How the system worked ?- 10

....However the Jajmans owned the land so they owned all the food in the village. Those who tilled their land and those who provided the labor were paid in the form of grains and other agriculture produce itself. However this was not sufficient to dress them well though enough for survival. The village community included Brahmanas and Shudra artisans also. The provision for the food of Shudra artisans was also to be made so that they did not die of hunger. With all servility they had to look up to the Jajmans to fill their hungry bellies or obtain their sustenance. We know that the dignity was reserved for the upper castes by the dharma. The Shudras and those below them were born undignified. The Shudra artisans those who were not connected with land as either tillers or labor got the food for them by permanently connecting themselves with the Jajmans. The Jajmans on their own needed servants to do all their menial non-agriculture jobs. When they did not do the agriculture then it was unrealistic for them to do other menial jobs especially when a full community of heredity servants was available to perform such jobs. If the Shudra artisans did the work for each other they could not pay each other because they did not have land or resources. So the only alternatively was to perform the jobs for the upper castes. So the upper caste Jajmans lived a comfortable life while Shudras did all their menial jobs. Thus the Shudras gave their services to Jajmans to get their undignified sustenance. It was a really merciful system; all the Shudras lived at the mercy of Jajman. The richer was the Jajman the better off were his clients or workers. A richer Jajman performed many more ceremonies which all needed the services of the Shudra artisans like barbers, potters, carpenter, ironsmith, goldsmith, weavers, construction workers, actors, the washer men and others. All the ceremonies related to marriage, birth, death, festivals and social functions were performed smoothly and everybody got his share barely enough for sustenance. More surplus with them could have made them to forget their dharma of serving upper castes. Everybody left in happiness after the function or ceremony; now they had something to eat. Then they blessed the Jajmans. They showed their reverence by prostrating on the land. The helplessness and indignities in their lives were a normal part of their lives; a fait accompli since birth.

Many consider the Jajmani system as a socially amicable system where the relations between Jajmans and Shudra artisans and others (or between independent patrons and dependent clients) were amicable. These clients were known as Kaamwale – the work doers (or Kammens). There was an understanding in the dependent Shudra clients that they would not encroach upon each other’s Jajmans. It had become a relationship, which neither patron nor dependent clients could relinquish. They were almost bound to each other. The Jajman would not get another Kaamwale and Kaamwale would not get any other patrons. The Kaamwale almost had an exclusive right to work to the exclusion of any right of other Kaamwale. It was a kind of agreement of non-competition between all the Kaamwale. The Jajman was virtual social and local government. His authority was limitless but he also believed that it was necessary to give grains and other things to work doers so that they could survive and serve him. The dead man serves nobody. If the Jajman neglected the Kaamwale then they were bound to suffer. In Jajmani, the links of generations developed familiarity between the two partie. But the bonding did not develop to the point of nurturing the aspirations of Shudras and untouchables. They knew their undignified limits and thus in the absence of rebels the system was stable. It was a matter of survival. The Jajmani system was one of dependence of Shudra work-doers on the powerful Jajmans. And as usual the Shudra work-doers had to walk, talk, wear and work their caste. And all of these were fractured and torn up. The Jajmani system maintained status quo in a rigid caste system. No Shudra work-doer ever became a landlord due to Jajmani system. No Shudra or untouchable became a Sahukar or moneylender under a Jajman. It was not designed for that. It was designed to maintain the servile dependence of lower castes on higher castes. In the Jajmani system, the Chamarins did the job of midwives. The scavengers beat the drum in front of Jajmans’ house. There was no possibility of happening it other way round....

How the system worked ?- 9

....Therefore the cultural hegemony of Brahmanas, upholding of dharma by the kings, demilitarization, the mutilating system of justice, ostracization, Panchayats and the theory of previous life Karmas kept the Shudras and untouchables in their place and served to make the Varna dharma eternal. Any desire to rise up is killed by Karma theory and any actual action in such direction is punishable by Panchayats and kings.

