...The social position of each
Friday, August 31, 2007
Varna Ashram -6
Varna Ashram -5
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Varna Ashram -4
Varna Ashram -3
Varna Ashram -2
Varna Ashram -1
Friday, August 17, 2007
Aryans original people oof India! -5
....When comparing Harappan civilization and Rig Vedic civilization, two things are to be noted. First is that the civilizations are developed in the order of hunter, pastoral, agricultural and urban stages. For a community, a movement down to lower stages means that the higher stages have become extinct. For an urban civilization to become a purely agricultural in nature means that its cities must have become extinct. And for agricultural civilization to become pastoral civilization means that agriculture has become extinct. Otherwise there seems to be no known reason for the people to take up an inferior way of live by opting for a lower level civilization. The people at higher level would not move knowingly to a lower level. Second is that copper was discovered and used earlier than iron.
The Rig Vedic civilization was pastoral where as Harappan civilization was urban in nature. The Harappan civilization was two steps ahead of Rig Vedic people’s way of life. It had agriculture as well cities both of which are missing from the life of Rig Vedic people who depended on their cow, horses and plunder. The Rig Vedic people did not have permanent villages - a well planned city was a far fetched thing. There is no mention of cities in Rig Veda. It is impossible that such big cities missed the eyes of Rig Vedic people if they were contemporary of Harappan people. If they were same people then still Rig Vedic people had to mention these big cities. The cultural mascot of Aryans, horse has negligible presence in Harappan civilization. However the importance of Ashwa (horse) is also evident in Avesta where it is know as Aspa indicating outside connections of Aryans. The horse along with cow was mainstay of Rig Vedic Aryans and agriculture and trade that of Harappans. Then there is no original knowledge of elephant in Rig Veda where as Harappans used ivory in trade. One more thing is that the now discovered dried up river flows through a region which was the empire of great cow killer, the tiger. This great cow killer is never mentioned in Rig Veda where as it is found on Harappan seals. The Rig Veda mentions neither Harappan seals nor trade. Thus Rig Vedic people never came into contact with Harappan people. They came after Harappan civilization had disappeared and only its agriculture survivors were there. The now discovered dried up river is not Sarsawati. The real river Sarsawati is in
However we may consider some other possibilities. One possibility is that Rig Vedic people were very ancient and original inhabitants of this mammoth land. They heard Rig Veda and then took up agriculture and developed urban cities of
We may also consider another possibility that first Rig Veda was there and then agriculture was developed in later Vedic period and the urban Harappan cities were developed. These cities declined and new phase of urban development started after 600 BC. This puts later Vedic period to be older than Harappan period. But here we have to consider the use of metal in both the civilizations. The Harappan civilization used bronze and copper with no trace of iron. In later Vedic period use of iron also became frequent. Thus we have absence of iron in Harappan civilization and its presence in later Vedic period. As we know that copper was discovered earlier than iron, so Harappan civilization has to be predated to later Vedic period. Thus Harappan civilization is in no way connected with Vedic civilization. Rig Vedic Aryans came to
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Aryans origina people of India ! -4
...If Rig Vedic people were the original people of
Aryans origina people of India ! -3
Aryans origina people of India ! -2
... If the movement of Aryans was from east to west then the river
...The region of Sapta-Sandhav was known to Rig Vedic people and also to Indo-Iranians. It was one of the sixteen regions known to Indo-Iranians. They knew it as Hapta-Hindhav (“s” gets converted into “h” in Avestan old Sanskrit). In addition, they, also, knew a river called Harhawati which translates into Sarsawati in Rig Vedic Sanskrit. Avesta is dated back to 1400 BC which means that there was a river called Sarsawati in 1400 BC in Sapta-Sandhav region. Avesta does not mention Rig Veda which means that it is a separate source about river Sarsawti...
