Varna Ashram -11

...There is also another misconception, which is advanced as a defense of Varna system by its defenders that the deeds of man determine his Varna. There is no possibility that a Shudra is allowed to perform the deeds of Brahmanas. Because to begin with no Brahman would be willing to teach him Vedas and other ritualistic rites. If a Shudra is brave enough he should be classified as Kshatriya. The deeds speak for themselves but unfortunately not in Hindu society. Again there would be problem because no Kshatriya would be willing to give him a girl in marriage. No Kshatriya would be willing to sit and dine with him. So he is back to being a Shudra. The caste system comes with a baggage not alone. At the most such a brave Shudra would be called a goon, a rogue or a robber but nothing more then that. On the other hand a Kshatriya is called brave and a warrior since his birth.

Another misconception which comes out of fort of defenders of Varna system is that everybody is a Shudra when born and Sanskars (rituals) make him a twice born. So when born a Brahman boy is Shudra. The thread ceremony makes him pure and a Brahman. If it is that simple then all the Shudras can be converted into Brahmanas by investing them with thread ceremony. But Shudras being of impure origin are not eligible for thread ceremony. So a Brahman boy and a Shudra boy are two different things since birth and because of birth.

Now we will see Manusmriti the most famous of timeless Hindu dharma Shastras. It is widely acknowledged as the most important and most authentic source of functioning of Hindu society. It is surprising that a scripture 2500 years old describes the current structure of Hindu society, with minor changes, so accurately that nothing seems to have changed. It is truly timeless. Its timelessness is legendry unlike that of Vedas. There are some people who disown Manusmriti completely. They say that real Hindu dharma is not given in Manusmriti but in Rig Veda. However, we know that Hindu dharma known as Sanatana dharma did not exist in Rig Vedic times. The Rig Vedic religion was called Rita and not Sanatana dharma. It was a cosmic order like Sanatana dharma but it was different. The Rig Vedic people did have the activities of butchering and skinning but these were not called polluting or untouchable activities. The Rig Vedic society was characterized by the absence of Varnas or any such group claiming privileges by inheritance. It was an egalitarian society in a system without agriculture. The inequality of groups had no role to play there since groups themselves were not there. It was a commune system of living where every thing was shared equally on community basis. It should be remembered that the Purusha sukta does not really belong to Rig Vedic times. Though it belongs to Rig Veda, it was a later addition during later Vedic times when the different Varnas had come into existence. Anybody believing in Rig Veda should be willing to inter-marry with the scavengers if all the Hindus are to be treated as a part of single Rig Vedic community. If they are not willing to do it and show it by trend setting examples then they do not believe in Rig Veda but in Chaturvarna system of Sanatana dharma with its notions of purity and pollution.

However even if their claim is taken on its face value or it is assumed it is right (which is contrary to facts), then according to them Varna dharma was a simple division of labor where each one did the job he was most suitable for. And any occupation could not be imposed on any individual. It is interesting to note that we have specialization of labor in a community of cattle rearing where only job was to graze the cattle. Labor specialization means a technology of a very high level where as the Rig Vedic people could not even master agriculture. However according to such a point of view all the malpractices crept in later due to vested interests. If that is the case then they are discounting what happened during last 3000 years which is a very long period of time. During this time the real things have happened to real people. The argument goes further that we should go back to Rig Vedic dharma by discounting malpractices which crept in later. However in doing so they are making a jump from Rig Vedic times to modern times - a jump of 3000 years. That also amounts to saying that nothing has happened during last 3000 years and everything should be forgotten. For all the anomalies they blame the vested interests and not the original formulators of Varna dharma. But the original formulators of Varna dharma, the great Rishis the forerunners of Brahmanas, lived not during the Rig Vedic times but afterward. Then they went back and rigged the Rig Veda by inserting Purusha sukta to justify the newly formulated discriminatory Varna dharma. It was done after appearance of Shudra Varna on the horizon. However such people who advocate the purity of Rig Vedic times do not make any attempt to identify the vested interests that introduced malpractices in such a pure and simple system of division of labor or made it an inheritable set of privileges and disabilities. But the agreement to existence of vested interests amounts to saying that their ancestors who benefited from such malpractices lived a life full of lies, cheating and deceits for a period of about 3000 years because they acted against the guidance of Rig Veda or defied it for their personal and group interests. The punishment for defying the most sacred of the Hindu scriptures, Rig Veda, should be considerable irrespective of any Varna. It would be interesting to note that how such a punishment is meted out to such adharmic people. However coming back to malpractices, these were introduced to perpetuate their group privileges and impose inequalities on others. They committed atrocities on others in the name of dharma. It is strange that people forget their Rig Vedic roots of equality and live a life full of deceit and lies for generations altogether without feeling a bit guilty. These people cannot be said to be unwilling partners of so the called vested interests because they proudly and happily benefited from malpractices without raising any objection. It also means that later Hindu scriptures other than Rig Veda are a big bundle of lies though they governed the lives of Hindus for 3000 years. Thus, it means that somebody is lying either defenders of Rig Veda or the people who created scriptures. In addition, clearly it is not God because God cannot lie and cannot discriminate. Thus, the present generations of these so called vested interests have inherited a culture which is full of deceptions. However, if it is other way round meaning that they lived a life as enumerated in Manusmriti then still they lived a life full of deceits, lies and cruelties.

