India and the Caste System
Alternative Form of Neo-Kinship
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Outline: India
• 1) Social system
– Caste and its Origins
• 2) Origin of caste system
– Original technology: iron age
• 3) Political level
– Short-lived imperial dynasties – feudal: Why?
• 4) Compare
– China – social structure
– Greece – technology
• 5) Beliefs: Karma, Reincarnation
– Bhagavad-Gita
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1) Caste System is a Kinship System
• A caste (varna) is an intermarrying group
– Kinship; hereditary membership
• A caste eats together
– A high-caste Brahmin does not eat with someone of a
lower caste; different diets for different castes
• Divided by occupation: priest, warrior, merchant,
peasant
• Legal status, rights based on caste membership
– Gandhi was refused permission to study in England
• Visible identifiers of caste,
– e.g., the “bindi” colored dot between the eyebrows
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Religious origin of caste hierarchy
• Dismemberment of Purusha (272)
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Head (mouth): Brahmin (priest, teacher) (white)
Arms: Kshatriya (rulers, warriors) (red)
Legs: Vaishya (landlords, businessmen) (brown)
Feet: Sudra (peasants) (black)
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Outcasts
• Pariahs -- Untouchables, outcastes
– –polluting work (dealing with cowhide,
excrement, scavengers, landless laborers, etc.)
– 200 million today
– Phoolan Devi, “The Bandit Queen”
– Dalit (oppressed); “Harijan” (Gandhi: Children of
God)
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Development of Castes: Jati
• Subcastes of religious-based varna-castes
• Evolution of division of labor
– Occupations multiply: school teachers, brick layers
– Marry inside jati caste; observe eating, dietary
codes
• “tens of thousands” of jati-castes today
– Spodek 272
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Advantages of Caste System
• Problem of alienation in West; Middle East
– People from different kin groups move to cities
– Work with strangers
– Legal identity is external; abstract
• Caste system precludes alienation
– Live, work with fellow kin
– Side-by-side with other kin groups
– > Requires tolerance of different groups
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2) Origin of Caste system
• Varna = “color”
– Note colors assigned to each caste
• Variety of theories:
• “Apparently, the Aryans were even then thinking of a
social system that separated people by occupation
and sanctioned that separation through religion.”
(272)
• =System of separation of Aryans (light-skinned,
twice-born) and others (darker skinned, once-born)
(Dravidians)
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Neo-kinship
• Kinship + hierarchy = neo-kinship
– Kinship adapts to “civilization”
• “Twice born” castes
– Brahmin; Kshatriya; Vaishya
– Ritual rebirth
• “Once born”: Sudra
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Cultural Cohesion in a Divided
Subcontinent
• Subtitle of chapter eight (240)
• Geographical size and complexity
– But also isolated; easy to defend from outsiders
• Narrow mountain passes: Khyber Pass
– But India is vulnerable to outsiders
• Sociological diversity before Aryans
– Hunter-gatherers (“tribes”)
– Advanced civilization of Indus-Valley Dravidians
– Waves of “Aryan” immigrants
• Caste system = adaptation to diversity
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Short-lived dynasties
• 700-600 early states
– Iron age republics; monarchies
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324-185 BCE Mauryas (Spodek, 244)
320-540 CE Guptas (Spodek, 244)
Conquests by Hunas, Muslims, English
=> Weakness of political system: feudalism
Corollary of difference in forms of neo-kinship
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Early Republics
• “The leadership of the territories was centered in
specific family lineage groups, and as these lineages
grew larger and as they cleared more forest land to
expand their territorial control, the janapadas
[populated territories] began to take on the political
forms of states with urban capitals and political
administrations. Some constituted themselves as
republics, others as monarchies.” (244)
• What was the time-period of the early states?
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Iron Age neo-kinship civilization
• Clear the forests with iron tools
• Lineage groups = kinship
• Extend control over others (non-Aryans) =
neo-kinship: caste system
• States that emphasize kinship democracy:
republics
• States that emphasize hierarchical control of
one kinship group over others: monarchies
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3) Political weakness, cultural strength of
India
• “For the following 15 centuries [after the Maurya
Empire from 324-238 BCE], comparatively brief but
influential empires alternated with long periods of
decentralized and often weak rule. India
nevertheless retained a strong sense of cultural
unity, based in large part on its familial, social,
economic, and religious institutions, along with its
widely shared literary epics.” Spodek 245-6
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Feudal decentralization
• Recall Egypt’s and China’s long periods of
centralized rule,
• with short periods of feudal decentralization.
