It long seemed to me that something was amiss with the various stories about Hinduism and caste. The received theories of Hinduism failed to explain an assortment of facts on the ground. Hinduism was a jigsaw puzzle that did not fit.
The main theory today is that the Vedic religion is the source of Hinduism but this fails to explain how the Vedic belief system could have generated the intense fertility-occultism and idol worship found in Hinduism. From Kedarnath, Kashi and Somnath across to Hampi, the Hindus follow an ancient Shaivite and fertility worship tradition which is fundamentally different to the Vedic religion. Khajuraho or Konark could not have possibly arisen from Vedic thought. This main theory of Hinduism also fails to explain the obvious – that if the Vedas are the source of Hinduism, why are Vedic gods missing from places of Hindu worship.
I found it difficult to be persuaded by scholars who, in order to prove their Vedic origin theory, claimed that idol worship was a later addition to Hinduism during the Purana era. This did not reconcile with innumerable archaeological proofs about the remote ancestry of fertility worship across India. Also, the ritualistic practices of the Vedics are based on Vedic guidelines (Vedokta) while Hindus conduct their rituals with Puranokta (based on tantra).
I conducted my own research to fit the jigsaw puzzle and have come to three main findings: One, that Hinduism and the Vedic religion are distinct. Two, that caste (jati) is entirely unrelated to Hinduism, being a mere occupational category prevalent in ancient Indian society. Three, it is false that jati has been rigid from time immemorial. Its relative rigidity is very recent and arose from two factors: economic forces and opportunistic attempts by Vedics during India’s medieval economic crisis to graft their varna system on the jatis. This means that since jati (caste) has nothing to do with religion and is merely a socio-economic occupational category, it will dissolve quickly once the Indian economy liberalizes and the poor get an opportunity to rise.
These are bold claims. I am aware that the burden lies on me to prove them. I have written a book in Marathi and none has been able to refute my evidence, to date, after three editions. I am now translating this research into English and have made available the draft on the internet for comment.
I must mention here that it is important to understand the facts about how the Vedic religion came to India. That research I have published in a separate book, of which an English version is also available. The Vedic religion came into ancient India via a relatively few Vedic refugees from South Afghanistan. These refugees had fought numerous wars with their co-religionists (the Zoroastrians) and had been forced to flee.
For thousands of years, India saw the gradual evolution of an occupational jati system – which was entirely unrelated to the religious belief system. Jatis were highly mobile, being based on expertise and innovation. Occupational guilds were an expression of the economic clout of these jatis which remained dominant at least till the tenth century A.D. and also issued coins. However, socio-political and economic circumstances began to change for the worse from the tenth century, including a series of terrible famines and the take over of trade by new Muslim rulers, and the guilds finally collapsed. These crumbling guilds established defensive barriers to entry in order to minimize competition to their occupation. These events finally led to the fabled self-reliant villages, where occupations become more and more hereditary.
In the meanwhile, the Vedics had, after almost two thousand years, managed to finally gain a small political foothold during the Gupta era through royal patronage. This gave them the opportunity to proselytize, with the first goal of increasing Brahmins. They now had the resources to incentivize Hindu temple priests to convert to Vedic Brahmins. Note that Hinduism did not have any Brahmins and till today some Hindu temples do not have any concept of Brahmin. By converting the priests, the Vedics were now able to take over many valuable Hindu properties and got the opportunity to rewrite numerous Hindu texts to introduce their concept of pyramidal varna. The Vedics managed to persuade others to install them in a position higher than anybody else in society. The rest was easy.
The economic collapse that took place a thousand years ago gave the newly converted mass of Vedic Brahmins the opportunity to link the by-now more rigid jati system with varna, making it appear that the economic condition of the lower jatis was the outcome of “god-given fate”. Caste assemblies inadvertently reinforced this message in their economic self-interest to shut out other occupations. At the same time, the Vedics launched a major attack on tantra, gradually causing the Hindus to become suspicious of their own worldview. A sense of impurity and pollution was introduced into Hinduism, leading to untouchability. Despite this, we note that many Hindu rituals and idols continued to remain tantra-centric and a significant level of social and occupational mobility remained.
Then came the British which gave the Brahmins a further opportunity to advance their Vedic agenda. The Brahmins were the first to explain Hinduism to the British. The British liked to think about Vedic supremacy, and its having come from the West. In fact, the magnitude of the seeming takeover of Hinduism was so huge that the British thought that this could only have occurred as a result of major invasions. The Aryan Invasion Theory received a huge boost. They began preferring the “higher” varnas for administrative appointments and neglected the study of the tantra traditions and what the common people outside the big towns do.
They classified the Indian people into five different “races” and began looking for a racial link between jati and race – this would further support their own sense of superiority. In this conducive atmosphere, some Vedics now began dreaming of a revival of the ancient Vedic religion – something no one had ever thought of trying in the past.
The modern caste “system” was now ready to be created – through the British census. During it, many jatis sought to upgrade their varna by changing caste names (today, of course, many jatis seek to reduce their official social status, it being more profitable to do so). In this manner, the superficial British histories of India manage to obscure the fact that had been widely known till before their time – that Hindu and Vedic religions were distinct. Subsequent generations of Indian elites have grown up with this distorted knowledge, given also the fact that many Vedics managed during British times to launch pro-Veda movements.
This racist history of Hinduism had political implications. The elites from the “lower” jatis, who had been mis-educated through British interpretation of Indian history now underwent an identity crisis. Many blamed Brahmins and the Manusmriti, having forgotten that they (the jatis) had themselves chosen to clamp down into a hereditary system a thousand years ago. Anti-Brahmin movements began and many caste conflicts became violent.
My research demonstrates that Manusmriti is problematic in many ways, but its intent and reach was extremely limited – only to a very few Hindus. It had therefore no role in humiliating the “lower” castes since it was never used against them. To grasp this we need to understand who were the Shudras. Shudra was the name of a tribe into whose lands the band of Vedic refugees first settled. The Vedics broadened the use of this term which subsequently connoted all non-Vedics. Manu notes many neighbouring Shudra kingdoms which shows their political and economic clout vis-à-vis the Vedic refugees. But at the same time, the Vedics did hire a few Shudras as personal servants. It was to prevent the intermixing of the Vedics with these servants, something which was starting to occur, that Manu dictated his humiliating commands against the servants. These commands were not intended, nor could the feeble Vedics refugees possibly have applied them to the broader Shudras (the Hindus).
That the Vedic project to graft varna on egalitarian Hinduism has failed can be seen from the failure of the Vedic Brahmins to map jatis on to varna. In fact, they simply can’t be mapped – there are just too many jatis. Moreover, similar jatis have been mapped onto different varnas in different parts of India because of local economic conditions. Thus, a caste can be touchable in one region and untouchable in others. Therefore there is simply no link between jati and varna. Caste “system” is a figment of the imagination of historians tutored in ignorant British interpretations of Indian history.
The only way this sorry mess can end is two-fold. First, we need to understand the economic and political history of the two distinct religions and disentangle egalitarian Hinduism from the embrace of casteist Vedic religion. Second, and this is urgent, we need to bring liberal governance to India to ensure education and economic development for the poorest of the poor.
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