Coming back to Hindu dharma Shastras we find that there are eighteen of them. The most prominent is Manusmriti; the rest are Parashara smriti, Vyas smriti and Narad smriti and others. The Vedas as such do not provide a set of coherent and comprehensive rules for lives of Hindus. Only dharma Shastras provide us with a full rules and regulations of social life. They are the commandments of Hindus. Others have only Ten Commandments or so, the Hindus have a full set of books devoted to this aspect. The Hindus were more serious regarding social behavior of people and control of dharma over them. They worked out more details than others and were more systematic. They defined the code of conduct in detail for five groups. The Manusmriti contains about 2600 shlokas which were written over a long period of time but formally compiled around 200 BC. It is the most authoritative text on rules and regulations of Hindu society. It contains an elaborate set of dos and don’ts for individuals belonging to different Varnas and untouchables. The dharma Shastras provide a formal concerted treatment of dharma. Dharma regulates the life of millions of Hindus. It also holds the world together like Rita of Rig Veda, a kind of cosmic or divine order.

The Manu dharma (the way of life permitted in Manusmriti) is also known as Manav dharma which is by its inherent purity and goodness is supposed to be applicable to all men, in all times and in all places. However one should expect that such a Manav dharma should include a definition of Manav or man or at least man in the form of an individual should be at its center. But it is not so. In Manusmriti, it is nowhere described that who is Manav (human) and what are his rights and duties. The definitions is simply is missing from it. It is not indicted that who is this Manav among all the four Varnas. If all of them are human beings then why they should not have the same dharma? If they have to follow the different dharmas then they are not the same. In that case Manusmriti cannot make a claim that it is a general code of conduct for all the men all the times. Actually it has five codes of conducts, one for each Varna. The universality is missing from Manusmriti. Instead Varnas are different categories of humans who have different codes of conduct. There is no underlying single basis of deciding the code of conduct instead it depends on the purity of origin of a man. The only single underlying need is the desire for power. Thus the people having different powers have the different code of conduct applied to them. The power of each group matches with the level of purity assigned to it and their relative occupations. The purity is supposed to be a theoretical basis of power of each Varna. It is also a standard of measurement of social status of each Varna.

The fifth stratum of untouchables is represented by Chandals in Manusmriti for whom a code of conduct is given.

It also provides civil and criminal laws, punishment and atonement. The main aim of codification of Hindu laws in various smritis was to ensure the security and welfare of different Varnas in descending order. This descending order is Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Shudras and Antyajas. The welfare of Brahmanas takes precedence over the welfare of Kshatriyas. The welfare of Kshatriyas takes precedence over the welfare of Vaisyas. The welfare of Vaisyas takes precedence over the welfare of Shudras. The welfare of Shudras and Antyajas is simply missing. However the disabilities imposed over Shudras were less than the disabilities imposed over Antyajas. For this the Shudras and their present past and future generations should be utmost grateful to swindling Brahmans. Actually Manusmriti completely destroys the welfare of Shudras and Antyajas. Their welfare is burned in the fires of social status and purity. The welfare of Shudras is completely destroyed and the life of Antyajas’ is actually made hellish courtesy the rules created by the pious lawmakers, the Brahmanas. The compassion of these sacred lawmakers is spread all over the Shastras and especially reserved for the last two strata. The social cruelties against Antyajas are all encompassing over the entire range of Shastras wherever they are mentioned. The low level of welfare available to Shudras and Antyajas is generally attributed to the law of Karma, no swindling lawmaker is supposed to have any hand in it. The existence of universal ethical principle and humanity in Manusmriti or other dharma Shastras is similar to the existence of Dodo.

