History Of Caste

agnivayu · (This post was last modified: 08-04-2006, 08:05 PM by agnivayu.)

I agree with you. Using alien words like caste doesn't help in understanding the situation. The so called castes are merely ethnic groups. Infact even the smallest Jati's have numbers equal to the population of Ireland (2-3 million range). So if a community like the Irish can exist with a unique culture, certainly the numerous Jati's can exist also.

If a Turk kills a Kurd, it's called ethnic tensions, same thing if a Serb attacks an Albanian. If it happens in India it's called inter-caste violence, and people (usually leftists) start rambling on about the evil Hindu society. Logically, I seriously doubt that India could have had a unique system that's unlike anything in Asia, just because of the trade and large amount of interaction that took place (India is not an Island).

The biggest piece of propaganda is the so called oppression by the Brahmins. Many Jati's that are classified as Brahmins have infact some of the highest rates of poverty (much higher than the national average) in India. This was pointed out by a recent article by the White French Journalist Francois Gautier.

[This post was submitted on 0800 VST (Vedic Standard Time) ]

QUOTE(Kaushal @ Aug 3 2005, 08:51 AM)I disagree w th some fundamental points in the lead article. Caste is a european word for which i have yet to find an exact equivalent in any individual Indian language. The reason is obvioous. There is no exact equivalent. The present incarnation of the Jati system is a creation of the British when they created the first census in 1871 and overnite there arose 20000 castes in the indian landscape.

nThe flaw in the British approach is evident when they clubbed tribes with castes and created magically the schedule of castes and tribes which the GOI follows slavishly even today.

Any discussion of caste in India has to be preceded by a definition of what we mean by caste. What we mean by community is often confused with caste. But community is not caste. A good example is the Kamma 'caste' in AP. I strongly suspect that the Kamma casteÂ is a modern creation and that there may not be more than scant references to a kamma caste going back more than 150 years ago.

Thisd is not to say that there is no class system in India. In this India is not unique. Even a so called egalitarian society like America is rife with class differences.

It is also true that there is much exploitation ofÂ human beings and chiildren in India but this has little to do with caste but everything to do with economics and poverty.

Blaming every ill in India on caste is a futile exercise and an excuse for inaction.
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08-04-2006, 08:10 PM

QUOTEHaving said all that, I have no idea what my real surname is. In Tamil Nadu one's surname is often the father's first name, so that lasts all about one generation.


The strategy I have adopted to preserve the Jati and Gotram is to have the Jati name be the last name and the Gotram to be the middle name.

Next, sons can be given the first name of their Grandfathers so these names also get rotated in the family.

Many people are so stupid in Tamil Nadu that they don't even know their Gotram or cannot even pronounce it correctly.

Next we need to figure out a way to preserve the Pravara Rshi names also.
If we add this also as middle initials the name will become too long.
Some other tactic must be adopted.

08-05-2006, 06:03 AM

QUOTEMany people are so stupid in Tamil Nadu that they don't even know their Gotram or cannot even pronounce it correctly.Not stupid <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' />

I don't know about the Gotrams for all Tamil communities, but Iyer and Iyengar know theirs very well and they are very good at pronouncing it. (South Indian brahmanas also perform Vedic rites perfectly, and their pronunciation, intonation and chanting is impeccable, which is why many Indians from the north are coming to study at Gurukulas in the south. That's a good thing: they'll take the knowledge back to Kashmir and other parts and teach the Hindus in their regions.)

Tamils of all communities are very good at Samskritam if they get a chance to learn it at a young age - same as all Indians.
Telugu- and Kannada-speaking Indians are excellent at Samskritam too, seen as how Telugu for instance is among the closest to Samskritam because of the latter's massive influences (yes, I know Telugu is not considered an 'Indo-Aryan' language). In Telugu, words have not been truncated to drop Samskritam endings. Same with Kannada. They're simply beautiful languages. I'd trade in all the non-Indian languages I've picked up, to be fluent and literate in Sentamizh (there's no 'z' in Tamil; what's transliterated as 'zh' corresponds to a sound between an 'l' and a 'y'), Kannada, Telugu and, of course, Samskritam.

