Volume 3, No. 12, December 2002

The word caste is a Portuguese word signifying breed, race or kind. It is an intended rigid system of social stratification based on certain basic features : a) endogamy, b) hierarchy and difference, c) commensality, d) birth ascribed status, e) more or less caste based occupations and, f) group identity of an individual. A system of inequality, obviously arbitrary, was believed by the Hindus to correspond to the natural order of things. The division of labour in the extreme form of the unequal caste system was ideologically buttressed by the overarching power of Brahminism through the Varnashramic notion. The system in the Brahminical ideology has its laws for social and religious rights, practice, for divine recognition, service and ceremony, for errors, sins and transgression, for intercommunication, avoidance and excommunication, for defilement, ablution and purification; for fines and for punishments. This Varnashramic division of labour based on exploitation to extract surplus from the working masses drew all inspiration and justification from Brahminism. And in the modern age the full-throated support to such a cruel system of birth ascribed inequality came from the ‘Father of the Nation’, M. K. Gandhi. He said that the division of labour corresponding to Varnashrama is natural, hence good. If caste is the extreme form of a stratified system symbols as status, occupation, residence, language, etc. all fall in the domain of a well-ordered power relationship. Generally speaking, under the Brahministic system, in its heyday, it was the Sudras who did most of the menial jobs and the Vaisyas did agriculture, while the caste positions largely decided one’s access to property rights. An important characteristic of caste in the general traditional domination of Brahminism is that "an individual is born into a particular caste and cannot acquire the status of any other caste. This resulted in the check on individual social mobility. It also caused to be associated with a basic religio-philisophical concept of Hinduism, that of Karma—and he was in a position to improve it by conforming to dharma and being reborn at a higher status in his next incarnation..."

The dalits and tribals, the most oppressed section of the Brahminical order of the modern age, remained outside the four-varna system as completely marginalised people.

The Brahministic model of the caste system is still powerful in India. Louis Dumont, in his structuralist vision of Indian society said, "….it is necessary to distinguish between two very different things: the scale of statuses (called ‘religions’) which I name hierarchy and which is absolutely distinct from the fact of power; and the distribution of power, economic and political, which is very important in practice but is distinct in form, and subordinate to, hierarchy."

Such Brahministic formulations, if considered to be the ultimate reality, is political (or royal) power along with the Brahminic power concomitantly, ensured the extraction of surplus by these parasites for their living. As much the royal /political power helped the Brahmins reinforce political or royal power on the dominant caste. One cannot afford to ignore the fact that the system of maintenance and continuity of a hereditary existence of Brahmins at the very roots of the Hindu World, and the vast power to receive land grants, characterised the domination of the Brahministic Varnashram system. All exceptions and oppositions to Brahminism notwithstanding, the economically, religiously and politically privileged position of the Brahmins was and is still a fact of life.

It is not mere coincidence that the revisionist theoreticians of the CPI and CPI(M) while preaching a parliamentary way to socialism have stayed doubly cautious to launch any direct attack against Brahminism. A perusal of the vast body of documents since inception stuns an observer for the very few or negligible references to the reality of the caste system in India. The chronic obsession with electoral bargains have always compelled the revisionists to adjust themselves with caste equations. So it is the responsibility of the revolutionary Marxists to spearhead the attack against Brahminism and casteism as a part of the revolutionary process towards the annihilation of castes, destroying their socio-economic base. The Varna scheme and the ashrama scheme, one must admit, have lost some of their overarching power of the past. However, Veena Das observes, "when the history of one particular jati was being presented, the authors did not begin by placing that particular jati in relation to other like jatis. Instead, they first established the conceptual order of Hinduism by the use of categories taken from the varna scheme and the ashrama scheme and only then proceeded to discuss the caste within this order.’’ Such Brahministic ideology requires to be combated as a part of disseminating revolutionary consciousness. It is more so important at a time when the Brahministic, Hindutuva policy under the BJP dispensation is out to justify Brahminism, pushing the country to the brink of religious fascism. What follows is an appraisal of Brahminism, its birth, exploitative features and the need to fight and expose it among the masses.

Caste is a typical Indian phenomenon. Castes run into many thousands of sub-castes which are generally endogamous groups. In the Central Province (mainly Madhya Pradesh) alone, Russel writes, there are 250 groups which have been classified as castes, and they contain about 2000 sub-castes. This phenomenon of the caste functioning as the actual functioning unit of the system led many sociologists and anthropologists to consider sub-castes as the concrete manifestation of the caste system. Its origin is still a topic of vigorous debate among sociologists and indiologists. What comes out of that long-drawn theoretical battle is the emerging of, by and large, two opinions: First, there is the group of writers, following the trail of Risley, who took flight to the Vedic Social World in India after the Aryan advance on this land, whose consequence was caste formation. The Aryan people as an invading race enforced a caste-based stratified society in which they naturally held the upper rungs of the ladder, placing the natives in the Sudra category with all the handicaps associated with it. Some in this trend even categorically point out to Brahmin ingenuity behind the formation of castes on earth. As opposed to this view, and which has been emerging for sometime past, is a strident critique of the caste importation theory. The writers of this group prefer to trace the origin of the caste system to the Indian soil itself which later fitted in well with the invading power-domination and Brahmanical hegemony.

