History Of Caste

[Meluhhan]

VarnAshrama Dharma is attested by Ramanuja and Sridhara Swami in their [url="http://bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-08-07.html"]commentaries on Bhagavad Gita 8:7[/url]:

Sridhara Swami's Commentary



It is natural that the aggregate impressions previously enacted in one's life will be the points of remembrance at the time of death; and as it is impossible for a catatonic, moribund person to make a special effort for recollecting the Supreme Lord. Lord Krishna is thus compassionately advising to always remember Him in everything one does meditating on Him within. But as it is a reality that constant meditation is not possible without purity of mind then one must first performed their prescribed duties according to varnashram or ones position and rank in society. In Arjuna's case being a ksatriya or warrior, it was his duty to fight battles for protecting righteousness and so Lord Krishna advises him to fight with his mind devoted to the Supreme Lord and in this way he will attain purity of mind. Thus by surrendering one's mind which is reflective and one's intellect which is determinative both in devotion to Lord Krishna exclusively one will attain Him without fail.

Ramanuja's Commentary



In as much as the last flash of consciousness of a dying person determines a persons destination and specification in their very next birth. This flash will naturally be that which one pondered and contemplated and became accustomed and habituated to performing as a daily practice. Therefore it is imperative that if one desires to achieve the ultimate goal of human existence they shall learn about the Supreme Lord Krishna and becoming attached to Him unceasingly meditate upon Him until the very moment of departure from this material existence at the moment of death. Lord Krishna also advises with the words anusmara yudhya meaning fight while remembering Him. This was applicable to Arjuna who was a ksatriya or warrior from the royal line and it is his duty to protect righteousness. But it also applies to everyone to perform their prescribed duties according to the injunctions enjoined in the Vedic scriptures. This includes ones daily duties and sometimes special occasional duties as ordained by varnasrama or one's position and rank within society. Thus while performing ones specific duties daily adhering and following the ordinances of the Vedic scriptures one should meditate upon the Supreme Lord with every action one performs. In this way one will be constantly thinking of Him and perpetually He will be infused in ones consciousness. This is the most perfect and expedient way to succeed in keeping the mind and will fixed upon Lord Krishna and thus naturally at the moment of death one who has meditated throughout their life on Him will of course easily be remembering Him at the final moment of departure from the physical body and will immediately transcend to join Him in the eternal spiritual worlds according to their wish. There is no doubt about this whatsoever.



Lord Krishna having explained in general for everyone that the achievement of a particular form and destination in the next life is determined by the very last thought in this life, He will elucidate the different modes of meditative devotion appropriate for each class and compatible with the goal they cherish to attain. First He will describe in the next verse the type of meditation practised by the artharthis or those seeking wealth and fortune as well as the type final thought adopted by them consistent with the mode of meditation they use.

[Husky]

I think varnashrama dharma was attested long before either of them or Adi Shankaracharya's time.

Varnas are already present in the Veda, through the MBh including Gita.



[In fact, Buddhism and Jainism did their usual trick (as what they did to Samskritam and a lot of other Hindu stuff): after screeching about the matter, they both tried to coopt varnas' invention as well, by coming up with backprojected stories about how a backprojected Buddha or mythical primordial Buddhist king or something came up with the yugas and varnas, and how a teerthankara established the varnas, respectively.]



Qs for you:

1. The fact that you highlight that Ramanujacharya and Sridhara Swami's writings both attest to varnashrama dharma,

is that because:

[a] you are surprised varnas still existed in their time? (even though varnas still exist somewhat today)

[b] you thought it did not yet exist in their time and were surprised to find it did?

[c] you have some other reason to bring the matter up? If so, what?

2. Also, why do you bring varna(ashrama) up in the "caste" thread?

[Meluhhan]

[quote name='Husky' date='24 February 2016 - 03:26 AM' timestamp='1456301885' post='117941']

I think varnashrama dharma was attested long before either of them or Adi Shankaracharya's time.

Varnas are already present in the Veda, through the MBh including Gita.



[In fact, Buddhism and Jainism did their usual trick (as what they did to Samskritam and a lot of other Hindu stuff): after screeching about the matter, they both tried to coopt varnas' invention as well, by coming up with backprojected stories about how a backprojected Buddha or mythical primordial Buddhist king or something came up with the yugas and varnas, and how a teerthankara established the varnas, respectively.]



