Topic started by Freedom and Equality (@ 12-245-58-124.client.attbi.com) on Tue Apr 15 12:43:07 .
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Introduction
Brahmins are probably one of the most controversial groups in India. They are supposed to have created the caste system, untouchability, dowry, bride burning, Sati and other assorted evils plaguing the Hindus. At least one writer blames the plight of gypsies in Europe on Brahmins. Any contemporary mishap or riot is inevitably linked to some element of Brahmanism, thus masking the real cause of the event. This article seeks to probe the history behind Brahmins and their evolution over the millennia. It seeks to probe the allegation made against them to see how much truth there is to it. I club all Brahmins into one monolithic group for simplicity of purpose -- although in reality, like in any other caste, there are many divisions and sub-divisions among them, including hierarchies of supposed superiority and inferiority. Even though this article is about Brahmins, it is written mostly for the non-Brahmins who have only listened to the European's theory about Brahmin supremacy. This is just a gist of what must have happened given all empirical evidence. Every event described herewith is so detailed that a person could write a Ph.D. thesis on it.
Ancient History (6000 BC -- 500 BC)
The Saraswati Valley civilization saw the formation of probably the oldest human society on earth. This period also saw the beginning of religion and farming. The inhabitants of this civilization organized themselves into four major groups based on occupation or Varna. The Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas were the trio supporting the Shudras. The shloka: Brahmano GyaniBhava, Kshatriyo VijayiBhava, Vaishyo DhanaSamudra Shudro SukhinoBhavantu says it all: Let the Brahmins be knowledgeable, Kshatriyas victorious, Vaishyas wealthy and the Shudras happy.
The founders of this system -- who were most likely Rishis with intense tapasya to their credit -- were of the opinion that Religion, Politics and Business are very potent entities, and hence should not mix with each other. They sought to keep these three separate not just in the public affairs, but also in social circles as well. They discouraged inter-marriage among the different Varnas. However, one belonged in a particular Varna not by birth, but by occupation. This system worked perfectly -- because no Varna was considered superior to the other. Moreover, the Varna system was just one dimension of society. There was also the belief in the Chakra System, and the inevitable re-birth.
Around 5000 BC, the Varna system had evolved. Fathers started training sons in their own Varna, regardless of whether the sons had the capability to perform in the Varna or not -- hence it became slightly difficult for people to switch Varnas. However, the system was self-correcting, and good ones from other Varnas eventually replaced cowardly Kshatriyas, immoral Brahmins and impulsive Vaishyas. During this time, the Saraswati had dried up and the whole of continental India was being settled. There were a lot of turf-wars taking place, and as a consequence, Kshatriya became a slightly more desired Varna.
One of the instances of Kshatriya supremacy is when the king of Mithila decreed that Brahmins were not needed to perform the religious yagnas, and appointed Kshatriyas to temples. Brahmins protested, arguing that the Kshatriya priests should give up fighting wars otherwise Religion and Politics would mix, thus polluting society. The king refused. The Brahmins retaliated by cursing him with childlessness. Eventually, after years of failing to have children, the king relented and asked for forgiveness. The Brahmins consoled him saying that Mother Earth would give him a child. Eventually, Sita of Ramayana was born to this king.
Another instance of Kshatriya supremacy around the same period was Kshatriyas killing Parashurama's parents. Parashurama refused to perform his Brahminical duties until the Kshatriya race was annihilated and people from other varnas formed a new Kshatriya order. Eventually, Rama of Ramayana brokered peace between Kshatriyas and Brahmins. However, Kshatriya power continued to rise, and reached a peak a few centuries later when the Mahabharata war broke out. That event wiped out more than half of the Kshatriyas and brought a balance to the varnas once again that would last until the Buddha was born.
500 BC -- 1100 AD
Buddha, a Kshatriya, almost wiped out Hinduism. He was strictly against the Varna system, and he preached that all men should have a goal of attaining salvation by being in the 7th Chakra. He challenged Brahmins to debate, and made mincemeat of them. Either they had to adopt Buddhism, or live in ignominy or leave the place and retire to the forest. He made religion very simple for the masses -- thus attracting a large following in a short time. Fire worship gave way to idol worship. Temple building began. Varna system collapsed -- intermarriage was the order of the day. Buddhist monks became businessmen and warriors as well. Vaishyas became kings. Kshatriyas became religious leaders -- and as a result, for the first time in the history of India, theocratic kingdoms came to being.