Now we will see how the system worked as an economic unit. The Jajmani system is borrowed from the later Vedic period of Yajmans. The Yajmans were the Kshatriya patrons of the Brahmans. The Yajman or Jajman was the Kshatriya for whom the Brahman performed all the Yagyas and ritualistic ceremonies. The Jajman and the Brahman were tied personally to each other with generational ties. Once tied together the Jajman and the Brahman did not normally part company. The relationship continued for the generations altogether until some natural calamity occurred or when the patron or client became spatially separate due to some reasons.

This Jajmani system was also carried in the villages where the Jajman was the patron of village artisans also. The Jajmani system did the job of distribution of agriculture produce among the non-land owning classes. In other words they controlled the distribution of food and with it the lives of village people. There was no money transaction. The Jajman not only had the land but also an army of musclemen to help maintain the dharma in the society. These musclemen were the tillers on his land. They were ready to perpetrate violence on demilitarized village people. This provided the Shudras enough persuasions to fall in line. The muscle force, the social forces and the economic forces were really persuading which effectively prohibited the Shudra and untouchables from rebelling. This eliminated the use of frequent violence in the village. The subordination of low castes had become naturalized....

How the system worked ? -8

....All his sufferings are blamed on unintelligible his previous lives’ Karmas. Since he was the doer in his previous lives, now he is the sufferer. Thus he was the agent for his sufferings. He was the creator of his own wretched life. And for that he was born into same kind of wretched people who performed equally bad Karmas. Blaming dharma, the upper castes and the pious lawmakers is simply barking on the wrong tree. Is it not logical that one should suffer for his unconfirmed, unintelligible and assumed bad deeds of all the previous lives? It is a backward logic. The result decides the existence of unspecific and unverifiable causes. The existence of present wretched conditions implies the existence of previous bad Karmas. Nobody has actually seen or experienced such Karmas, which directly result in a particular type of completely identifiable and practically visible next life and the related individual. It is all an unspecified exercise. Nobody has seen any individual with his past Karmas and nobody will see; there is eternal non-existence of such person. This precision is also not even in the backward logic. This backward logic has played havoc with millions and millions lives in Hindu society. These are the strange kinds of unconfirmed previous life Karmas which are not remembered by even the doer himself. It would be better if somebody were actually able to produce a man with his actual precise and confirmable records of his previous life Karmas. And these actually verifiable Karmas should be precisely liked to the conditions of the present life. It should be possible to trace the previous life along with the Karmas and the relatives and the previous life to that and so on. Until then the previous life Karma theory would be merely a figment of imagination.

However according to Karma theory the birth of man in a particular Varna is justified and is binding. This is given in the Brahman created divine scriptures. This creates no sympathy for the wretched lives of untouchables since their present wretched conditions are the result of own wretched deeds of their previous lives’ Karmas. Thus the consciousness of people goes to deep sleep under dharmic guidance. The present life and its conditions are beyond control of anybody because nobody can go back to previous life and correct the Karmas....

How the system worked ? -7

....The social structure and social mechanics make the better jobs available to higher Varnas and lower level jobs to lower Varnas. A lower Varna within the Hindu framework is allotted the job; which is in consonance with his heredity status. A person belonging to higher Varna is trained for higher jobs and a lower Varna person is trained for lower jobs. It is so because in heredity oriented society the training for jobs is also based on heredity. The only persons available to teach one are his parents or the persons belonging to his caste. Others would not teach him because of caste consideration. A Brahman would never teach Vedas to a Potter who provided pots for the entire village. A Shudra artisan would never teach his job to higher Varnas because nobody would be interested in job; which infringes on his dharma. The pure (powerful controller) should not learn the impure (manual and unclean) jobs and the impure (landless and powerless) should not learn the pure (pious and power) jobs. Either way would be adharmic and hence extremely desirable. If the pure and impure got mixed and spread impurities and contaminating dharma then it was a highly undesirable and despicable activity. This enforced the rule that the only training one got was the heredity one. It was natural also that the son was taking up the father’s occupation; it is another thing that no other option was available to the son. The optionless son got the occupation as if though it was destined for him. Actually his all life was predestined; the lawmakers ensured it. It was a predestined allocation, which was supposed to last till eternity; it was a hallmark of eternal system. It was the vision of lawmakers, which took account of all times to come till eternity. They aimed to provide the eternal solution to the problems of their all their coming generations. No body was really bothered about the society as whole as such.