• In India, the reverse is the case:
• feudal decentralization predominates
– = Rule of local powers
• Evolution: from early republics (within ruling
group emphasized) to later monarchies (rule
over others emphasized)
– Recall China: clans rule over clans
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Indian Indifference to Politics
• Caste business of Kshatria: rule the state
• Caste business of Sudra: work, service
• => outside Kshatria caste, indifference to
politics: none of your business
• Highest caste: Brahmins – superior to rulers
• => politics is not the highest
• => difficulty of rule
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4) Compare to Confucian China
• Long-lasting dynasties
• Politics starts in the home: everyone’s private
business is the business of state
• “Mandate of Heaven” = religious basis of state
> right of revolution
– =Political religion; religious politics
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Unity v. Diversity
• China’s neo-kinship system unifies
– Clans conquer other clans with similar culture
– Head of ruling clan: father of all
– Unites society under ruler
• India’s neo-kinship system divides
– Aryan group rules others of dissimilar culture
– Aim: preserve unity of ruling group versus assimilation by
others
– Divides society into different groups
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Comparative civilizations
• 1) Regarding technology
– Iron age civilization
– Early republics found along Ganges: freedom!
– So: like Greece and Rome
• 2) Regarding social structure – neo-kinship
– Like China in preserving kinship
• =>Neo-kinship society that emphasizes
freedom of the individual
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5) Arjuna’s Crisis
• Scene of battle field of Kurukshetra
• Arjuna: man of action, perfect Kshatria
nobleman warrior
• Discovers that he cannot perform his duty
(dharma)
• He must kill his kinsmen—for what?
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“Better to live on beggar’s bread
With those we love alive,
Than taste their blood in rich feasts spread
And guiltily survive!”
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Crisis of kinship morality
• Focus on moral consciousness, duty
– As warrior
– Ordinary goals of warrior: power, wealth, pleasure
• But this action leads to conflict with kinship relations
– As brother, nephew, cousin
• How enjoy victory at such cost?
– Compare to Antigone: did Antigone’s brothers cry over
having to fight each other?
– Who cried? Explain
• Appeals to charioteer Krishna for guidance
– Divine “avatar”
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Solution to Arjuna’s problem
• Do your duty as a warrior prince – your destiny in
this life
• Without attachment to consequences (joy over
victory, sorrow over deaths etc.)
– Get off the emotional rollercoaster!
• What is killed is not the true Self, but the shadow,
the illusion – which does not really exist anyway
• What is real, the truth Self, is unkillable
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Karma and Reincarnation
• Karma (= action): we make our own reality
– Recall Greek idea of self-determined destiny
– We are free, but because of our blindness, we produce
what we don’t want
• “But I’m not responsible for being be born in my
(lower) caste”
• Yes you are, because of actions in a previous lifetime
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Different concepts of Reincarnation
• Plato’s NDE of Er
– Ulysses chooses quiet lifetime
– Freedom is to determine one’s own life
• Later concept of empire: freedom is affirmed
in unfreedom
– Stoicism in powerful Roman empire: You can’t
determine external events
– Hinduism of Indian feudalism: yes you can
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Debased conception of Karma/Action
• 1) Debased conception of action/Karma as
justification of caste system
– Purusha is divided into four castes as justification
of hierarchical state system
– Scientifically educated modern person discovers:
“I am not the feet of Purusha!”
• Why you are poor, lower caste
– Because of sins in past life
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Higher conception of Karma
• 2) Higher conception of Bhagavad-Gita: Four parts of
Purusha represent four basic spiritual personalities,
without hierarchy
– (1) Intellectual, spiritual personality
• – head, Brahmin
– (2) Government, protection, police, army
• arms, Kshatriya
– (3) Social relations, exchange, trade
• Legs, Vaishya
– (4) Work, making things
• Feet, Sudra
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Karma and Duty/Destiny
• (Bad) Karma: letting worry over external
consequences decide one’s action
– Arjuna worries about killing his relatives
– Unlike Polynices and Eteocles
– Arjuna is like Antigone! He cries too!
• Duty—Destiny: deciding on the basis of one’s
duty:
– Arjuna is a warrior, and should do his duty, follow
his destiny, without concern for consequences
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