Now we are back to the question of how the Varna of a man is to be determined. Manusmriti, the most authentic of dharma Shastras can help in this regard. Apart from the endogamous natures of different jatis we have the abhorrence for Varna-Sankar in Manusmriti and the great spiritual epitome of Sanatana dharma, the unestimable Geeta. Varna-Sankar is an offspring of parents belonging to different Varnas. According to both the scriptures, the emergence of Varna-Sankar should be prevented as this causes corruption or destruction of dharma. The presence Varna-Sankars makes the world unsafe for dharma. Now what is the nature of dharma which can be destroyed or corrupted by the emergence of Varna-Sankar people? The concept and presence of Varna-Sankar is antagonist to dharma. Any Varna-Sankar is anti-dharmic. Dharma would like to see the extinction of Varna-Sankars and prevent them from emerging altogether. So dharma aims to prevent marriages between two different Varnas. Sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly by calling them adharmic. A Varna-Sankar person is without Varna and not entitled to one. Also he is not entitled to any Vedic rites. The Varna-Sankars are to be abhorred. An obsessive abhorrence to Varna-Sankar implies that only the people belonging to same Varna can marry. Manusmriti is very clear in this regard that only those offspring who have the father and mother from same Varna can inherit their Varna and not the others. A person has true Varna only if he has the parents from the same Varna. Otherwise he/she is a Varna-Sankar. The dharma Shastras are very clear that there are only four Varnas and there exists no fifth Varnas. Thus no additional Varna can be created through inter-Varna marriages. A Varna-Sankar is without any Varna and is deprived of any Vedic rites and ceremony. This also deprives them of any status in the society. This means that the Varna is decided by pure parentage or in other words by birth. The parentage of a pure Varna cannot come from any other Varna. Keeping in view the superiority of higher Varnas, Manusmriti allows, as a matter of subordination of lower Varnas, higher Varna men to marry lower Varna women. This is called Anuloma marriage. The children out of such marriages are not allowed to have their father’s Varna. They are Varna-Sankar and they are called base-born. They are assigned the jobs which are not done by twice born. This makes them affectively Shudras since the only job left is that of Shudras’. The children from such marriages have no place in the society no family from pure Varna would be willing to marry them. So their lineage stops or to find life partners they are forced to go to Shudra level and then remain there. This veritable threat of degrading to Shudra level prevents effectively the Anuloma marriages. The marriage in opposite direction, where father is from lower Varna and mother is from higher Varna is called Pratiloma marriage. Anuloma marriages imply the subordination of lower Varnas to higher Varnas and Pratiloma marriages imply an insubordination to higher Varnas. The Pratiloma marriages are straight forwardly outlawed by Manusmriti. The children born out of such marriages are classified as outcastes which ultimately makes them to degrade to the level of fifth stratum of untouchables. Anybody involved in insubordination is consigned to the level of untouchables, a punishment for life till death, which is carry forward to next generations. The ostracization which makes a person an outcaste is equivalent to prison system in society where the presence of a king is not needed to carry out the sentence. The society could collectively impose the punishment of ostracization which also deprived man of any inheritance. Thus the ostracized man is deprived of social interaction and economic means. He has no property; he is not supposed to be employed by anybody. Nobody is supposed to interact with him, not even Shudras. Thus he has untouchable for company and has to take up their jobs to survive.

Thus we find that the Varna is determined by birth because true Varna comes only from same Varna. The people with same level of relative purity are supposed to marry each otherwise the impurities will prevail which will impurifiy the dharma and the Varna...