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Aryans original people of India ! -1
...Recently, a once dried up river has been discovered in the area of Sapta-Sandhav of Rig Vedic Aryans through satellite imagery. At the same time, there is river Saraswati mentioned in Rig Veda which cannot be identified with any of the rivers following in the Indian subcontinent. The river Saraswati was very important to Rig Vedic people. It has been praised and praised for its mightiness and its beneficial affects. Sometime it is more prominent than the river Sindhu. Sapta-Sandhav was the region in which Rig Vedic people lived. This region now a day contains only five rivers. The mention of river Saraswati becomes less as one moves from Rig Veda to other Vedas and Puranas. Some people have identified this newly discovered dried up river with the river Saraswati mentioned in the Rig Veda. This river was supposed to have been dried up by 1900 BC. Therefore, if it is the same river which is mentioned in Rig Veda, then Rig Veda is at least as old the river meaning it was heard before 1900 BC. And most probably much earlier than that because it mentions a Saraswati in its full flow and not in its drying stages. This intends to refute the general dating of Rig Veda of 1500 BC to 900 BC. If correct this also goes to show that Rig Vedic people were contemporary of Harappan civilization. The Harappan civilization has been dated from 2800 BC to 1900 BC. Some people have even gone to extent of claiming Harappan civilization as Rig Vedic civilization...
...As far as we are concerned it makes no bearing on our interpretation of caste system, it merely pushes back the date of beginning of caste or
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Aryans without caste - 11
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Aryans without caste - 10
We have already mentioned that with the introduction of agriculture in Vedic society, which they learned from local people; the Rig Vedic dharma called Rita met its demise. This religion was not the same Sanatana dharma as at present but a cosmic or divine order indeed.
With political supremacy in upper north India there was a need to assimilate the original people of India into Aryan thread based communities. The agriculture made it possible to produce more than what the people needed. The socially and politically dominant people extracted the food surplus from others who worked on the land. The introduction of agriculture started the division of Aryan society. This division was new to Rig Vedic people and with it the Rig Vedic society also ended. In addition the Sanskrit also lost its Rig Vedic form. The privileged groups of people emerged in the society. The similarly privileged individuals formed a group which could be called homogenous. After this the Varnas were born. The Varnas were not created in a day. They came into existence one by one through coming together of similar people at the top. They appear in the society in the time sequence of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Shudras. Later one more group also emerged at the lowest end of the society. This was the group of untouchable which now form 20 % of Hindu society or about 200 millions in numbers. These are the wretched lot. Bad luck when it pours for these people then it pours and poura as it has been pouring for last 2500 years and shows no signs of stopping...
Aryans without caste- 9
The Rig Vedic people were not able to take up agriculture because of resistance from the natives. The other reason for not taking up agriculture might have been that the Aryans considered themselves superior to native people and refused to copy their mode of living which they consider as inferior. This feeling of superiority might have been due to their fair skin. This mode of thinking indicates a kind of racism and might have provided seeds for the later discriminatory Varna system. The other reason might be that they considered the agriculture as inferior occupation because of the use of manual labor which rendered it below their level and thus demeaning for the people used to fight with arms. This also indicates seeds for the development of discriminatory Varna system. Otherwise, there seems to be no reason for not taking up agriculture by Rig Vedic people, which was quite beneficial as compared to nomadic life which barely providing sustainable life, and no comforts. These comforts became available to later days Kshatriyas and Brahmans and theory of Karma was developed to safeguard these comforts till eternity...
Aryans without caste - 8
However, the agriculture was nearly absent from the life of Rig Vedic people for full 600 years. Agriculture, as compared to cattle rearing, is superior occupation. In turn the cattle rearing is superior to hunting. In pastoral economy one has a ready supply of meat but this supply of food is not as certain as in agriculture. The difference lies in relative control over nature in both the activities. In agriculture there is assured supply of surplus food which comes from relatively higher man’s control over the nature. It gives more benefits compared to pastoral life. The pastoral life is barely a sustenance life with little surplus. The food available in a cattle stock economy depends on the natural growth rate of the cattle stock. The nomadic life also necessitated the movement from one place to another place in search of new pastures. This migration from place to place had inherent uncertainties attached with it. It also resulted in waging small wars with other Aryan tribes and the natives. It also meant poverty as compared to agricultural societies. Agriculture allows one to have sufficient surplus and a well-settled relatively comfortable life avoiding hardship of moving from one place to another. It is surprising that the Aryans who were surrounded by agriculturist communities refused to take up the agriculture for an extremely long period of 600 years. The Rig Vedic Aryans were surrounded by small village based agricultural communities. The contemporary presence of agriculture in Sapta-Sandhav cannot be denied since it was the place of urban Harappan civilization which was based on agriculture, manufacturing and trade. Though the Harappan civilization had declined the agriculture had survived. It is strange that those who claimed that the Vedas contain knowledge about everything had the ancestors who did not know a thing about agriculture. This perfect knowledge had the imperfection of ignorance about agriculture. This they had to learn from the natives of India. This land taught them the agriculture. The natives of India were set to become impure Shudras excluding their kings...