From Ashoka onwards, for almost 500 years, kings adopted Buddhism as a State Religion, thus spreading it far and wide. At its peak, around 300 AD, almost 80% of the population of India was Buddhist. Hinduism survived only in small pockets in the deep south, and in the holy cities like Kashi.
However, Buddhism started its decline around 400 AD. A lack of balance between the chakras, and an extremely loose social structure led to its downfall. Too many monks resulted in the monasteries being over-crowded by men who did not necessarily possess the traits required of monks. Thus monasteries turned from centers of learning to centers of Vyabhachara, the Sanskrit term for promiscuous. The common man, who would normally turn to the Brahmin for spiritual solace, had nowhere to turn to. Hence, his animal instincts took over. Violence and crime was rampant. Monasteries were full of gays -- and the women took to lesbianism. Birth rates fell. Cannibalism, which had been wiped out since the Vedic times, became rampant. The economic state of the country was in shambles. The period from 400 AD to 700 AD could best be classified as India's Dark Age. Around this time, in order to protect themselves from what was going on around them and to retain their purity, Brahmins closeted themselves from the rest of society. Untouchability was born. Brahmins forgot their purpose in the Varna system -- instead of being a moral and spiritual guide to the rest of the populace -- they isolated themselves into orthodox groups. This gave rise to excessive importance to rituals in those groups. Any Brahmin seeking to deviate from this was condemned to oblivion. This caused the state of the country to fall further down the precipice.
Around 700 AD, a Brahmin boy was born. A child prodigy, he mastered Sanskrit by the age of 3. By the age of 7 he was writing his own treatise on the Vedas. He saw what was wrong with the state of the country, and set forth northwards to reform religion. He knew that Buddhism had to be reformed and absorbed into Hinduism -- but he never tried to undertake this monumental task by himself since he knew that he was destined to die at a very young age. He concentrated on removing the undesirable traits in Hinduism, and he trained many followers in the true traditions of Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas. Even though Brahmins at that time looked down upon idol-worship as a Buddhist trait, he asked his followers to adopt it, since he knew that Buddhism could not be defeated without turning its methods against itself. He trained his followers in the art of debate -- something the Brahmins had lost over the last few centuries due to their self-imposed isolation. When he died at the age of 32, he left behind a legacy of temples, centers of learning and a small army of reformers and philosophers, and a sense of unity of purpose in all of them.
Soon after, the Brahmins started engaging Buddhist monks in debates. After initial rounds of defeat and dejection, they started getting better at it. Within a span of a century, the tide began turning against Buddhism. This tide peaked around 1000 AD when Ramanujacharya was born. He single-handedly was responsible for converting a large number of Buddhist monks and kings to Hinduism. He also played a role in reducing untouchability, and in some places eradicated it altogether.
The period from Shankara to Ramanuja later saw a resurgence of the Varna system. Hinduism went back to being the majority religion, reducing Buddhism to a mere 20%. Buddhism itself had become more Hinduised, and the monasteries were a center of learning for all faiths. Theocracy was abolished since Kshatriyas no longer played a religious role. The economy was back on track, and Indic sciences and literature saw resurgence. Cannibalism disappeared, and sexual promiscuity was eradicated by educating the common man about the superiority of controlled post-marital heterosexual sex with carvings on temple walls.
However, in an effort to do all these, the idea of an external invader with a completely different ideology never occurred to Brahmins, who were too busy instilling Bhakti in the common man who had been influenced by centuries of non-theist Buddhism. The nation paid the price for this.
Mughal Rule: 1100 AD -- 1700 AD
The ill effects of Mughal rule in India such as extermination of Buddhism, temple destruction, looting, slavery, mass slaughter in millions (a large percentage being Brahmins), etc have been documented and discussed at length. One aspect that has been overlooked by most is the ossification of Varna to Caste around this period. This process took at few centuries, and by 1500 AD, mobility across castes/varnas, inter-marriage, equality of all the castes/varnas, and other characteristics of Hinduism had eroded. One reason this happened is the excessive violence and brutality that the Hindus had to face. Another was a complete destruction of places of education and the flight of texts into Asia with the fleeing monks.