Qs for you:

1. The fact that you highlight that Ramanujacharya and Sridhara Swami's writings both attest to varnashrama dharma,

is that because:

[a] you are surprised varnas still existed in their time? (even though varnas still exist somewhat today)

[b] you thought it did not yet exist in their time and were surprised to find it did?

[c] you have some other reason to bring the matter up? If so, what?

2. Also, why do you bring varna(ashrama) up in the "caste" thread?

[/quote]



1) [d] All of the above. According to certain narratives of Indian (South Asian?) history, Hinduism as we know it was developed in response to the rise of Sramanic traditions, and experienced a revival under the period of British rule.

2) It felt like the most appropriate place to put it. After all, the title of this thread is "History of Caste".

[Husky]

[quote name='Meluhhan' date='25 February 2016 - 08:02 AM' timestamp='1456367083' post='117943'][d] All of the above. According to certain narratives of Indian (South Asian?) history, Hinduism as we know it was developed in response to the rise of Sramanic traditions, and experienced a revival under the period of British rule.

2) It felt like the most appropriate place to put it. After all, the title of this thread is "History of Caste".

[/quote]



1. "South Asia" is a euphemism for Mughalistan/the "subcontinent-for-monotheism" project.

2. Can't recollect how this thread dealt with the subject, but the "history of caste" and "caste system" can only start with the Portuguese and colonialists, before which it is unknown.

3. There is varna, there is jati, and there are endogamous communities in India independent of varna and jati. These are within Hinduism. Futher, there are equivalents for all three in other countries, independent of Hinduism. (Non-exhaustive examples for each respectively: Zoroastrianism, Europe and Japan, and all over the world).

4. Varna and Jati pre-existed Buddhism/Jainism - or any so-called "Shramanic" ideology - and pre-existed islam/christianity and colonialism.

5. The subcommunities usually dubbed "castes" these days that were enumerated by one islamic visitor (Alberuni or whoever) was shown to not match up with varnas at all and did not match up with the number of other Hindu structural subcommunities (say Jatis) before or after.

6. There was one commenter at swarajyamag - "Jishnu" I think - who seemed to argue, based on his reading on the subject, that casteism is a by-product of the islamic ravages and exacerbated by colonialism (resulting in rigidity and loss of mobility), and then twisted onto Hinduism as an innate and perpetual quality thereof (to blame Hinduism), thereby neatly exhonerating christo-islami-colonialism for its own manufacture of "the system".

You could find the swarajyamag commenter Jishnu and ask him for sources.

7. "Caste" has been applied to Japan since colonialism started too: Japan has been referred to as the land of the 100 castes (or 1000 castes or something). Their nation's structuring also show signs of having developed this as specialisation for optimisation of the overall country's autonomy, success, prosperity and ability to defend itself. In their case too, it invariably resulted in endogamy. Just as, in Japan's case too, endogamy also existed in remote communities independent of Japanese "castes", as is true with China, and whereaver there are many subethnic communities. In China these subethnic communities are awkwardly labelled "ethnic minorities" by the current government which is Han majority.*



Asides:

- *In some ways, Han Chinese feel less direct affinity with their ethnic minorities than Hindus of one subcommunity in one part of India with Hindus of a totally different subcommunity in some distant part. Although they don't generally seem to culturally identify with each other (unlike the case with Hindus where there is a cultural unity), all Han Chinese I've spoken to feel regretful about how their government doesn't really preserve the cultural diversity in their nation but seeks to enforce "Han" culture starting with language on all the communities, and they regard this enforcement disapprovingly. This comes even from those that feel strongly that Tibet is part of China.

- Something I noticed that seemed interesting, but not on topic either. Until very recently (in relative terms), Koreans used to use their standard set of surnames (which denote family names/lineages, several are moreover ancient aristocratic Chinese lineages) in the way Hindus use gotras: by social law - and perhaps by actual or religious law at some point in time? - Koreans were not allowed to marry those with the same lineage surname. Note that this is in addition to Koreans in ancient times having endogamous groups as well as ancient Koreans also being endogamous in terms of "class". (The way gotra too is a case of exogamy combined with endogamy.)

