,” of râj, “kingship.”

   3. kâma, ,
      is pleasure, which is a concern that also may be confined to the
      householder, but it can also exist in attenuated form, or as a matter of
      yogic practice, in the forest dweller.

   4. mokṣa, ,
      is liberation or salvation, which in Hinduism (as in Jainism and
      Buddhism) will mean leaving the cycle of rebirth. This is the primary
      concern and occupation of the forest dweller and the sole concern of the
      wandering ascetic. The doctrine of karmayoga, , expounded in the Bhagavad Gita, means that liberation can be obtained by the householder in the course of practicing his dharma.
      Also, we would expect that the life long student, who never becomes a
      householder, would also have this as an exclusive focus, even while
      fulfilling his duties to his teacher. Karmayoga, however, has not been a popular practice in modern religion, and is sometimes not even regarded as a means to salvation.
      
3. The third stage is the vânaprasthya, , the stage of the forest dweller, or vaikhânasa, , the anchorite. This may be entered into optionally, according to Manu,
   if (ideally) one’s hair has become gray, one’s skin wrinkled, and a
   grandson exists to carry on the family. Husbands and wives may leave
   their affairs and possessions with their children and retire together to
   the forest as hermits. A hermit cannot step on plowed land. This does
   not involve the complete renunciation of the world, for husbands and
   wives can still build a shelter, a kuṭi, ,
   have sex (once a month), and a sacred fire still should be kept and
   minimal rituals performed. This stage is thus not entirely free of dharma.
   The Forest Treatises were supposed to have been written by or for
   forest dwellers, who have mostly renounced the world and have begun to
   consider liberation. I am not aware that forest dwelling is still
   practiced in the traditional way. The modern alternatives seem to
   consist of the more stark opposition between householding and becoming a
   wandering ascetic. Forest dwelling is an institution that doesn’t
   really develop as such in Jainism
   and Buddhism, although we do have the Buddha repairing to a forest
   outside the traveling season — a practice that will develop into
   Buddhist monasticism. Hinduism, which might be said to now lack true
   monasticism — i.e. there are no monasteries or convents — nevertheless
   has mendicants and hermits, where the hermits include these forest
   dwelling married couples. The idea that husbands and wives would engage
   in ascetic practices together, without celibacy, would appear
   extraordinary. In those terms, it is an unfortunate loss if the
   institution does not continue in modern Hinduism. We see a good deal of
   forest dwelling in the Mahâbhârata,
   where Paṇḍu, who himself is on a kind of retreat with his wives in the
   forest, hoping to overcome his strange reluctance to consummate his
   marriages, accidentially kills an adept and his wife, who have assumed
   the form of animals, in the very act of their copulation — and so is
   cursed. Paṇḍu and his wives had previously accepted (non-sexual)
   instruction from this very couple. Such an episode not only illustrates
   various uses for forest dwelling, but it reveals that specifically
   sexual practices can be among them. It is ironic that forest dwelling
   should have become obsolete, when the term âśrama, , originally
   meant a “heritmage” — and might consist of the dwellings of multiple
   couples, other hermits, and an instructing teacher — and when it
   continues in modern usage, as Hindi âśram, to mean a spiritual
   retreat, not unlike the original forest dwelling. The modern Ashram,
   however, is not seen as part of traditional life and is often associated
   with non-standard or even disreputable teachings and practices from
   popular and sometimes heterodox gurus.