The fault of being a Shudra lies with himself. No God, no scripture, no Brahman, no king, no Kshatriya and no Vaisya was responsible for his wretched existence. The wretched existence in which he lived from birth to death is entirely of his own making. He should look first inside him then blame others; it is another thing that whenever he looks inside him he finds no evidence of Karmas of his previous lives....

How the system worked ?- 6

...This provision gave authority to caste. Therefore it was not voluntary to follow the rules of caste but it was mandatory. Any recalcitrant person defying the rules of his caste or Varna could have been easily made an outcaste. It maintained the purity of caste and society. The people who dared to defy the Varna dharma were thrown out of the villages. And there was no appeal against it. The man who lost his property due to becoming an outcaste could not appeal to king for restoration of his property. As far he was concerned the decision of his caste was final. As we have already said that the Hindu society was characterized by multiple power centers. It was one of the reasons for the sustainability of caste system because at least the local caste authority was always there to regulate the caste conduct of a man. The absence of king hardly mattered in caste matters.

All the doors of society were closed for an outcaste. His social privileges and duties were taken away from. He was barred from communicating with the people. The village caste council or Village caste Panchayats usually did this excommunication. These Panchayats were most probably a hardened variation of clan Sabhas of the ancient Vedic times. The man was deprived of his means of sustenance. Then he had no alternative but to join the untouchables and take up their occupation because other occupations were closed to him. Usually these people were a couple who took each other’s fancy and produced Varna-Sankar offspring. The only punishment was to make them outcaste and throw them out of the village. It maintained the purity of Varna system by expelling the impure people and their progenies. It also increased the population of untouchables.

Thus the Panchayat and its authority to ostracize acted as a very important weapon to maintain the purity of caste system and stop people from rebelling...

How the system worked ?- 5

...Here one has to understand that the Varna system is not a system of allocation of jobs on the basis of individual merit. Indeed the individual on his own and as an independent identity figures nowhere in Varna dharma. It is a group oriented system where the allocation of jobs to individuals is not possible; the group has to be considered first then the individual. Varna system is actually an inherited group meritocracy. The merit of an individual depends on the merit of his inherited group. One has to do the jobs postulated for his Varna in the scriptures. To be meritorious one has to take birth in a particular group. No individual is intelligent enough to deliberately take birth in a particular Varna. The unintelligible Karmas of his previous lives are supposed to do it for him. The cosmic order in Hindu society is the state where people belonging to all the Varnas are doing the jobs ordained to them in scripture – a picture of perfect harmony with the scriptures. It was king’s duty to see that all the Varnas were doing the jobs allotted to them cosmically. He had to see that Vaisyas and Shudras were doing the jobs cosmically ordained for them. Thus maiming and mutilation of Shudras and killing of untouchables were perfectly in order if they defied dharma. The king also had to separate the untouchables by forcing them to carry an identification mark on their bodies in the city. It was done so that the people from higher Varnas got away from them and thereby avoiding the corruption of their dharma. Further they lived outside cities in marked huts to differentiate them from others. In addition the Shudras and untouchables were not allowed to carry the arms. They were forced to do so by the kings. Thus, we see that so called natural division of the so called specialized labor was achieved under maiming, mutilating and killing force of the Kshatriyas. Any deviation from this division of labor was adharma.