In recent decades, the Korean government found this taboo of people of the same surnames/lineages not being allowed to intermarry to be "discrimination" and enacted a law stipulating that people of the same surname should be allowed to marry each other. (I wonder whether there was any christian impetus behind the supposed "democratisation" and "egalitarianism" in the recent legislation, with the aim of breaking Korean tradition-based taboos? The way there had been christian meddling - to various degrees - regarding hair-cutting in Korean men, dog-eating, funeral ceremonies for ancestors, and other traditional matters in S Korea, which had been turned into controversial issues. Some still are, as christianity hasn't yet eradicated all these traditions.)





Actually, looking it up, it turns out to be more interesting than I suspected. It is traced to Confucian influences. (Since many of the surnames involved are ancient Chinese, like Lee etc, it may in ancient times have had a Taoist origin at least in Chinese regions.) And the taboo had apparently been enacted as an actual law too for some time, until it was removed as being unconstitutional in 1997 (falls during a major wave of S Korea's christianisation) after some family from Seoul (hotbed of christianism) said this law prevented the "pursuit of happiness" (and insert other secular and democratic sounding western phrases that christians use to antagonise native traditions, e.g. christians use "right to food" to antagonise the Hindu tradition-based ban on killing cows in India, etc.):



- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_809_of_the_Korean_Civil_Code

- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_South_Korea

[dhu]

Amend to: "According to certain colonial narratives of Indian (South Asian?) history, Hinduism as we know it was developed in response to the rise of Sramanic traditions, and experienced a revival under the period of British rule."

[Meluhhan]

[quote name='Husky' date='25 February 2016 - 01:19 AM' timestamp='1456380714' post='117944']

In recent decades, the Korean government found this taboo of people of the same surnames/lineages not being allowed to intermarry to be "discrimination" and enacted a law stipulating that people of the surname should be allowed to marry each other. (I wonder whether there was any christian impetus behind the supposed "democratisation" and "egalitarianism" in the recent legislation, with the aim of breaking Korean tradition-based taboos? The way there had been christian meddling - to various degrees - regarding hair-cutting in Korean men, dog-eating, funeral ceremonies for ancestors, and other traditional matters in S Korea, which had been turned into controversial issues. Some still are, as christianity hasn't yet eradicated all these traditions.)[/quote]



Taboos against dog-eating have existed in the Indian subcontinent as well. From Bhagavad Gita 5:18:

TEXT 18

vidya-vinaya-sampanne

brahmane gavi hastini

suni caiva sva-pake ca

panditah sama-darsinah

...

TRANSLATION

The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater (outcaste)

My last post on this forum.

[Husky]

[quote name='Meluhhan' date='04 March 2016 - 08:23 AM' timestamp='1457059525' post='117967']Taboos against dog-eating have existed in the Indian subcontinent as well. From Bhagavad Gita 5:18[/quote]

You missed my point: there specifically was no taboo against dog-eating in Korea, rather the inverse: Koreans ate and eat dog as part of a long-standing tradition. Christians agitated under an excuse of "animal rights" to get dog-eating curtailed/to make it controversial, only because it was an ancestral Korean tradition. Compare with how christians in India employ the inverse technique for the same end of curtailing heathen traditions: christians want to get the ban on cow-eating revoked under an excuse of "right to food" in India's case, also in order to antagonise against long-standing heathen tradition: the Hindu tradition against eating cows.



Christianity antagonises tradition and uses "secular" and "democratic" sounding excuses for it. That was my point.



Even wackypedia hints at the Korean issue. Wacky page as at today:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat_consumption_in_South_Korea

The consumption of dog meat in South Korea, where it is known as "Gaegogi" (Korean: 개고기), has a long history originating during Three Kingdoms of Korea, AD C. 57.[1] In recent years, it has been controversial both in South Korea and around the world, due to animal rights and sanitary concerns.

(Note: the reference to this being made controversial only since "recent years" is actually a secularised reference to christianity.)



The same "animal rights" activists never demonstrated against christian and islamic demons deliberately butchering Hindu cows and demanding this be made into their right.

