Another question for Hindus and Indians

Its a Simple Classification made into Complex Problem... Varna is based on PROFESSION only... 4 groups.. 1. Brahmin - Person whose profession is Learning, Teaching, Priests, Medical Professionals, whose main works is based on Knowledge... 2. Kshatriya - Person whose profession is Protection of the Land both from Foreign and Internal enemies.. Army, Police, Law Enforcement, Security etc.. 3. Vysya - Person whose profession is Business, Trade, Money Related, Commerce, buy and sell, economics etc.. 4. Shudra - Person who work is to help the people of the above 3 professions so that they can render their services well.. These include the professions other than the above 3.. This later on due to selfishness became into Caste system. This is now a Political Issue also.. Christians in India tell that their religion is free from Caste System and Convert a Lot of Hindus to Christianity... But none of the People who get converted to Christianity is Given a Priesthood in a Church... Why ? ? ? ? Till Now, no pope is from African Region.. No Converted Christian has Been Made Pope.. Why ? ? ? This is Caste System of Christianity.. As the Converted Christians are not given the Priest/Bishop/Pope status after they Get converted to christianity.

hi murder i believe what you mean by varna is "caste" ... if it is that then my reply is as follows : In Hinduism Caste or Varna did not exist in the beginning .. yes when human were created they were created to perform tasks which they were expert in ... for example : when there is a family of doctors, you can see their children mostly will also follow the steps of their parents to pursue in "medical" based future eg scientist, doctors, pharma, ... similarly in hinduism that was the base of each human, each family or group were experts in their line of duty .. when this happened, people of the "prayers" group or as they call themselves of "higher caste" initially, looked high and mighty about themselves and edited whatever documents that the hindus had for their advantage .. as time goes it created some sort of split in the culture .. during the "Muslim" and "British" invasion to the country .. they capitalized on the "Divide and Rule" theory which proved advantageous to them too ... All of whichever documents which were left was manipulated by this so called "higher caste" then by "Muslims" and "British" Caste in actual Hindu means ... not by birth but by action ... meaning if i devote my life to God and Godhood i can claim to be a "brahmin" even if i do work as drain cleaner Similarly, a person of "bramin" blood but involves himself in vice can be categorised as a " @@@ " whatever you call the lower caste Hope this is the answer to your question dear cheers

Hey murderistic, my two good friends, Sanjana Aslam and Gadhisunu, have given such an eloborate and wonderful answers.So I do not have anything to add. I am a non brahmin, and if anybody asks me what is my caste, I have no hesitation, in telling them my caste. Regarding how you treat people of lower caste. How do you treat your friends, it is the same way. I live in a city, and I do not even know whether my neighbour is a Hindu or a Christian, so the question of how do you treat dalits does not arise.

Hi Murder, there is no need to get apologetic at all, in what you have asked. All Hindus owe an explanation of one of the most pernicious practices(as it exists today) in Hinduism. Sanjana, has already explained the genesis of caste and how it was truly birth-neutral in Vedic India. The castes of people were originally based on their occupation for livelihood and the natural proclivities of the person. Thus in Ancient and Vedic India caste had no overtones of superiority or inferiority whatsoever, and was just form of organization of siciety to work at Division of Labor, and specialization and mastery of any art or science. For quite a long period in history there was this race for supremacy between the Priestal Class(Called brahmins) and the ruling caste (called the Kshatriyas). One had the knowledge of The Vedas as their claim to slot one, and the other the political and administartive power over the people in addition. Since the Kshatriyas preoccupation with the Art of war made them progressively go away from intellectual pursuits though there is a large contribution to the highest intellectual content in the Vedas - viz THe Upanishads from the Kshatriyas, who in Orthodox rebellion against the Ritualism of the Principal part of the Vedas viz The Samhitas and BrahmaNas( not to be confused with the caste by that name) lost to the Priestal Class who were able to attract people with the magic of ritualism. In my analysis it would not have been ritual that would have mesmerized the populace, but the utilitarian and scientific content of these as against the exalted Intellectualism of the Upanishads, thus givein the Brahmins the edge overthe Kshatriyas! The Brahmins were eventually acknowledged the drivers of development. Thus the four principal Vedic castes are basically Knowledge Power {Military, Political and Administrative} Trade/Landlords and Service. The further striations occured with the passage of time and each new caste/class that appeared almost akin to Pauli's Exclusion Principle applied to the Band Theory of Solids! Over the centuries, it so happened that and quite common-sensical that a carpenter's son was apprenticed as a carpenter, for the easiest passing of a trade is from father to son... I mean hereditarily. This, in the later centuries, with ample support from the Law of Karma and Rebirth, became associated with birth and in time the "passage" of caste became hereditary! A lot of secondary documents called Smritis, came to explain and deep-root the caste-by-birth, and social exploitation that is natural for any society that has grown beyond its samll confines, lead to the superiority or what is called as a predefined Caste heirarchy in addition to a Class heirarchy, that was almost universal. This was further sanctified by the predominant preoccupation of the Indian, read, Hindu with religion and God gave a religious twist to this originally social order, and you have the highly striated and largely starit-jacketed version that is the Hindu Society. However, widespread and universal education and the artificial re-distribution of wealth, through freedom and equality of opportunity guaranteed by the modern popular government, is now redefining caste I must say. Add to this the policy of Social Correction initiated by our political fathers through what is called as the Reservation Policy- the Indian Equivalent of the Affirmnative Action for the uplift of minorities in the US. Yes, there is a lot of hesitation among the urban populace to either directly enquire about caste, or state it. The scene may be different in the rural areas where people are not at all apolegetic about their curiosity to know baout the caste of a person. The urbanites would only be circumspect about it but would still use roundabout mnethods to ascertain caste. In my opinion it is this Varna that makes even conversion to Hinduism a very ticklish issue.

Frankly I don't mind going public and saying that I'm a Brahmin. However, it is not with pride or shame that I make this statement but I say this as a fact. (Just like asking a person which family or 'house' he comes from.) To the best of my belief the caste distinction is practically no existent (save the economically depressed classes) and with due respect I believe that a group of people from the 'lower castes' are actually exploiting their status by claiming rights to Quotas even though they are financially well of. My advice is don't try to apply or relate what you read on medeival India in books to modern Indian society. Thank you and hoping to be helpful

I am a Christian and not a Hindu; however, I will answer your question because I have lived here in India. I have interacted with people of all Verna all my life. I watched Indian culture closely and I know quite a lot about them. According to Vedas there are only four Verna; Brahmin, Vaishya, Kshatriya and Shudra. None like to be called a Shudra. Gandhi ji recommended that they should be addressed as Harijans. Later even that termed they considered derogatory. After Baba Sahib Ambedkar converted them to Buddhism, they prefer that all should call them either NAV BHUDDHA or Dalits. There are many who conceal their caste. I have seen many belonging to cobbler, or Dhobi (washer men) caste go about as Brahmins. They have even assumed Brahmin names. Now to answer your question, how would I treat them, I would never address them by the caste they belong to, but I would rather treat them respectfully. I have many friends in the lower caste. I visit their homes and they visit mine. I treat them as my friends.