4. The fourth stage is the sannyâsa (sãnyâsa), , or the stage of the wandering ascetic, the sannyâsî (sãnyâsî), , sâdhu, , or bikṣu, .
   If a man desires, he may continue on to this stage, but his wife will
   need to return home; traditionally she cannot stay alone as a forest
   dweller or wander the highways as a mendicant ascetic, begging for food.
   The sannyâsî has renounced the world completely, is regarded as dead by his family (the funeral is held), and is (usually) beyond all dharma
   and caste. He (usually) surrenders the sacred thread he received when
   he came of age, and all the sacrifices and rituals of daily life are
   abandoned. Not just ritually but legally the sannyâsî is
   released from debts and contracts, cannot enter into legal transactions
   or be a witness in court, and is supposed to be immune from fines,
   tolls, and taxes. Indeed, with no possessions, it is not clear how an
   ascetic could be responsible for the latter. When a sannyâsî enters a Hindu temple, he is not a worshiper but one of the subjects of worship. Not even the gods are sannyâsîs (they are householders), and so this is where in Hinduism, as in Jainism and Buddhism, it is possible for human beings to be spiritually superior to the gods. It has long been a matter of dispute in Hinduism whether one need really fulfill the requirements of the Laws of Manu (gray hair, etc.) to renounce the world. The Mahâbhârata
   says that Brahmins may go directly to Renunciation, but it also says
   that the three debts must be paid — and the debt to the ancestors could
   only be paid with husbands and wives living together either as
   householders or, if renunciates, as forest dwellers (indeed, the
   Pâṇḍavas are all born in that way). There are definitely no such
   requirements in Jainism or Buddhism. The Buddha left his family right
   after his wife had a baby, to the distress of his father, which would
   put him in the middle of his dharma as a householder (today there would be lawsuits). Buddhism and Jainism thus developed monastic
   institutions, with monks and nuns. For a while, it looked like
   something similar might develop in Hinduism. By the 8th century AD, a
   Brahmin might enter a monastery, a maṭha, ; but such institutions seem to have died out, and the dharma
   authorities never recognized a renunicatory way of life apart from
   mendicancy. Today, while wandering ascetics are rather like mendicant
   monks, we lack monasteries and nuns, and the Hindu ascetics are,
   ideally, supposed to have already lived something like a normal, lay
   life. Of course, there is no certification or enforcement of this, as
   historically it has been often disputed. Chapter Three of the Bhagavad Gita
   embodies a debate of just such an issue. What if someone renounces the
   world and changes their mind? Having abandoned caste and dharma,
   he does not get them back. The authorities regarded an ascetic
   “apostate” as an Outcaste; and if he marries, his children will also be
   Outcastes. However, the Mahâbhârata contains the extraordinary
   feature that an ascetic is invited in to sire children on two queens
   whose husband has just died, leaving no heirs. This is how Dhṛtarâṣṭra
   and Paṇḍu were themselves conceived. The first is blind because his
   mother closed her eyes to the frightening aspect of the ascetic, while
   Paṇḍu is “pale” because of the fright his mother experienced for the
   same reason.
   

The four stages of life may, somewhat improbably, be associated with the four parts of the Vedas:
the saṃhitâs with the stage of the student, who is particularly
obligated to learn them; the brâhmaṇas with the stage of the
householder, who is able to regulate his ritual behavior according to
them; the âraṇyakas with the stage of the forest dweller, who regulates
his ritual behavior according to them and who begins to contemplate
liberation; and finally the upaniṣads with the stage of the wandering
ascetic, who is entirely concerned with meditation on the absolute, Brahman.

The twice born may account for as much as 48% of Hindus, though I
have now seen the number put at more like 18% — quite a difference but
more believable. The Śûdras (58% of Hindus) may represent the
institutional provision that the Arya made for the people they already
found in India. The
Śûdras thus remain once born, and traditionally were not allowed to
learn Sanskrit or study the Vedas — on pain of death. Their dharma is to work for the twice born. But even below the Śûdras are the Untouchables, (aspṛśya), “not to be touched” (24% of Hindus), who are literally “outcastes,” (jâtibhraṣṭa), without a varṇa,
and were regarded as “untouchable” because they are ritually polluting
for caste Hindus. Some Untouchable subcastes are regarded as so
polluted that members are supposed to keep out of sight and do their
work at night:  They are called “Unseeables.”

In India, the term “Untouchable” is now regarded as insulting or politically incorrect (like Eta in Japan for the traditional tanners and pariahs). Gandhi’s Harijans, (”children of God”), or Dalits,
(”downtrodden”), are prefered, though to Americans “Untouchables” would
sound more like the gangster-busting federal agent Elliot Ness from the
1920’s. Why there are so many Untouchables is unclear, although caste
Hindus can be ejected from their jâtis and become outcastes and
various tribal or formerly tribal people in India may never have been
properly integrated into the social system. When Mahâtmâ Gandhi’s
subcaste refused him permission to go to England, as noted above, he
went anyway and was ejected from the caste. After he returned, his
family got him back in, but while in England he was technically an
outcaste. Existing tribal people as well as Untouchables are also
called the “scheduled castes” or “scheduled tribes,” since the British
drew up a “schedule” listing the castes that they regarded as backwards,
underprivileged, or oppressed.