QUOTENext, sons can be given the first name of their Grandfathers so these names also get rotated in the family.In my family, children of both genders are given 3 first-names, one (or two) of which is their grandparents' or great-grandparents'. Sometimes the remaining first names are those of our Kuladevam and/or the name of a regional Deity. At least one Lingayat family from Karnataka also does the same, so perhaps this is a common occurrence all over India. (I am still talking about the giving of firstnames; the surname amongst many of us Tamils is still the father's first name.)

08-05-2006, 07:03 AM

QUOTESurnames are important, so that future generations remember their ancestors. It's a sense of identity and a connection with the past......
...
To know the greatness behind one's name will make one want to emulate that.


I heartily agree. For eg.: people with surnames like "Vajapeyam" in the south, and Vajpayee/Bajpai in the North must have had ancestors who participated in the Vajapeyam, the greatest of the Soma sacrifices.

Similarly, the surname Akkitthiripad among Keralites means, some ancestor has performed an Agnichayana, another of the Somayaagas.

This may also be effective with what might be called repeated names, namely, first names repeated across generations of descendants. For eg.: among the Telugus is the name "Somayajulu"; this usually means that some ancestor has performed one of the Soma sacrifices, and has taken the title "Somayaji" as a result.

08-05-2006, 07:18 AM

Majority of surname in India are related to place/village/status/occupation. Some now Brahmin caste, last name are actually degree/education e.g Vedi/Ved (knowledge of one veda), Diwedi (Knowledge of two vedas), Trivedi (Knowledge of three veda) Chaturvedi (knowledge of four Veda), Shastri (one with Shastri degree), Prabhakar (education till Prabhakar), Vidyalankar, Vedalankar, Chaudry, Lambardhar (court clerk), Mukhi (Leader of clan) etc.

It is not necessary Surname represent caste.
eg Chaudry, they were feudal lords in Harayana, but now some call themselves Dalit.

08-05-2006, 07:40 AM

QUOTE<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEIn Tamil Nadu one's surname is often the father's first name, so that lasts all about one generation.That is interesting, is it the same among Srilankan Tamils as well because I know one Srilankan Christian Tamil who uses his fathers first name (Jayarajah) as his last name</div>None of the Srilankan Tamil families I know do this, but since you've identified one instance, it might occur occasionally among them too.
Or maybe it's for entirely different reasons in his case. As he's a Sri Lankan Christian Tamil, he might have had a Hindu surname before - say, for instance, the name of a local Deity - and he might not have wanted it any more (not approving of it).

08-05-2006, 11:46 PM

QUOTESouth Indian brahmanas also perform Vedic rites perfectly, and their pronunciation, intonation and chanting is impeccable


No doubt this is true.
The Tamil chanting of the Taittiriya Krshna Yajurveda is the best in the whole country.

But how many people attend the Veda Pathasalas?
Just a few thousand or so. What about the rest?

QUOTEI am still talking about the giving of firstnames; the surname amongst many of us Tamils is still the father's first name.


What the surname is to the Europeans the Gotram is to us.

The Gotram is the name of the first Paternal ancestor from whom the practice of preserving ancestral names began.

There were probably ancestors even before that, but the Gotram is the ancestral benchmark.

I have suggested we use a combination of the Jati and Gotram as the surname.
Would you agree that this is a good choice?

08-06-2006, 12:29 AM

QUOTEWould you agree that this is a good choice? 
Its a good choice.

agnivayu · (This post was last modified: 08-06-2006, 08:18 AM by agnivayu.)

In Gothram we trust

08-06-2006, 11:50 AM

Just a clarification. Does Gotra refer to names like "Iyer"? And is jati related to occupation?

08-06-2006, 08:21 PM

The myth is demolished in the following way:
(i) by showing that there is no strong correlation between Hinduism and caste system, either spatially or temporally;
(ii) by showing that even after the caste system emerged in Hindu society, there was considerable social and occupational mobility, and that none of the defining features of caste system listed above were strictly observed in practice particularly in the classical period;
(iii) by showing that far from supporting the caste system, Hindu canon and philosophy were actually against caste system based on birth;
(iv) by showing that, in addition, Hinduism created legends to impress the popular mind that the caste system is immoral and invalid;
(v) by showing that within the framework of Hinduism, there took place several movements against caste, starting from Bhakti movements continuing to more modern movements;
(vi) by showing that caste system emerged and survived in spite of Hindu canon and philosophy, because of factors which had nothing to do with Hindu religion.