Perhaps, closeting themselves into narrow castes and sub-castes gave the Hindus an identity in those turbulent times, and it served as an effective tool against conversion. Caste system created a diverse society, and a diverse society is more difficult to subjugate since the invader will have trouble finding the key pressure point to deliver the deathblow. Hence, Hinduism survived the Islamic conquest unlike others in the world that had a homogenous society.
By 1700 AD, Mughals were on the retreat and Hindu kings were re-asserting their supremacy. Brahmins had started their rejuvenation of Hindu society by removing the undesirable traits that had developed over the last few centuries. They needed some more time; however, time was something fate did not give them. Hindu society faced yet another enemy -- more insidious that any other -- and this time the enemy struck at the Brahmins in a different manner.
British rule: 1700 AD -- 1947 AD
Like the Mughal rule, a lot has been written about the ill effects of British rule -- the robbing of the Vaishya (destruction of the de-centralized economy), the de-militarisation of the Kshatriya, the impoverishment of the Shudra (banning artisans, appropriation of land, creation of famines etc). However, for a long time the British could not make a dent into Brahmins. Since the British were not religious fanatics, they did not kill the Brahmins because of their faith. In fact, they respected them and used them to try to learn the Indic scriptures. Try as they might, they never got it right. What ended happening is that they made crude translations to which they added their Eurocentric comments. Their attempts to discredit Indic civilization met with in-difference from the Indians. They just did not listen to what the British said -- the Brahmin's word was good enough for them.
The British had almost given upon their quest to dominate the intellect of the Brahmin, when a watershed event occurred in the world that changed the course of history forever.
1850 AD: Education-dependant Professions/Vocations
All throughout history, poverty was the middle name for Brahmins. Even in situations where they held power over the people, the Shastras insisted that they be poor. Bhavati Bhikshan Dehi was a cry, which came most readily to Brahmins -- from the half-literate to Shankaracharya. Learning the scriptures, analyzing them and debating on them brought little benefit to the Brahmin, since that knowledge was used to give moral and spiritual support to the other three varnas. There was no money to be made with those skills since professions/vocations were delinked from education. The major professions all over the world -- not just in India -- in those times were army, farming, artisans (goldsmiths etc), artists (singers etc) and others like woodcutting, petty businesses etc. None of these required a formal education with a structured curriculum. Math, Logic, Memorization -- disciplines that Brahmins excelled in -- were of little professional use in society, apart from the usual precise methods of temple construction and city planning.
However, on or about 1850 AD, the Industrial Revolution was underway in full swing. This required people with strong academic skills who would be able to grasp mathematical concepts and turn them into concrete products that one could touch and feel. It needed people who could memorize concepts for academic excellence. In short, Brahminical traits were required in Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra professions. It was not enough for a Kshatriya to shoot an arrow straight -- the enemy had a cannon. Relationship between the mass of the cannon-ball, the thickness of the armor plate to be penetrated and the distance between the hunter and the hunted had to be calculated precisely, configured and manufactured on an industrial scale. Engineers were needed.
It was not enough for a Vaishya to be a middleman between the buyer and the seller. Goods were being manufactured on the assembly line. Precise accounts had to be kept. Product cycles began getting shorter and shorter. To develop better products one had to have a good grasp of the science behind it. Scientists and accountants were needed.
It was not possible for a Shudra to compete with organized manufacturing, especially since the British banned the product and sale of their goods. Even for a Shudra to work in a factory, some minimal formal education became a necessity. An increasingly complex set of rules and regulations gave rise to a large number of lawyers.
For the first time in the history of India, a structured learning environment -- Standards 1-12 followed by a specialized College Degree -- was introduced. Only those who could withstand the rigors of this hierarchical learning could hope to be something under the British rule. The Brahmin fit the bill perfectly. The British were stunned at the academic excellence displayed by the Brahmins (Vaishyas and Kshatriyas followed soon).