It is notable that Marx did never consider the birth of the caste system premised or the migration of the Aryan race, nor did he endorse the racial factor as basic to its growth. It is actually the result of a unique social development relating the Kinship relations of the remote past without dissolving into classes as in other societies. In this sense casteism preceded Brahminism and emerged as an ideological justification of the later stratified caste society inserting numerous castes into four broad categories of the Varna system.

The most ancient documents that we posses connected with the religion and society of India are the Vedas. The religion which is transmitted to us in the Rgvedic hymns is that Nature is throughout divine. Everything which is impressive by its sublimity, or is supposed capable of affecting us for good or evil, may become a direct object of adoration. For the basically pastoral tribe gods are predominantly male. The chief attribute of the Vedic gods is their power over the lives of men, moral values though sometime present but are of lesser importance. The gods were believed to respond benevolently to sacrifice. Winternitz observes that "The vedic singers implore the gods for help against the enemy, for victory in battle, for glory and rich booty; they pray for wealth, heaps of gold and countless herds of cattle, for rain for their fields, for blessing of children, and long life. As yet we do not find in the songs of Rgveda effeminate, ascetic and pessimistic trait of the Indian character with which we shall meet again and again in later Indian literature." It is rightly said that the Rgveda is the most "important source for the investigation of the earliest stages in the development of Indian religion. The Aryans trampled down the isolated primitive groups, and their beliefs and created the pre-condition for the formation of a new type of society. Their cheif contribution is the introduction of a new method of production on a vast scale by roping in previously separated people by force of cultural intrusions in new types of social organisations. The Aryans went on adopting whatever suited them from the non-Aryan people. They certainly knew the use of iron. The knowledge of agriculture from the non-Aryans, the techniques of potter’s, weaver’s and carpenters, etc. made possible a surplus food production necessery for a new social organisation. The Aryans who moved eastward from the Punjab were strikingly different from their ancestors after many centuries of intercourse with the non-Aryan people. The new organisation of the Aryan society was not solely constituted by the early Aryans, it absorbed any aborigines possible in the course of its spread , polygamy being highly effective in this regard.

The tribal Aryans brought about a fundamental change in the productive relations by forming a servile class from the conquered dasa population. Yet the conquered people were not an equivalent of the chattel slave, nor all dasas were of the same status, a section even rose high among the Aryans. We learn about Krishna (black) who occurs in Rgveda 8.96.13-15 among the seers. Such instances of black seers are many. In some cases the enemies of the Aryans were given respectable status in the new composite society as at one place Indra is described as converting the dasas into Aryas [Rv.VI.22.1]. Sayana explains this as teaching them the Aryan way of life. The word ‘Aryan’ gradually lost its racial sense and came to mean what Kosambi described as new Aryan cultural life. We may as well suppose that the non-Aryan priests and chiefs were given generally deserving positions in the new Aryan society.

In the Rgveda hymns we hear of cattle rearing and agriculture, of trade and deeds of war and of sacrifice, "there is not yet to be found in the hymns that caste-division, which imparts a peculiar stamp to the whole of social life of Indians of later times’’ till today. The Purush Sutra in which four Varnas — Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra — are mentioned is evidently a later interpolation. Certainly there were warriors and priests but no caste as such. During the Rgvedic period it was the custom that, at the king’s side there stood a house-priest (Purohita) who offered sacrifices for him. We hear often of sacrifices and ceremonies "which the pater-families perform without priestly aid" even the wives participated in the sacrifices.

"It is only in the Atharva-Veda,and therefore when the Aryans have already reached the Ganges country, that we meet the Brahmins as the highest representative of the priest-hood.’’ Brahminism grew out of Vedism. It taught the merging of all the forces in one universal spiritual being—the only, real Entity—which, when manifested as impersonal, was called Brahm (Mentor); when manifested as a personal creator was called Brahma (masculine);and when manifested in the higher order of men, was called Brahmana. In another way, the ancient word Brahman is approximately equivalent to "sacred power". The members of the priestly caste are called Brahmins (Brahmanas) as being men who are united to this power.