III
No Correlation between Hinduism and Caste System

The statement that there is no correlation between Hinduism and caste may sound surprising to many. If not in exactly the same words, this is the sum and substance of what Dumont, the most highly regarded authority on caste system, and later even Gail Omvedt â not known to be an admirer of Hinduism â had to say [Dumont Omvedt 1994:31-32]. Dumont refers to caste distinctions including even untouchable castes, among Christians in India in different regions. The discrimination against untouchable Christians is reflected in the form of their separate seating in churches, and even separate burial grounds. Even today, one can see advertisements in newspapers seeking âCatholic brahminâ spouses for Catholic brahmins. Islam, supposed to be an egalitarian religion, is not free from castes at least in south Asia. Dumont himself refers to different communities within âashrafsâ, who are supposed to be high caste, and also ânon-ashrafsâ who have a lower status. Among the non-ashrafs also, there are three levels of status: â(1) the converts of superior caste, who are mainly rajputs â except for those who have been admitted into the ashraf; (2) a large number of professional groups corresponding to the artisan castes of the Hindus, â¦; (3) converted untouchables who have preserved their functions. These groups indeed seem to be endogamous â¦.â [Dumont 1999:208]. There is no commensality also between ashrafs and non-ashrafs, due to difference in their status [ibid: 207]. There is caste system among Buddhists of Sri Lanka also. Some lingayats claim that they are non-Hindus because they do not accept the Vedas and the varna dharma, and yet they too are not free from castes and ritual gradation. Basaveshwara (Basavanna), who led the Bhakti movement whose followers became known as veerashaiva or lingayats in Karnataka, was truly against caste system. But unfortunately, he could not succeed in preventing caste system among his latter-day âfollowersâ. On the other hand, Gail Omvedt points out that among Hindus settled for many generations in Surinam, West Indies, Mauritius, Bali, Fiji and other centres outside India, caste system was weak, almost non-existent. There took place inter-mixture more freely, including inter-dining and inter-marriage, and no one took varna-based castes seriously, though identities in terms of regional jatis (such as Marvaris and Gujaratis) have not disappeared. Gail Omvedt, therefore, says significantly that caste is more a feature of south Asia than of Hinduism per se, taking root in this region because of its peculiar social and economic characteristics.

Now we may examine correlation between Hinduism and caste system over time. The first reference to the four varnas comes in the tenth mandala of Rg Veda, in two verses of Purusha Sukta (quoted in another section below). According to several scholars who have made deep research on the theme, the tenth mandala was chronologically the last to be composed. There is a good consensus on the point that previous to this, there was no varna system in vedic society. Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana also mention that in Krita yuga, there was no caste, but only one varna of human beings â that of the children of Vivaswata Manu [Arvind Sharma 2000:136]. Hence, the word manava, popular in all Indian languages. Puranas and other Hindu scriptures have preserved the racial memory of a golden age in the past when there was no caste.

According to B R Ambedkar, there were only three varnas in vedic society, and no fourth varna of shudras. He says, the economy had advanced enough to give rise to a division of labour but there was no hierarchy. He refers to other cosmologies in Hindu texts, but they are all secular, without hint of a hierarchy and without hint of a divine origin. He feels therefore that the two verses in Purusha Sukta are an interpolation, added much later after the caste system was established.1 According to him shudras as an ethnic group were a part of kshatriyas, and a part of Aryan society itself. He does not accept the theory of western scholars according to which shudras and untouchables were originally non-Aryans who were defeated by Aryans, and taken into the vedic society giving them a lower status. On the other hand, shudras were very much a part of the ruling society, several of them being kings. As per Ambedkar, they fell from grace and became the fourth varna when brahmins stopped performing the rite of âupanayanaâ for them as a revenge against harassment and insults suffered by them at the hands of some shudra kings. He also says that untouchability is a post-Buddhist phenomenon, which emerged as a result of Hindus giving up sacrifice of animals and beef-eating under the influence of Buddhism, but they went to such an extreme that those who continued to eat beef were regarded as untouchables.2