Further the pure and inherited Varna was maintained by outlawing the inter-Varna marriage. Any such attempt meant ostracization and a call by the king. Further discouragement to such marriage was in the form of branding their children as outcastes because they did not inherit any Varna. The existence of only four Varnas precluded the possibility and existence of any mixed Varna. The Varna-Sankars were, we know, a grave and serious threat to the existence of dharma. They were mutual antagonists.

The provision of making a person outcaste helped in maintaining the caste structure of the society. It was a very potent weapon. The ostracization meant disinheritance of Varna, disinheritance of property and a prohibition from entering the village and also excommunication. Any person found to unknowingly associate with the outcastes was heavily fined along with atonement or penance and purification. If somebody did associate himself with the outcastes then he himself ran the risk of becoming an outcaste and stood to lose his family and property. Any person flouting the rule of his castes or Varna was punishable with excommunication...

How the system worked ?- 4

.......When the Brahmanas became vegetarian, then it became the question for kings so as to which religion to support or patronize. It was essential because an irreligious king did not have much durability. One course was to patronize the religion which he got in heritance. The other course was to choose the religion which suited him best to further his territorial ambitions and which solidified his grip on the state. In this respect the Vedic religion scored heavily over the Buddhist religion. It provided direct divinity to kings. The Brahmans always extolled the virtues of kings who upheld dharma and performed Yagyas. They performed Rajsuya and Ashwamedha Yagyas for the welfare of kings while the Buddhist did not have any such concept. The Buddhism also eschewed the violence; the violence in fact was evident in the coercive power of the state. Thus Buddhism was not attractive to newly emerging kings because any violence was indispensable to formation of a new kingdom and a subsequent increase in its territory. However it was a god sent opportunity to Brahmans who were ever willing to grant Kshatriya status to new kings of obscure origin in return of land grants and plum postings with the kings and to save the dharma. And of course they used the performing of Yagyas as a mighty weapon. The Yagyas in themselves had a fascinating and a beneficial mystique around them. The kings who did not aspire to be Kshatriyas opted for Buddhism. The Buddhism automatically granted them Kshatriya status on the basis of presumed deeds of past lives. However their kingly ambitions suffered because of non-violence of Buddhism. Thus, the new kings were more oriented toward Vedic dharma and that ultimately led to its victory over Buddhism. There was a shifting of patronage towards Brahmanas. Over a period of time Vaisyas also shifted to Vedic religion to be on the safe side of the political powers. And after that Shudras also followed. There was a complete reversal to Hinduism. The Muslim invaders only destroyed the monasteries of a dying religion in north India.

However we find that by the time of Gupta kings, the Brahmanas had been successful in prohibiting the slaughter of cow - the divine and pure animal having pure excreta and pure urine. So they were the ultimate victors. It was made the most serious crime after the crime of killing a Brahman. The ploy of Brahmans of being deeply interested in the welfare of kings through performance of Yagyas paid rich dividends.

Now there is one more opinion that the Hindu caste system works like a division of labor. Everything is interdependent. Considering the level of agriculture available in Hindu society and its related ancient level of technology calling it a division of labor will be a misnomer. A real division of specialized labor requires a very advanced technology of multi stage production of different specialized goods that are required by most of the people.

However, it is better to call it a division of functions relating to a society which had a primitive level of agricultural technology. The Brahmans were engaged in intellectual and priestly work. The Kshatriyas were engaged in military and administrative work. The Vaisyas were engaged in business activities. The Shudras were engaged in doing labor activities. The untouchables were doing unclean jobs. Every body was supposed to be doing the job he was natural most suitable for – a great kind of dharmic harmony. On the face of it, it looks like scientific division of labor; the most suitable job goes to most suitable man. Only thing was that this suitability had to be acquired by birth. The status of a man also appeared to be job related. Higher was the job; higher was the status. The Brahmana doing the intellectual job got the highest status. The Shudra doing the blue-collar jobs had the lowest status among Varnas. The untouchables doing the lowest level unclean jobs got the lowest position in the society. This state where everybody is doing his divinely ordained function is also known as a cosmic order – with its all pervading divine harmony. But the question was how to maintain this cosmic order if Shudras aspired to become Kshatriyas and Brahmanas? If such aspirations of Shudras were realized then the cosmic order of the things would have broken down. The harmony was to get converted into disharmony with mere threat of demand for equality by Shudras. But how come the Shudras who were reciting Vedas and ruling over the people like Kshatriyas, would have been responsible for a break down in the cosmic order of pure and pious Sanatana dharma?.....

