<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The reason I asked about above story is that the story proves existence of caste discrimination and untouchability in early Hindu society.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->You might have already read the stuff to follow in other IF threads some time ago.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->(Ashyam
caste discrimination and untouchability in early Hindu society.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://koenraadelst.voi.org/books/wiah/ch11.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sir W.W. Hunter has written: ?It would be a mistake to suppose that Buddhism and Jainism were directed from the outset consciously in opposition to the caste system. <b>Caste, in fact, at the time of the rise of Buddhism was only beginning to develop</b>;<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The use of "early" in your statement is a matter of POV. What's early for Buddhism is not early for Hinduism in India. Though you may have meant 'early' with respect to the invasions of christianism and islam.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->(Ashyam existence of caste discrimination and untouchability in early Hindu society<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Concerning the second part: I've read that in early Indian society there was the "Chandala" - such persons were very far from mainstream Indian society, even when not geographically so. Society avoided this community because of their occupation. So something of the sort of what you refer to was certainly there, going by what I read.
The following concerns this entire statement of yours:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->existence of caste discrimination and untouchability in early Hindu society<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This thing isn't peculiar to India. In many countries of the world, society determined what kind of behaviour and occupation were acceptable and which weren't. Examples outside of India (and not due to any Hindu influence) include Japan, Africa and Germany.
Copy-paste. Deja-vu feeling. Oh whatever.
1. Japan: Shinto Confucian society (Buddhism didn't improve it) believed society had to segregate itself from persons who had transgressed certain spiritual and social rules, so that they did not influence the rest of the people with their behaviours/misdemeanors. In Japan this community was called Buraku(min).
http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/burak.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Discrimination against these people came about because of Buddhist prohibitions against killing and Shinto concepts of pollution, along with governmental efforts at controlling the population. The people were originally discriminated against because they were butchers, leather workers, grave-diggers, tanners, executioners and, at least in some cases, entertainers.
From the book Japan: A Modern History, 2002:
"Fundamental Shinto beliefs equated goodness and godliness with purity and cleanliness, and they further held that impurities could cling to things and persons, making them evil or sinful.... But a person could become seriously contaminated by habitually killing animals or committing some hideous misdeed that ripped at the fabric of the community, such as engaging in incest or bestiality. Such persons, custom decreed, had to be cast out from the rest of society, condemned to wander from place to place, surviving as best they could by begging or by earning a few coins as itinerant singers, dancers, mimes, and acrobats."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m226...70/ai_102140954
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Burakumin at the end of history - history of social class in Japan - Social Research, Spring, 2003 by Ian Neary
Prologue
DURING the seventeenth century, Japanâs social order took shape in the form of a hereditary four-status order ofâin descending socioethical rankâwarrior-rulers (samurai), peasants, artisans, and merchants. There were restrictions on intermarriage, social interaction, and clothing. This was justified by reference to Confucian theory. The functions of the four groups were seen as symbiotic, such that together they would constitute a stable and virtuous society (Totman, 2000: 225). â¦Pariah communities had developed in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as leather workers (kawata) and as handlers of animal and human corpses.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->These professions were considered unclean in Hindu society as well.
2. Africa
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/books/wiah/ch9.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->For another example, we may turn to Congo, where the Batwa or Pygmees coexist with the Baoto, who settled in their land about two thousand years ago: ?From this violent clash resulted a modus vivendi which persists till today. The division of roles is contained in unwritten laws. While the Baoto live in the village centre, the Batwa live in the periphery (?) The Batwa used to serve as village guardsmen (?) All kinds of taboos colour the relations between the communities. Batwa and Baoto cannot use the same washing-place, Baoto don?t touch food prepared by Batwa, mixed marriages are absolutely prohibited. It has nothing to do with social justice, but these relations certainly are stable.?84 Unequal ranking, endogamy and untouchability: all the elements allegedly typical of Hindu society have sprung up in the heart of tribal Africa without any ?Aryan? influence.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So one African community invaded another? Where had I heard this before? Oh yes, in that other colony of Belgium: Rwanda. I think it's the same old story. I wouldn't be surprised if in time we find the Batwa and Baoto to both be indigenous after all. Anyway the paper exposing the famous christo lie about a "Tutsi invasion" into Africa also exposed how the christos from colonial Europe had manufactured similar lies in other parts of Africa. And the Tutsi Invasion christolie also applied to Zaire=Congo:
http://faculty.vassar.edu/tilongma/Church&Genocide.html "Christian Churches and Genocide in Rwanda"
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In the introductory essay to his edited volume on the construction of ethnicity in Southern Africa, Leroy Vail argues that European Christian missionaries played a crucial role in the development of ethnic ideologies in Africa. According to Vail,
In addition to creating written languages, missionaries were instrumental in creating cultural identities through their specification of "custom" and "tradition" and by writing "tribal" histories . . . . Once these elements of culture were in place and available to be used as the cultural base of a distinct new, ascriptive ethnic identity, it could replace older organizing principles that depended upon voluntary clientage and loyalty and which, as such, showed great plasticity. Thus firm, non-porous and relatively inelastic ethnic boundaries, many of which were highly arbitrary, came to be constructed and were then strengthened by the growth of stereotypes of "the other" . . . .(15)
[...]