In the Aryan tradition the Brahmin like professional priest is nowhere found. When in the Yajurveda period regular settlements, rather than conquest of the land became the order of the day we find the fully developed ideology to divide the generally non-tribal population into 4-Varna based order: Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya, Sudra. The advancement from the hymns of Rgveda to the theology of the Atharvaveda, the Yajurveda and the Brahmanas reflected the physical movement of an Aryan cultural people towards the east. The order of the priesthood asserted itself more rigorously through the language of the old Hymns which gradually ceased to be understood by the priests and multitudes alike. The stereotyped hymns by then attained sacredotal character with the priesthood continuing distinct professions and they were hereditary. The Brahman, the man devoted to prayer and the intricacies of theology alone is qualified to celebrate the rites of religion with effect. The Brahman himself now performs a minimum role, he no longer prays, he only says prayers,with certain formulae, all readymade, to work with. A new institution came into being to impart special instruction in complex theology and related subjects to the Brahman, the brahmacharya; it was no longer a domestic affair. Schools were organised with all the restrictions. Knowledge became power, power over the unprivileged. Language became an instrument of domination. The Brahminical culture comprehends besides the great sacrifices as found in the Brahmanas, a certain number of rites as provided in particular Sutras under the title of domestic rites. The Brahmanistic ideology, except the Sutras, expresses in the best ways in the legislation which constitutes the ancient Smriti or traditional usage and from which proceed at later the Dharmacastras, or codes of laws, such that of Manu. The tribal king was always presented with gifts for the sacrifice; towards the end of the Rgveda period, the gifts are first mentioned as a bali tax, special prerogative of the chief (Rv.10.173.6 bali-hrtah)29. But under a full-fledged Brahminism gift became prerogative of the Brahmans. Cattle, gold, garments, food and later even lands were given as gifts.

The emergence of class phenomenon is not a feature of the post-Aryan period. The Chaturvarna system is nothing but the Brahministic way of presenting a social division. Caste in India embodied strong class like elements but the cultural, social aspects added to the caste made it a typical phenomenon, the parallel nowhere to be found. We come to it later.

Though the priest and warrior caste often clashed over privileges, over centuries they were generally united to keep down the Aryan peasant (Vaisya) and the Sudra. Sudras being placed at the bottom of the system they were subject to all sorts of restrictions and repressions.

Brahminism as an ideology has spared no pains to place the Brahmins at the top of social hierarchy. Clashes, we must find, occur frequently with the warring caste over supremacy, however, the ingenious skills of the Brahmans to adapt themselves to the new situations, absorbing or eliminating opposition ideas, desires etc., have given them a unique position in Indian society.

The Aryan expansion should not be taken as a simple migration of a people since, by this time, it meant a new way of life. New colonies were formed of Aryans and non-Aryans developing into an exclusive "Aryan" tribe later on. The use of iron tools and social relations of the advancing Aryan culture came to dominate through the Aryan language over the tribes lagging behind.

At that early stage of its development, Brahminism not only helped developed a stratified structure within the tribe with absolute kinship over the tribe, Brahmins traversed the inaccessible regions to preach a new way of life and spread the knowledge of agriculture and iron plough and were in many cases pioneers in settled life with an agricultural base. In the Rgveda long life in the world is the highest aim of life. But in the new period other-worldliness and escape from life came to dominate the literature, the chain of transmigration of souls being the new imagination.

In the period of the Atharvaveda Samhita, the Aryans of the Indus land spread themselves further east into the regions of the Ganges and the Jamuna. The part of India, the Doab between the Ganges and Jamuna, from the neighbourhood of Delhi to as far as Mathura, is still in the later periods, regarded as the actual Brahman land (Brahmavarta) whose customs according to the Brahmanical law-bosses should be adopted for the whole of India. This region is not only the land of origin of the Samhitas of the Yajurveda and of the Brahmanas but also the home of the whole of brahmanical culture, which first spread from here over the whole of India. The Brahmanic literature by then held the people of the eastern region of India as non-vedic and fallen.

This shift from the Indus land not only created a new way of life with new social organisation through the coming of the early Aryans and the indigenous population it caused significant changes in the religions of the Rgveda. Later vedas, particularly Atharvaveda and Upanishads, are embodiments of this syncretic process that shows the magnificent adaptive power of Brahmanism. The implication of this assimilation was far-reaching. If the early vedic culture is supposed to be a type of Aryan culture, the later development through intercourse with the non-Aryans proves to be a both-way traffic: Aryanisation of non-Aryan society as well as non-Aryanisation of the Aryan society. The old gods of the Rgveda still appear in the Yajurveda Samhitas and in the Brahmanas, just as in the Atharvaveda, but their significance underwent vast changes. Some new gods who played subordinate role in the Rgveda shot to prominance. The understanding of sacrifice was changing. The gods to whom the sacrifice was once directed for their gratification, becomes increasingly irrelevant as the act itself assumes greater significance and correspondingly the importance of the officiants increases. So also the older gods to whom sacrifice was offered inevitably declined in importance and those more intimately connected with ritual and the symbolism became more prominent..... Vishnu.....rises in importance.