How the system worked ?- 3

...However, Buddhism became popular among general population and Brahmans felt threatened. Their cultural hegemony was at stake. Many kings also started patronizing Buddhism. This led to a reduction in Yagyas and a loss of income to Brahmans. The Brahmans retaliated by joining the enemy. If they could not beat Buddhists then at least they could join them. They went one step ahead and completely stopped eating of any kind of meat. While the Buddhists still allowed people to eat meat and also ate it themselves. It was a difficult somersault in eating habits but a tough competition from Buddhism forced them to do it. In it they were helped by the ideas of Upanishads. The Upanishads also discounted the philosophy of animal sacrifice of Vedas. The immediate effect was that the anti-Brahman feelings among Vaisyas and Kshatriyas went down. There was no dharmic danger to agriculture and to the income of Vaisyas and also that of kings. The Yagyas had become a device to transfer wealth from Vaisyas and Kshatriyas to Brahmanas. Ultimately the Brahmanas gave up all the meat eating including the beef. It was a great historical somersault. But they still retained the mystique Yagyas with minimum sacrifices and that too on occasional basis. The cow sacrifice was changed to the donations of cows in Yagyas. Still it was a transfer of wealth but not to the required extent. The cow was elevated to sacred level from being important and slaying of cow was later made the second highest crime next only to slaying of a Brahman.

Then one more factor is that the Buddhist philosophy had some common points though it denied the existence of God and soul. It believed in rebirth like Sanatana dharma. It also believed in Karma theory like Sanatana dharma. It believed in the concept of Nirvana that had its counter part of Moksha in Vedic dharma. It also believed in Varna dharma like Vedic dharma. The rebirth in Buddhism took place through Chetana while in Vedic dharma it took place through soul. The counter part of soul in Buddhism was Chetana. The medium to carry forward the Karmas in Buddhism was Chetana while in Vedic dharma it was soul. The Varna in Buddhism was decided by Karmas and by birth in Vedic dharma; both of them are essentially the same thing. Both the religions believed in the concept of reincarnation. The world according to both the religions was not permanent. The only change was the negation of the God. Simply by negating the God in one and accepting the God in another you will get the other philosophy. All the other things were almost similar. Thus there was not much philosophical departure in Buddhism. And that was its undoing. When the occasion arose, all the Buddhists again became part of Sanatana dharma. In other words they got reassimilated.

...The Varna system was maintained outside the Sangha. It was easy to maintain equality within Sangha because Bhikshus were not allowed to marry. And they were also not required to follow a profession. However the acceptance of Varna outside the Sangha even on basis of Karmas allowed the discriminatory Varna dharma to continue. It was so because if one had to change his Varna then one had to change his occupation. And if Shudras wished to change their occupations then it essentially meant that they had to take up the occupations of other Varnas. A change to higher level occupations required the acquisition of the resources of society from the higher three Varnas. It was not possible without bloodshed. It required the Shudras to improve their might which they could not do. Further Buddhism required that there should be no killings. The violence was prohibited by it for the welfare of society. So the Shudras remained where they were....