Friday, June 22, 2007
Aryans without caste - 7
These backward tribal Aryans were destined to move from lower level of nomadic level to higher level of city culture but before that they had to take up agriculture and start living a settled village life. The nomadic life is normally characterized by absence of food surplus. These shifting pastoral tribes, with small populations, were not capable of forming kingdoms. At most they could plunder other Aryan tribes and communities of native people. The early nomadic Aryan tribes did not live in settled villages. They constantly moved from one place to another along with their cattle and horses in search of greener pastures or to avoid the attackers. Ultimately they took up the higher level of agriculture and then city culture but in the process they classified certain people (Shudras) as inherently impure and some as inherent polluted (Antyajas) – it was indeed a great achievement with an obsessive insistence on purity, supremacy and sacredness of Vedas. As we will see that for the purpose of giving divine authentication to their Varna system they rigged the most ancient and sacred of scriptures – the Rig Veda....
Aryans withoyt caste - 6
Over a period of time especially in the later Vedic period (or later three Vedas), the agriculture came to acquire a prominent place in the Aryan society when they took up the superior occupation of defeated native people. By this time the Aryans had lost the character of a race and got intermixed with local people through mixing of blood and alliances with local kings with whom the Rig Vedic people had won and lost many wars. But they were winners, ultimately, through diplomatic and war like means. Their region extended from Sapta-Sandhav to Ganga and Yamuna with many Janapadas and Mahajanapadas (small kingdom like territories). As a result of this intermixing, the color of skin had changed from white to light brown and other darker versions. The Vedic people settled on land copying the technique of agriculture of native people. The small tribes combined and formed big tribes. These big tribes in turn formed small kingdoms in the upper northern parts of Indian sub-continent...
Aryans without caste -5
The cattle ownership and distribution of plunder was common to whole of the tribe. Therefore there was no question of division of society into different functional Varnas or castes. It was necessarily a community based living which prevented the formation of castes. There was only one king and only one priest. Their kith and kin did not enjoy any special powers because whole of the tribe was made up of kith and kin only. The people other than the king or priest were commoners who were engaged in cattle rearing and warfare. The cattle rearing, which enjoyed the place of pride and was the mainstay of Rig Vedic people, was later going to be degraded to Shudra level. No more wars were going to be fought for capturing them. Its place was to be taken by the land. It was a jump from cow grazing to land cultivating. Considering the commune nature of society, it is futile to look for hereditary groups having different graded occupations...
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Aryans without caste -4
These people moved along the banks of life giving rivers. The river Sindhu and Sarawati assume great importance in Rig Veda. The river Sindhu is now known as river Indus. The source of food was mainly hunting and cattle stock. The grain was not substantive part of the diet. Their food naturally included milk and dairy products. But alone, these are never sufficient for human body. So definitely the meat formed a major portion of their food. The source of daily meat was hunting. When the hunting was scarce, the livestock became the source of food. The cattle were killed and eaten meaning killing of cows also. However, in later times the cow eating was downgraded to the prohibited level and cow killing became the second highest crime next only to killing of Brahman. The people made a complete somersault to achieve this position in their coming eternal religion – the current Sanatana dhama. The eating of cow was downgraded to become a heathen act but, strangely, their beef-eating ancestors remained great. In the period after Rig Veda the cow came to be killed for feeding the guests. This invariably included butchering of cow and other animals which in fact was one of the major activities of Rig Vedic people. This profession of butchering was later to belong to the untouchables – actually it should not surprise anybody. To make them pure and more pure, the Brahmans degraded others as much as they could. Another important activity was that of skinning the dead cows and other animals. The skinning gains importance due to near absence of cotton from Rig Veda. The skins were used as clothes by Rig Vedic Aryans and also used to make tents to live in. This activity was later downgraded to untouchable level. The fire was also important as an object of worship and also for roasting the animals for the purpose of eating. In addition it also kept wild animal away. For worshipping they had Indra, Varun , Agni and Vayu and other gods. These gods were invoked to assure the victory in a war as well as for improving the general welfare of the tribe. The importance of war preparing ceremony and fire’s part in it was extreme - almost beyond describable point. These extremely and crucial activities were known Yagnyas...