We discuss the other vedas, particularly Atharvaveda since it contains in a significant way the wealth of popular religion, spells for the Healing of Diseases, the faith in numberless spirits, imps, ghosts, charms and formulae etc., repulsive to the Rgvedic standard which the clever Brahmins, even at the risk of splits in their ranks, absorbed since they constituted the part and parcel of non-Aryan tribes. Most of the beliefs were even remoter than that of the Rgveda Hymns. However, the songs of magic that we have no longer even in their original form in the Samhita, are brahminised. We see at every step, that the collection was made by priests, and that many of the hymns were also composed by priests. A whole class of hymns of the Atharvaveda is concerned only with the interests of the Brahmans, the feeding of priests, the fees for the sacrifice and such like, and they are, of course, the work of priests. We here meet Agni, Indra and so on but their original significance as natural beings is, mostly forgotten, they have all now become demon killers.

Also, in the Atharvaveda we find a whole series of magic incantations and exorcisms in the interest of Brahmans. In these hymns the inviolability of the Brahmans and their possessions is repeatedly emphasized in the strongest manner, and the heaviest curses are pronounced against those who assail the property and lives of the Brahmans.... All songs belonging to this class might unhesitatingly be included amongst the latest part of the Atharvaveda collection. Coming to Yajurveda, Wintermitz observes "some prayer-formulae of the Yajurveda are indeed nothing but spells in prose. Even exorcism and curses, quite similar to those with which we have become acquainted in the Atharveda, confront us among the prayers of the Yajurveda."

What is of interest to us is the significant change that followed in course of settled life in the ideal land of the Aryan culture. In the above vedas we find a society already well under Varnashram system led by the priestly class Brahmins.

Sometimes the popular belief of a considerable people may force its way into the pantheon of the dominating cultural group as an autonomous power. Siva is a case in point, we will come to it later. Often deities of the lower order shot to eminence. The goddess which had distinct entities, the early myths demoted them as the consort of some god of Aryan pantheon with many distortions. The invading Aryans in Greece too accepted the goddesses they found among the indigenous people. Minoans, Cretans, Mycaeneans, who were definitely matriarchal but the goddesses lost their prominence. In India also marriage of deities helped in absorption but nothing could root out the local cults from the minds and practices of the common man in spite of that absorption.

Coming to Atharvaveda, ‘the veda of the atharvan’ or ‘the knowledge as Magic Formulae’, originally the word atharvan meant, a fire priest and perhaps it is probably the oldest Indian name for ‘priest’ in general. The priest of this very ancient fire-cult, however, were still like the Shamans of Northern Asia and the Medicine-men of the American Indians ‘priests of magic’, that is priest and wizard combined in one person. The magician priests or ‘Shamans’ were concerned with the problems of common men. Practically speaking, during the post-Rgvedic period, particularly from the time of Yajurveda and Atharvaveda to the Upanishads in the ‘Aryavarta’ to diametrically opposite religions: the religion of the gorgeous Yajnas as formed in the Samhita and Brahman literature, and that of the small tradition constituting the magical rituals of the Shaman priests, etc. In about the end of first millennium BC there was an increasing growth of a number of kingdoms, the kings were inclined to appoint the magic priests to fulfil their ends. Only a section of those priests where elevated to the status of royal priests. With such new status of the priests of Atharvaveda the old school of priests no longer persisted in their disdain for the Shamans.

Briefly speaking in early Rigvedic period we find two social categories, the nobles or the Kshatriyas and the tribe men or Vaish but occasionally a third category of poet priests, Brahman was incorporated. However in the post Vedic literature mention is made of two categories of the twice born castes — Brahman, Kshatriyas and Vaishya — and the Sudras. At the normative level the Brahmans backed by political economic clout and ritualistic sanctions established their supreme position in society. In the actual material level sub castes or jatis operated and were perpetuated by elaborate hereditary rules related to the caste system. In Romilla Thapar’s words "Varna became what sociologists have called the ritual rank, whereas jati was the indication  of actual status."

By about 900 BC with increasing specialisation, economic interdependance of various sub castes and priests become very important. Sanskrit then became the language of learning and power, and the dominant role of the priests were reinforced by a value structure justifying each man’s socio economic position in the society. It is worth remembering that such developments were closely related with socio economic political structure. Contrary views were also very much against elaborate ideas, there were also oppositions to such elaboration of rituals, rites and sacrifices leading to the neo-orthodox exposition of the Upanishads. Upanishads in turn formed the basis of various philosophical schools. The development of hierarchy and evolution as a principle of intelligibility, concept of four Varnas and four stages of individual life, guru-chela system of education and in the last, but most important, the inclusion of Dharma (duty) as a condition of life were the fundamentals of Upanishads’ heritage.

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