Whether or not one accepts Ambedkarâs theory of origin of shudras and untouchables, scholars are agreed that varna-system based on birth is very much a post-vedic3 feature, and untouchability is a post-Buddhist phenomenon. This means that at some time, maybe for about first half of the long history of Hinduism since 4000 BCE to the present day, there was Hinduism but no caste system. This is so even according to Ambedkar himself. And, as we shall see in the concluding part of this paper, Hinduism can survive after the collapse of caste system.

http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?roo...4&filetype=html

08-07-2006, 10:58 PM

Caste (clan and gotra) is important for genetic diversity

marriage with blood relations
With regard to this story on the need for a ban on marriages between cousins in the British Pakistani community it has been known for a long time that such marriages produce children with defects. Even in this modern age Pakistani Punjabis continue with marriages between first cousinsââsuch marriages took place in the past among a few Indian communities (but usually with a maternal cousin) but not anymore.

In most of India, marriage with a blood relation has been considered a crime from the ancient times. As per modern Hindu law the couple must be separated by seven generations for the marriage to be legal. Some communities, like the Rajputs, continue their tradition of not marrying within clans even if the seven generation rule is satisfied. In the past different anecdotes from medeival Indian History relate that the required gap was 25, 50, and sometimes even a 100 generations!

Some years ago (1997) the marriage of Princess Diya Kumari of Jaipur raised a storm in Rajput society. She married Narendra Singh, a Rajput of the same Kachhawa clan as the princess, but of a different branch separated by several generations. There have been other less common instances of marriage within clans but as long as these are supported by the seven generation rule these unions should be accepted.

The tradition of the past was that clan branches would migrate to other regions to set up their own kingdoms, and after several centuries had passed, would be eligible to marry with their parent clan. In all that time the clan's inter-marrige with the warriors of the conquered region would have ensured genetic diversity. Of course today we would need some other method of discrening gene pools since the earlier identities of clan and gotra are unknown to the yuppies in the cities.

**acharya** · 08-09-2006, 09:54 AM

'Indian society is still interdependent'
The Rediff Interview | Dr Arjun Appadurai, anthropologist

http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/08inter1.htm

August 08, 2006
Dr Arjun Appadurai, the Mumbai-born anthropologist, writer and professor at the New School University in New York says he is optimistic with Mumbai's message that attacks on its infrastructure and daily life will not become pretexts for internal witch-hunts and pogroms.

Part I: The average Indian Muslim wants room to survive

In the second part of his interview to Rediff India Abroad Managing Editor Features Arthur J Pais Dr Appadurai -- whose new book Fear of Small Numbers discusses why, in the age of globalisation, there has been violence and ethnic cleansing on the one hand and extreme forms of political violence against the civilian population on the other -- says the story of what has happened to the Sikhs in India gives him some hope.

"This suggests that the pendulum can go both ways," he says. "There may even be such a change toward the Muslims in India some day, although that is much harder to imagine in the global picture."

Having immersed yourself in the study of commercial carnage, do you as an individual find scope for optimism? Do you see a chance of things becoming better?

I am optimistic. My own city, Mumbai, has just sent out the resounding message that attacks on its infrastructure and daily life will not become pretexts for internal witch-hunts and pogroms. Maybe we need to move away from national loyalties, which can lead to ethnic chauvinism, and move towards urban and metropolitan loyalties, which put a premium on active tolerance and deliberate cosmopolitanism.

As a footnote, I may say that the story of what has happened to the Sikhs gives me some hope. Thus, you can have a group that was originally seen as extremely closely tied to patriotism and the militant defense of India against Islam, which became a pariah group after the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, and was even subjected to carnage in 1984.

But nobody among the pro-Hindu community spends much time talking about Sikhs anymore. This suggests that the pendulum can go both ways. There may even be such a change toward the Muslims in India some day, although that is much harder to imagine in the global picture.