It is exclusively a christoislamic iconoclasm against Hinduism.





(And I'm aware that dog-eating among Hindus is not considered okay for/among the mainstream. This was so since the Vedam. But even in the Vedam, the Hindu Gods are recognised as the Sarvaatman who exist in all, e.g. Rudra is said to be [the very aatman of] dogs, and [CORRECTION] PuruShottama is also present in the aatman of those [heathen Hindu humans] who eat dogs, etc. Because the Hindoo Gods are the aatman of all humans in Hindoo society, other animals, trees, and the rest of nature. Everything, basically.)

[Husky]

Mongolians who invaded China installed a caste system in China (complete with one subgroup literally named - and I quote - "untouchables").

Wait for it. There was an actual pecking order (a literal caste and casteist system). And it looked like so:



#1 Mongolians

#2 Fair people (any visiting Euros too)

#3 N Han Chinese

#4 (because they were the last to be conquered S Han Chinese.

Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire

By Paul D. Buell

p. 240



SEMU "Various categories." The semu were one of the legally-defined social groupings of Mongol China (q.v.). The others were Menggu (q.v.), "Mongols," Hanred (q.v.), "North Chinese," and Nanren (q.v.), South Chinese," the latter having the lowest status. The semu were generally Central Asians and Westerners, and ranked just below the Mongols themselves, but above the Hanren. This system was unique to Mongol China and was not found elsewhere.

Explains certain Mongolian admixture with Euro and C Asian populations.

(Which apparently was already ongoing about 2000 years BP.)





Q: despite the pre-emptive demurs in the final line, did they repeat this elsewhere? Or did the islamised Mongols/Turks who invaded India - and left behind so many useless Khans - did they multiply the number of community substructures in India's social fabric to produce the large number seen in Alberuni's time? (Which then was multiplied further in the colonial period.)



[Oh wait, IE-ists like to claim caste classification is their invention, and insist that IE entities (C-Asian Iranians say) "must have taught" the Mongolians this too. (Wonder if they taught them about the horse? Can't have anyone else having a horse culture, after all. At least Chinese civilisation can't be derived from C-Asian Mongolian horse-riding nomads and Turkic, Tatar hordes invading left and right, whereas Indian and Persian civilisations "can only be" explained by C-Asian horse-riding all-invading barbarians playing nomads too.

But how did I forget? IE-ist and arch-racist Victor Mair is hard at work trying to derive Chinese civilisation from C-Asian oryans too.]





Anyway, back to the topic:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semu

The Semu categories are pointed to people who come from Central and West Asia by Yuan dynasty, it is told that there are 31 categories among them. They had come to serve the Yuan dynasty by enfranchising under the dominant Mongol caste. The Semu were not a self-defined and homogeneous ethnic group per se, but one of the four castes of the Yuan dynasty: the Mongols, Semu (or Semuren), the "Han" (Hanren in Chinese, or all subjects of the former Jin dynasty, Dali Kingdom and Koreans[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]) and the Southerners (Nanren in Chinese, or all subjects of the former Southern Song dynasty; sometimes called Manzi). Among the Semu were Buddhist Turpan Uyghurs, Tanguts and Tibetans; Nestorian Christian tribes like the Ongud; Alans; Muslim Central Asian Persian and Turkic peoples including the Khwarazmians and Karakhanids; West Asian Jewish and other minor groups who are from even further Europe.

Note the christian Ongud:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ongud

The Ongud, (Mongol: Онгуд, untouchables) were Mongols active in Mongolia around the time of Genghis Khan (1162–1227).[1] Many members were members of the Church of the East.[2] They lived in an area lining the Great Wall in the northern part of the Ordos Loop and territories to the northeast of it.[1] They appear to have had two capitals, a northern one at the ruin known as Olon Süme and another a bit to the south at a place called Koshang or Dongsheng.[3] They acted as wardens of the marches for the Chinese Empire to the north of the province Shanxi.[4]

(Italics as in original)



So even though they were caste#2 for being semu as per the wacky link on Semu,

the translation of Ongud is "untouchables"?

Then again, maybe there was a special exception for christians=terrorists that made them not place at #2 as Semu?