Caste System In India

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CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA INTRODUCTION The Indian caste system is a system of social stratification and social restriction in India in which communities are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jātis. The Jātis were hypothetically and formally grouped by the Brahminical texts under the four well known categories (varnas): viz Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (kings, warriors, law enforcers, administrators), Vaishyas (traders, bankers), and Shudras (Artisans, labourers, agriculturists, cattle-raisers, craftsmen, service providers). Certain people like foreigners, nomads, forest tribes and the chandalas (who dealt with disposal of the dead) were excluded altogether and treated as untouchables. The Brahminical scriptures and texts tried to bring this diversity under a comprehensible scheme which hypothesised four idealised meta groups called varna. The first mention of the formal varna Indian caste system is in the famous Purush Sukta of the Rigveda, although it is the only mention in the entire body of the Vedas and has been decried as a much later, non-Vedic insertion by numerous Indologists like Max Muller and also by Bhim Rao Ambedkar. The most ancient scriptures—the Shruti texts, or Vedas, place very little importance on the caste system, mentioning caste only sparingly and descriptively. Indeed, the only verse in the Rigveda which mentions all four varnas is 10.90, the Purushasūkta. A hymn from the Rig Veda seems to indicate that one's caste is not necessarily determined by that of one's family: Rig Veda 9.112.3 —I am a bard, my father is a physician, my mother's job is to grind the corn. In the Vedic period, there also seems to have been no discrimination against the Shudras on the issue of hearing the sacred words of the Vedas and fully participating in all religious rituals, something which became progressively restricted in

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