Aryans without caste - 3
Among Vedas the Rig Veda is the oldest one and written in old Sanskrit similar to Sanskrit of Avesta or Indo-Iranians. The word Veda is derived from word “vidit” which means “told”. This actually means that the Veda are word of god and hence immutable. Another word for Vedas is “shrutis” which means “heard”. The Vedas, the word of God, were heard by the Rishis from the God himself in the solitude of forests. The Rishis did not compose the earliest of scriptures; they heard them from God and they merely remembered them verbatim. The other major scriptures are Brahmans, Puranas, Dharma Shastras and epics of Mahabharat and Ramayana.
The period during which the Vedas were composed is roughly divided into two phases. First phase is called Rig Vedic period during which Rig Veda was heard and second phase is called later Vedic period during which other three Vedas were heard. The Rig Vedic period is taken to be from 1500 BC to 900 BC and later Vedic period is taken to be from 900 BC to 600 BC. There are two main differences between these two periods. First is that the language used in Rig Vedic period is old Sanskrit which is similar to the Sanskrit of Avesta, the language of Indo-Iranians – the separated brothers of Indo-Aryans. The Sanskrit used in later Vedas is different. The second important difference is the importance of agriculture in Aryan society. The agriculture in Rig Veda plays a little role. It is indeed a critical factor. The most important thing was the cattle stock in this period. The villages or tribes were always moving from one place to another. The economy was pastoral in nature involving a lot of movement from one place to another, in search of new pastures and avoiding the attacks from other tribes. The attacks were mainly to capture the cows. On the other hand the economy in later Vedic period is agricultural based which almost changed everything. This was characterized by the settled life in villages and joining of different tribes in bigger units. In this period the importance of cattle stock declined. The Varna system was developed under the aegis of agriculture in later Vedic period. It is significant to note that in Rig Veda the absence of agriculture is matched by the absence of Varna system......
Aryans without caste -2
They descended in the region of Sapta-Sandhav (land of seven rivers) populated by village based communities and most probably agriculture-based small kingdoms of native people. These natives of India were later to be characterized as Shudras – the lowest in order in Varna system.
The Aryans moved out of their homeland of southern Russian steppes around 1500 BC. These steppes are generally identified with the Aryan homeland because it tallies with the description of large green land of Aryans. There are signs of outward movement of people from this region around 1500 BC. Some of them moved in the direction of Southeast. They came to present day Afghanistan and settled along the banks of river Saraswati (Harhawati). These tribes were separated after a violent quarrel which is indicated in the demonizing one’s deities by the other. One of the Aryan groups that came to India came to be known as Indo-Aryans. The other group that went to Iran came to be known as Indo-Iranians. The group which came to India claimed Devas as their deities and Asuras as demons. The group which went to Iran claimed Asuras as their deities and Devas as demons. These two groups went on to develop separate life styles. They lost touch with each other. However, there are four additional links between them. First the language they used was almost the same – old Rig Vedic Sanskrit; second the thread ceremony, which is performed when a boy comes of age, was common to them; third the fire worship was also common to them; and fourth was the intoxicating drink of Soma/homa....
Monday, June 18, 2007
Aryans wihtout caste - 1
The caste system or Chaturvarna has four Varnas viz. Brhaman, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra in socially descending order. There is one more, large group, below the Shudra, called Untouchables. There are thousands endogamous castes/jatis belonging to each Varna. If left to itself, it is an unchanging system and tends to keep some specific people permanently at the top. And the same deprived group, permanently, at the bottom. It is operates through an inheritance system, where not only the wealth, but also social status and occupations, social/economic disabilities are transferred to an individual by birth. The marriages take place on endogamous basis.
To get an idea about this insensitive social system we have to go to the times when nomadic Aryans tribes entered India.
Around 1500 BC, the agricultureless, casteless, moving on horses the Aryan tribes arrived in North-Western region of Indian sub-continent. They moved in search of greener pastures for their cattle stock. The tribes came after tribes in succession; most probably having 2000 members in each. All the Aryan tribes, living without agriculture, lived a separate life until they combined. However, this process took 600 years to be really effective. These egalitarian, casteless, meat-eating people were later to create the Chaturvarna system with its related notion of inherent purity and inherent impurity with related social and power structure. This system gave rise to heinous, cruel and eternal system of untouchability which made the life a living hell for a large number of people. These eternal exploiters took pride in developing such an eternal system. They still take pride in it. And occasionally the blood of Untouchables is splattered on the earth for its cause. This causes the terror to be entrenched in the victims’ minds forever. And we will see in the chapter related to Karma doctrine that these victims, whose blood is splattered on the ground for dreaming, are the culprits!!.........