The Untouchables, nevertheless, have their own
traditional professions and their own subcastes. Those professions
(unless they can be evaded in the greater social mobility of modern,
urban, anonymous life) involve too much pollution to be performed by
caste Hindus:  (1) dealing with the bodies of dead animals (like the
sacred cattle that wander Indian villages) or unclaimed dead humans —
and the caste charged with conducting cremations on the ghats (ghâṭ, ) at Benares, the most sacred place for a funeral in India [note], nevertheless is itself of Untouchables — castes dealing with corpses may specifically be called câṇḍâla (cãḍâla), ,
castes; (2) tanning leather, from such dead animals, and manufacturing
leather goods; and (3) cleaning up the human and animal waste for which
in traditional villages there is no sewer system. Mahâtmâ Gandhi
referred to the latter euphemistically as “scavenging” but saw in it the
most horrible thing imposed on the Untouchables by the caste system.
Latrines might be cleaned out by hand, or with no instrument more modern
than a piece of cardboard. Gandhi’s requirement on his farms in South
Africa that everyone share in such tasks comes up in an early scene in
the movie Gandhi. Since Gandhi equated suffering with holiness,
he saw the Untouchables as hallowed by their miserable treatment and so
called them “Harijans” (Hari=Viṣṇu). Later Gandhi went on
fasts in the hope of improving the condition of the Untouchables, or at
least to avoid their being politically classified as non-Hindus. That
Untouchables have over time had recourse by conversion to other
religions, most recently Buddhism or the Baha’i Faith, but historically
mostly to Islâm, has added an element of caste prejudice to Hindu-Muslim
relations.

Today the status of the Śûdras, Untouchables, and other
“scheduled castes,” and the preferential policies that the Indian
government has designed for their advancement ever since Independence,
are sources of serious conflict, including suicides, murders, and riots,
in Indian society. Meanwhile, however, especially since economic liberalization
began in 1991, the social mobility of a modern economy and urban life
has begun to disrupt traditional professions, and oppressions, even of
Untouchables. Village life and economic stasis were the greatest allies
of the caste system, but both are slowly retreating before modernity in
an India that finally gave up the Soviet paradigm of economic planning.
However, in such a large country, with much of the population still in
rural areas, and with some jurisdictions, such as Bengal, still
celebrating Communist ideology and economics, Indian society still has a
long way to go.

The most complete treatment of the âśramas that I know of is in The Âśrama System, The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution,
by Patrick Olivelle [Oxford, 1993]. Much of the information here is
now from this source, even when it is not specifically referenced.
Earlier sources include The Philosophical Traditions of India, by
P. T. Raju [University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971], which I had in a
course while obtaining my Masters degree in Philosophy at the University of Hawai’i, 1972-1974.

The images of representatives of the four varṇas above are taken The Horizon History of the British Empire,
edited by Stephen W. Sears [American Heritage Publishing/BBC/Time-Life
Books/McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973]. Occasionally I receive inquiries
about the source of the images or requests for permission to reuse
them. Without holding the copyright, I cannot give permission for their
commercial use; and I don’t think that the quality of the reproductions
here warrants their inclusion in more polished productions. They are
featured on this page under the rubrick of the “fair use”
of copyrighted material, since they represent very little of the
original work, are not used here for sale or profit, and their inclusion
can involve no financial loss or harm to the original publisher and
copyright holder. Since the original work was published more than 40
years ago, the original copyright should have lapsed, except that they
keep extending the duration of copyright, and I have not kept up with
the new numbers. The provenance of the images themselves is not given
in the original work, in line with the more casual attitude of the time;
and if they are actually reproductions from some traditional Indian
source (as they look, or are made to look), then they have always been
in the public domain and their inclusion in The Horizon History constitutes no claim on them.

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The Caste System and

the Stages of Life in Hinduism; Note 1; Suttee

The idea that suttee, ,
was just a way of protecting widows from rape by British soldiers was
seriously asserted to my wife by an Indian woman, an academic, at a
conference. I expect it is something widely believed. However, suttee
is attested long before the British arrived in India, or even existed.
Thus, the practice was observed among the Hindus of Java in 1407 by the
Chinese who sailed there under Admiral He. Most remarkably, we have an extended account of it by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus.

As it happened, there was an contingent from India in the army of Eumenes, one of the Successors of Alexander the Great. At the battle of Paraetacene in 317 BC, the leader of this group was Ceteus, Κητεύς, and we get this account from Diodorus:

This extended and detailed passage, which I have abbreviated, is
remarkable in several respects. Like what the Chinese observed on Java,
this event does not even occur in India, but in Persia. Nevertheless,
the women are among their own countrymen and family and are not acting
out of any concern beyond their own customs. We also might note that if
a widow were being killed to be protected from rape, it is odd that
only one out of two should benefit from that protection. And then there
is the date, which is in the 4th century BC, contemporaneous with the
reign of Chandragupta Maurya in India. This probably antedates even the great epics, the and the , in which the practice is attested.