How the system worked ?- 2

...All prevailing presence of Brahmans all over India is the result of their cultural hegemony and not of any conquest. The cultural hegemony of the Brahmanas is very ancient and evident from the fact that by 200 BC they were performing Yagyas for Dravidian kings in deep south. For this they gained land grants and acceptance of their superiority. If one agreed with superiority of Vedas then one automatically agreed with the inherent superiority of Brahmans. This superiority was imparted to them by Purusha sukta of Rig Veda. Nobody could argue with the Word of God. It is also clear in the performance of Ashwamedha ceremony in the Yajur Veda. This ceremony adds nothing to the respect of either king or queen. However it tells that the Veda–vakya or Veda statements were taken as Word of God and followed to the last detail. This was a matter of faith in divinity of Vedas and also a matter of faith in divine retribution. If the kings could be made to go through this insulting ceremony then the honor of other Varnas had to be worthless. This also indicates general absence of pride in the Hindu society.

Any lower Varna individual worth his ego was a threat to dharma and had to be molded into a meek follower by invoking the authority of Vedas. And also by invoking the meek conduct of his forefathers whom he revered. Of course the threat of mutilation by dharmic kings was also there along with a threat to ostracization. The mutilated Shudras gave a sense of jubilation to higher Varnas. Many mutilations were not needed. Actually few mutilated Shudras were sufficient to put a sense of helplessness and fear among rest of the Shudras. The Shudra kings were a different preposition; they were pacified and convinced by grant of Kshatriya status. Of course Brahmanas got land grants in return for elevating their status. However the soldiers of these Kshatriya kings were not granted Kshatriya status because most probably they could not offer land grants. Brahmans spread from land to land through invitations to them by the Shudra kings interested in Yagyas and elevation of their status. These established social, religious and spiritual authorities were invited by local rulers to help them in ruling their land according to dharma. Brahmans not only raised the Shudra kings but also upheld their divine right to rule over everybody except Brahmans.

One of the reasons for the ultimate victory of Sanatana dharma over Buddhism was the relative importance given to the welfare of king by the former. Buddhism does not believe in authority of Vedas and denies the existence of God or soul altogether. Buddhism became widely prevalent all over India because of its opposition to Vedic philosophy of animal sacrifice in performing Vedic ceremonies. The upsurge and great popularity of Buddhism and its strong opposition to useless animal sacrifices indicates and excessive of animal sacrifices. These sacrifices were excessive and defenders of Varna dharma are in a constant state of denial of practice of meat eating and beef eating in Vedic society. If they are right then it only means that the Brahmans performed Yagyas involving sacrifice of innumerable animals excluding cows. And after that the dead animals were thrown away. However, these offerings never reached the gods until Brahmans ate them. If they were thrown away then the gods could not be appeased. Therefore they were necessarily eaten. Since there is no mention that the cows should be excluded from these; it can be safely assumed that they were eaten also. However such a great destruction of cattle stock meant a great loss to agriculture because it used animal power extensively. It created resentments among Vaisyas who were still agriculturists and cattle herders. All the animals to be sacrificed ultimately came from the Vaisyas which increased the burden of taxes on them. The philosophy of Ahinsa (nonviolence) of Buddhism attracted them since it reduced taxes on them by prohibiting animal sacrifices. Further the Yagyas served the purpose of augmenting the wealth and welfare of Brahmans and Kshatriyas. The real producers stood to lose from such ceremonies. Further Buddhism promised Nirvana or salvation to Shudras that was denied to them under Vedic dharma. But this salvation was available only when they joined sangha. There was no Varna within Buddhist Sangha. Anybody from any Varna could join Sangha and aspire for Nirvana. However Buddhism did not deny the existence of Varnas altogether. Buddha held that Kshatriya was a superior Varna compared to Brahman. However he denied the determination of Varna by birth. The Varna was dependent on one’s Karrma. Further according to Buddhist tradition the Bodhisattvas could take birth only in Brahman or Kshatriya Varna. The lower castes were excluded from this event. Thus, the Varna dharma was not denied; it only became based on deeds or Karma. That essentially meant a Varna system based on birth. It was actually a grossely insufficient attack on Varna dharma. There was no fundamental attack on Varna dharma. There was no special emphasis on alleviating the sufferings of Shudras. The Brahmans exploited the weakness of this attack and returned with full vigor. Even Buddhism could not solve the problems of occupations, inter dining and marriages. The Varna was not important in Sangha because occupation and marriages were not involved. If one did not marry then it was mainly useless from the point of Varna dharma; there was no threat of Varna-Sankars. If one got his food through begging or donations then there was no question of transgressing on others’ occupations. Becoming a monk or a member of Sangha was like becoming an ascetic. One ceases to really matter to society and to its members. All the Buddhist people who remained outside the Sangha retained their inherited Varna. There was no way in which they could give up their inherited Varna. The first two Varnas were not willing to give up their Varnas. The Vaisyas, the third Varna, could become Buddhist but could not get the rulership like Kshatriyas because it needed the use of arms. They also could not become lawmakers and attain the highest social status. They could not raise their Varna if the higher two Varnas who still had respective powers were not willing to accept them as their equivalent. This problem of acceptance is perenennial in Hindu society. The higher Varna is not ready to accept lower Varna as its equal...