The exact meaning of the categories of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa in pre-colonial Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire is a subject of considerable debate among scholars. Nearly all scholars, however, agree that the three were not clearly distinct and rigidly separated ethnic groups. The three groups shared a common language and common religious practices, and they lived in the same communities throughout the region.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
3. The instance about Germany was posted up by Dhu from an email.
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...&st=180&p=48791 - post 181
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->(Ashyam
caste discrimination and untouchability in early Hindu society.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->http://koenraadelst.voi.org/books/wiah/ch11.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sir W.W. Hunter has written: ?It would be a mistake to suppose that Buddhism and Jainism were directed from the outset consciously in opposition to the caste system. <b>Caste, in fact, at the time of the rise of Buddhism was only beginning to develop</b>;<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The use of "early" in your statement is a matter of POV. What's early for Buddhism is not early for Hinduism in India. Though you may have meant 'early' with respect to the invasions of christianism and islam.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->(Ashyam
existence of caste discrimination and untouchability in early Hindu society<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Concerning the second part: I've read that in early Indian society there was the "Chandala" - such persons were very far from mainstream Indian society, even when not geographically so. Society avoided this community because of their occupation. So something of the sort of what you refer to was certainly there, going by what I read.The following concerns this entire statement of yours:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->existence of caste discrimination and untouchability in early Hindu society<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This thing isn't peculiar to India. In many countries of the world, society determined what kind of behaviour and occupation were acceptable and which weren't. Examples outside of India (and not due to any Hindu influence) include Japan, Africa and Germany.
Copy-paste. Deja-vu feeling. Oh whatever.
1. Japan: Shinto Confucian society (Buddhism didn't improve it) believed society had to segregate itself from persons who had transgressed certain spiritual and social rules, so that they did not influence the rest of the people with their behaviours/misdemeanors. In Japan this community was called Buraku(min).
http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/burak.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Discrimination against these people came about because of Buddhist prohibitions against killing and Shinto concepts of pollution, along with governmental efforts at controlling the population. The people were originally discriminated against because they were butchers, leather workers, grave-diggers, tanners, executioners and, at least in some cases, entertainers.
From the book Japan: A Modern History, 2002:
"Fundamental Shinto beliefs equated goodness and godliness with purity and cleanliness, and they further held that impurities could cling to things and persons, making them evil or sinful.... But a person could become seriously contaminated by habitually killing animals or committing some hideous misdeed that ripped at the fabric of the community, such as engaging in incest or bestiality. Such persons, custom decreed, had to be cast out from the rest of society, condemned to wander from place to place, surviving as best they could by begging or by earning a few coins as itinerant singers, dancers, mimes, and acrobats."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m226...70/ai_102140954
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Burakumin at the end of history - history of social class in Japan - Social Research, Spring, 2003 by Ian Neary
Prologue
DURING the seventeenth century, Japanâs social order took shape in the form of a hereditary four-status order ofâin descending socioethical rankâwarrior-rulers (samurai), peasants, artisans, and merchants. There were restrictions on intermarriage, social interaction, and clothing. This was justified by reference to Confucian theory. The functions of the four groups were seen as symbiotic, such that together they would constitute a stable and virtuous society (Totman, 2000: 225). â¦Pariah communities had developed in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as leather workers (kawata) and as handlers of animal and human corpses.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->These professions were considered unclean in Hindu society as well.
2. Africa
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/books/wiah/ch9.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->For another example, we may turn to Congo, where the Batwa or Pygmees coexist with the Baoto, who settled in their land about two thousand years ago: ?From this violent clash resulted a modus vivendi which persists till today. The division of roles is contained in unwritten laws. While the Baoto live in the village centre, the Batwa live in the periphery (?) The Batwa used to serve as village guardsmen (?) All kinds of taboos colour the relations between the communities. Batwa and Baoto cannot use the same washing-place, Baoto don?t touch food prepared by Batwa, mixed marriages are absolutely prohibited. It has nothing to do with social justice, but these relations certainly are stable.?84 Unequal ranking, endogamy and untouchability: all the elements allegedly typical of Hindu society have sprung up in the heart of tribal Africa without any ?Aryan? influence.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So one African community invaded another? Where had I heard this before? Oh yes, in that other colony of Belgium: Rwanda. I think it's the same old story. I wouldn't be surprised if in time we find the Batwa and Baoto to both be indigenous after all. Anyway the paper exposing the famous christo lie about a "Tutsi invasion" into Africa also exposed how the christos from colonial Europe had manufactured similar lies in other parts of Africa. And the Tutsi Invasion christolie also applied to Zaire=Congo:
http://faculty.vassar.edu/tilongma/Church&Genocide.html "Christian Churches and Genocide in Rwanda"
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In the introductory essay to his edited volume on the construction of ethnicity in Southern Africa, Leroy Vail argues that European Christian missionaries played a crucial role in the development of ethnic ideologies in Africa. According to Vail,
In addition to creating written languages, missionaries were instrumental in creating cultural identities through their specification of "custom" and "tradition" and by writing "tribal" histories . . . . Once these elements of culture were in place and available to be used as the cultural base of a distinct new, ascriptive ethnic identity, it could replace older organizing principles that depended upon voluntary clientage and loyalty and which, as such, showed great plasticity. Thus firm, non-porous and relatively inelastic ethnic boundaries, many of which were highly arbitrary, came to be constructed and were then strengthened by the growth of stereotypes of "the other" . . . .(15)
[...]
The exact meaning of the categories of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa in pre-colonial Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire is a subject of considerable debate among scholars. Nearly all scholars, however, agree that the three were not clearly distinct and rigidly separated ethnic groups. The three groups shared a common language and common religious practices, and they lived in the same communities throughout the region.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
3. The instance about Germany was posted up by Dhu from an email.
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...&st=180&p=48791 - post 181
Death to traitors.