Brahmins became accountants, lawyers, engineers, scientists and professors en-masse. They also became very rich and influential in a very short amount of time. This success went to their head. British noticed that this fit into their plans for creating a class of Indians who were Indian in origin, but British in outlook. They removed the Brahmin's traditional dress, put a suit on top of him, placed a cigar in one hand and a Scotch in the other. They told him, “You are superior to the others because you do well in academics and because you are more fair-skinned than the others. But we are more fair-skinned than you are, so make sure you don't talk back at us.”
The Brahmin started looking down upon other Castes, and untouchability reared its ugly head again. The false worship of fair skin was born. Around this time, Brahmins started appropriating Indic sciences and art -- all of which belonged to and were created by people from the other Castes. They learnt Ayurveda, music, dancing, Yoga etc -- and they refused to teach it to any other than a Brahmin (but they taught their British masters!). They refused to teach Sanskrit, morality, spirituality to the people from the other castes -- their most basic function in the Varna system. They denied temple entry to lower castes. They refused to share the village well with people from the other castes. The Brahmin became the first Brown Sahib.
Meanwhile, there was a section of Brahmins who realized what was going on. They warned their richer counterparts about the perils of co-operating with the British -- over-centralization, degradation of the environment, increased dependence on British for basic necessities. However, they were dismissed as orthodox and scriptural.
Independence -- Present
After independence, the Brahmins entered politics and arts in a big way. There was also the realization that what had been perpetrated on the lower castes since a century was immoral and that they had to be compensated for the injustice, and thus the reservation system was born. Brahmins slowly started shedding their undesirable baggage of the last century and became more broad-minded. By and large, they entered the private sector and to some extent started joining the armed forces. Many left abroad for greener pastures.
The mass entry of Brahmins into Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra professions was accompanied by the mass exodus of Brahmins from the countryside. The other castes in the villages tried to follow suit -- they emigrated to the cities, only to find that only those educated in the British-imposed system could find jobs in the city. Thus, slums became a common feature in the city landscape. The villagers who were left behind became bereft of moral and spiritual advice, and the middle-castes among the villagers assumed the role of Brahmins without having the necessary skills to play the role. These middle castes have wreaked havoc on the castes lower to them in the hierarchy -- violence, something that Brahmins never perpetrated on those lower to them, has become commonplace in the countryside. This has left the lower castes vulnerable to the predatory tactics of Abrahamic religions.
Brahmins, whose Varna is supposed to counter that, are too busy making money in the stock market. Future Brahmins, who are by birth alone, should stop calling themselves so. Those who are Brahmin by disposition and Varna should relinquish control over Indic arts, sciences, and concentrate on removing the caste system and other baggage from Hindu society. They should not sit in air-conditioned rooms and cars in cities, and should instead go to the countryside to provide moral/spiritual support to the masses of the country. They should identify and recruit people from all the other castes who possess Brahminical traits and induct them into the Varna by giving them equal status and importance.
A new alignment of Varnas has to happen, with people from all the different castes finding a place most suitable for them. The above process has to be evolutionary in method. The Varna system has broken down for a few centuries. It took a while for it to break down. It will take at least half as long to bring it back to its glory. The effort initially has to start from the individuals -- inter sub-caste marriages for their children are a first step. The next generation should be open to inter-caste and inter-linguistic marriages.
A century or so from now, children of parents of a particular Varna should be able to choose the Varna of their choice, with no Varna being superior or inferior to the others. A few centuries from now, the Varna system should come back in its Vedic glory.
Conclusion
This article is written for the benefit of those who would like to participate in the evolution of Hinduism in a positive manner. Those who attack Hinduism, almost invariably attack Brahmins for their hegemony and brutality. The sequence of events shows that while the negative aspects of Hinduism were created by Brahmins, it was largely due to events they had little control of. It also shows the positive contributions made by this group over the millennia and how the positives outweigh the negatives many times over. This also should be an eye-opener for those Brahmins who feel an air of superiority due to a thread around their body. The evolution of Hinduism cannot happen without the non-Brahmin castes entering the Brahmin Varna. No one is superior or inferior -- everyone has an equal place in Hinduism.
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