Although a correspondent has denied this, in the Râmâyaṇa the virtuous follows her husband , the 7th Incarnation of Viṣṇu, to the funeral pyre. However, there are versions of the Râmayana
where Râma outlives Sîtâ because she has vanished into the Earth,
whence she had been born. So one could deny the suttee of Sîtâ in good
faith.

However, of the two wives of in the Mahâbhârata, the younger, , follows her husband in death, as in the story from Diodorus. The older wife, , stays with the children.

Other references to suttee can be found in “Hobson-Jobson,” A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases,
by Henry Yule & A.C. Burnell [1886, 1985, Curzon Press, 1995].
Yule and Burnell cite Strabo (c. 20 BC), St. Jerome (c. 390 AD), Marco
Polo (1298), Ibn Batuta (c.1343), and many others referring or attesting
to the practice of suttee [pp.879-882]. There can be little doubt that
the practice was of ancient and venerated observance and had nothing to
do with modern imperialism or the British.

Why it occurred at all is a good question. According to the Laws
of Manu, widowers can remarry, and are expected to, but widows cannot.
As even reported by Diodorus, widows cannot engage in religious rites.
However, this is also true for widowers, until they remarried. Vedic
household rites require a married couple. In turn, widows cannot return
to their birth family and are thrown on the mercy of their in-laws.
Without children, it will not be obvious to the in-laws why such a woman
should be supported, even minimally, the rest of her life. And in
arranged marriages, the normal tensions and estrangements between young
brides and their in-laws are liable to go beyond even the lore of such
things familiar in the West. The motive to be rid of the widow will be
strong, and everything from forceful encouragement to force itself is to
be expected. Recent cases of suttee in India, initially investigated
as suicides (with the attendant crime of “assisting in a suicide”),
evolved into murder cases. The British, having nothing to do with the
origin of suttee, are the ones who made it illegal.

Return to Text

The Caste System and

the Stages of Life in Hinduism; Note 2; Benares

The name of the sacred city of Benares in Hindi is Banâras, . In Sanskrit the name is Vârâṇasî, . The appearance of a Hindi “b” for Sanskrit “v” is something we also see elsewhere, as in the Hindi name of the month for Sanskrit . We also see this “b/v” correspondence in the name of the Beas River.

Curiously, the Sanskrit name has become the standard politically
correct name for Benares, despite the perfectly good name in Hindi, and
despite the Sanskrit name containing a letter
for a retroflex sound that does not exist as an independent phoneme in
Hindi. For anyone not deliberately pronouncing the name as Sanskrit, the is pronounced like an ordinary dental .

I am intrigued about how something like this happens. The
English name “Benares” is simply based on the name in Hindi, which is
the dominant language of the region. Yet people seem to think that
names like this get changed in order to reject the history of British
imperialism. But the British had nothing to do with it. Restoring a
Sanskrit name would seem to involve a rejection of most of the history
of India. And if “imperialism” has any relevance, perhaps this would be
a rejection of the Empire of the Moghul Emperors, under whom the modern form of Hindi developed. This does not seem to be candidly admitted.

Even stranger is when I see the name “Varanasi” given in Urdu, using the Arabic alphabet, i.e. as . I have examined elsewhere
how Hindi and Urdu are in origin the same language, previously called
“Hindustani.” Hindustani from the beginning contained an element of
Arabic and Persian, which persists even in Hindi. The languages diverge
when Hindi borrows or substitutes words from Sanskrit, and Urdu
continues to draw on Arabic and Persian. Urdu does not borrow words
from Sanskrit. Its speakers would have no reason or inclination to do
so.

Thus, I find it incredible that “Varanasi” would actually be used
in Urdu; and given the Muslim origin of Hindustani, it is preposterous
that Muslims would have an interest in losing the history of their own
language in order to adopt a name from Sanskrit, the sacred language of
Hinduism. This is at a whole different level of values, if not
conflict, from the State of Maharaśtra
rejecting the English and Hindi names of Bombay on behalf of the name
“Mumbai” in the Marathi language. My suspicion, therefore, is that the
Urdu version of the name “Varanasi” has been hopefully produced and
offered by someone trying to introduce political correctness into the
usage of Urdu speakers, i.e. Muslims. For all I know, this may be
succeeding; but I would be astonished.

Return to Text

சாதி அமைப்பு மற்றும் இந்து மதம் வாழ்க்கை நிலைகள்
www.friesian.com
அதன் சமயம் சார்ந்த நியாயப்படுத்தல்கள் ஒரு கணக்கு உட்பட சாதி அமைப்பு, ஒரு அடிப்படை அறிமுகம்.
சாதி அமைப்பு மற்றும்
இந்து மதம் வாழ்க்கை நிலைகள்