There are literally There are thousands of sub castes in India, often with particular geographical ranges and an administrative or
corporate structure. When Mahatma Gandhi wanted to go to England
to study law, he had to ask his subcaste for
permission to leave India. ("Gandhi" means "greengrocer"
-- from gandha, "smell, fragrance," in Sanskrit -- and that should
be enough for a good guess that Gandhi was a Vaishya.) Sometimes it is denied
that the varn.as are "castes" because, while "true"
castes, the js, are based on birth, the varn.as are based on the theory of the gun.as (the
"three powers" mentioned in the Gita). This is no more than a
rationalization: the varn.as came first, and they are based on birth. The
gun.as came later, and provide a poor explanation anyway, since the gun.a
tamas is associated with both twice born and once born, caste and outcaste.
Nevertheless, the varn.as are now divisions at a theoretical level, while the
js are the way in which caste is
embodied for most practical purposes. Js themselves
can be ranked in relation to each other, and
occasionally a question may even be raised about the proper varn.a to which a
particular j belongs.
Associated with each varn.a 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 Varna, 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 Vis.n.u and his incarnations. Chief among those is Kr.s.n.a (Krishna),
whose name actually means "black" or "dark," but he is always
shown blue rather than with some natural skin color.
The first three varn.as are called the twice
born. 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. 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 Ks.atriyas; and 12 for
Vaishyas. 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. 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
George Dum麩l. 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 ⳨ramas or
"stages of life."
The first is the brahmacarya, or the stage
of the student (brahmacⲩn). 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." 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 brahmacⲩ to mean
the celibate practitioner that he thought made the best Satyagrahi, the best
non-violent activist.
The second stage is the gⲨastya, 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. This 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 debts": a debt to the
ancestors that is discharged by marrying and having children; a debt to the
gods that is discharged by the household rituals and sacrifices; and a debt
to the teacher that is discharged by appropriately teaching one's wife or
children.
The third stage is the v⮡prastya, or the stage of
the forest dweller. This may be entered into optionally if (ideally) one's
hair has become gray, one's skin wrinkled, and grandchildren exist 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. This does
not involve the complete renunciation of the world, for husbands and wives
can still 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.
The fourth stage is the sannyⳡ, or the stage of the wandering ascetic, the sanny⳩n (or s⤨u). 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 an ascetic. The sanny⳩n has renounced the world completely, is regarded as dead by his family (the funeral is held), and is finally beyond all dharma and caste. When a
sanny⳩n enters a Hindu temple, he is not a worshiper but one of the objects of worship. Not even the gods are
sanny⳩ns (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. There are definitely no such requirements
in Jainism or Buddhism. The Buddha left his family right after his wife had a
baby, which would put him in the middle of his dharma as a householder.
Jainism and Buddhism thus developed monastic institutions, but these did not
really develop as such in Hinduism.
The four stages of life may, somewhat
improbably, be associated with the four parts of the Vedas: the sam.hitⳠwith the stage of the student, who is
particularly obligated to learn them; the br⨭an.as with the
stage of the householder, who is able to regulate his ritual behavior
according to them; the ⲡn.yakas with the stage of the
forest dweller, who regulates his ritual behavior
according to them and who begins to contemplate liberation; and finally the
upanis.ads with the stage of the wandering ascetic, who is entirely concerned
with meditation on the absolute, Brahman.
The twice born account for about 48% of
Hindus. The rest are Shudras and Untouchables. The Shudras may represent the
institutional provision that the Arya made for the people they already found
in India. The Shudras thus remain once born, and traditionally are not
allowed to learn Sanskrit or study the Vedas. Their dharma is to work for the
twice born. But even below the Shudras are the Untouchables, who are
literally "outcastes," without a varn.a, 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 impolite 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
(15%-20% or so of Hindus) is unclear, although caste Hindus can be ejected
from their js and become outcastes and various tribal or
formerly tribal people in India may never have been properly integrated into
the social system. When Mahⴭ⠇andhi'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,"
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, (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. Mahⴭ⠇andhi referred to the latter euphemistically as "scavenging" but saw in it the most horrible thing
imposed on the Untouchables by the caste system. His 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=Vis.n.u). 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. Today the status of the Shudras,
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 murders and
riots, in Indian society.
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