How the system worked - 1

...There is no central authority in Hindu religion. There is no priest or head priest who controls religious activities in any given region. No priest is under control of any other priest from any other temple. All the temples are independent. The Brahmanas were not under the control of any king so naturally they were not under the control of each other also. Only one thing could control them was dharma. All the authority was vested in scriptures. They did not need any other authority. All the basic tenets of Varna dharma derive their authority from the timeless scriptures. The Shastras in turn derive their authority from being the Word of God. They are the dictums of God. None could dare defy them.

No such supreme controlling authority is envisaged in scriptures. One reason for the absence of this authority is the multitude of persons involved in formulating Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and dharma Shastras etc. the Hindu scriptures are not the handiwork of a single man. These scriptures, sacred to Hindus, have been composed over different overlapping periods running into hundreds of years each. Whatever was produce by one Brahman could have been added or altered by another Brahman in the coming generations. When this process runs into hundreds of years we have an output where contributions have been made by different Brahmans. In addition, there are many outputs like that – all of them sacred though with different levels of sacredness. An older scripture is usually more sacred than the others. Therefore Manusmriti being the oldest of dharma Shastras is more sacred then other dharma Shastras.

So we have many composers of Vedas, many contributors to Upanishads and many authors to each of the dharma Shastras and Puranas. Any man in his lifetime did not start and finalized any portion of the scriptures. These writings were carried from generation to generation through oral traditions. This situation lasted till the scripture in question was finalized and a final word was said on it. It was a long time before any of the scriptures was finalized and written down. Thus each scripture has the contribution of innumerable authors. Thus there is no single author or individual who can be claimed or identified as most important or as a central authority in any of the scriptures. And when all the scriptures are put together the difficult of finding a single formulator becomes insurmountable. This explains why Hindu religion or Hindu society does not have a central authority or personality like Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed. In the absence of such authority or personality, any learned Brahman who knew scriptures became local authority on the matters pertaining to Hindu dharma. This absence of a central authority forced a kind of decentralization in Hindu society where scriptures were taken as final authority. These scriptures were in turn were monopolized by Brahmanas. Thus the authority of scriptures got translated into authority of Brahmanas. Therefore, a Brahman in a village in deep south was a local religious and social authority at village level and a Brahman in village in north was a local authority there. The kings came and went but the local authority remained unchanged. It automatically passed through inheritance from one generation to another. If one has to be a Brahman then one has to inherit the Brahmanhood. It is not an acquirable commodity. One needed to be born to cruel lawmakers to make cruel laws. The Brahmans can be regarded as a well-trained army in scriptures who were ever ready to defend their well-swindled privileges. They did an indirect impenetrable defense through scriptures. The fort of scriptures was impregnable. All the social and religious attacks on others came from this fort where they were safe....