In Mumbai I was introduced, many years ago, by my friend Sundar Burra to a group of remarkable activists and their work in the poorest sections of the city. And I came across, in the year 1996, a still little-studied phenomenon -- the phenomenon of grassroots globalisation.

It was globalisation from below, that involved worldwide activists from nongovernmental agencies. The full story of these activists is the subject of a study that will soon be out as a book. I've tentatively titled it The Capacity to Aspire.

You argue that the Hindu majority is 'a double fiction in contemporary India'. Why? What is your objection to Hindus being termed a religious majority? Isn't it a reality that Hindus comprise about 85 per cent of India's population?

First, the category 'Hindu' is unthinkable in contemporary politics, apart from its birth in colonial ethnographies and census categories. Second, because of the deep divisions between the upper and lower castes that is always a feature of life in agrarian India, it has grown into one of the most important fissures in North Indian politics.

If you look at India as an anthropologist does, what you see is that it is made up of many small groups. A professor of mine once said, only half-jokingly, that India is historically made up only of minorities.

Caste society is a society which operates on small numbers. For example, if you take a group like the Kshatriyas, people of a particular dominant caste such as the Jats in the Punjab or Vokkaligas in Karnataka may not recognise the people in a group three villages away as belonging to the same general category as themselves.

But through a combination of political, administrative and cultural process, bigger social categories were constructed, and these highly localised groups began to see themselves as belonging to, pulled to a single group.

These large-scale new names and identities are certainly real. But they are not natural or eternal. They are historical and circumstantial. In other words, history creates large numbers on the foundation of the small numbers, which actually participate in ordinary social life.

You say that the concept of a 'majority' community can be harmful to a nation's social fabric. How?

One of the basic arguments of the book is that the idea of a majority can create uncertainty about the primary identity of a nation. In the book, I call this the anxiety of incompleteness.

What I mean is that in every nation State without exception, somewhere beneath the surface is the idea that a nation is composed of a single ethnic substance, some kind of ethnic purity -- and the idea of ethnic purity leads to the feeling that only people belonging to that ethnicity should be full citizens in that State.

And in a society like India, this is a huge problem because a certain group, in this case the Hindus, can view themselves as almost completely defining India but not totally. The problem -- the incompleteness -- is due to the presence of other groups, whether you call them minorities or strangers or guests or visitors.

Every Hindu Indian recognises that the land is not completely Hindu. In the book, I argue that this sense of incomplete purity does not necessarily lead to an effort to obliterate the minorities. But in many circumstances, it can lead to that. And we have seen increasing efforts in some parts of India, Gujarat in particular, to obliterate the minorities.

In human history, you have many cases where dominant groups rule the society but are not bothered by the presence of the so-called minorities. But the fear of small numbers in many countries can lead to the efforts to remove or eliminate the minorities.

Have there been historical instances of the majority not being afraid of the small numbers?

Take the Ottoman society or ancient Roman society, which were in fact large multicultural empires. These were huge social formations with dozens of minority groups within them. The most provocative case is that of the Jews under Islamic empires. Though they were sometimes persecuted and attacked, they were normally seen as an acceptable if minor group.

But in the modern world, as my book says, in the condition particularly of the globalisation, there is a tendency for an almost complete majority group to push for 100 percent majority status. This is the road from ethnic purity to ethnic purification or cleansing, as we saw in Serbia after the fall of Tito.

In such cases, the feeling is that we can be a pure country, an uncontaminated ethnic group wholly in control of our country, unsullied by the pollution of small numbers. A large part of my book is concerned with why this feeling arises in the last decade.

You talk about the paradox of violence against minorities increasing even as the notion of human rights is spreading across the world

The fact is that human rights resources are now available to many people. This is a new thing. In the old days, the majority community was less threatened because smaller groups did not have any basis to make strong claims.

Today, if you are Muslim or any other minority, you have a voice, you have the constitutional rights. This does not mean these rights are fully realised. As a consequence of this development, the inbuilt tendency for the majority to worry about minorities is further intensified. It is a worry that is particularly active in the minds of BJP ideologues and active cadres of the Hindu right.

It is also an argument with which they can approach others, who aren't BJP members, and say, look, if you are not careful you will lose your job. It is similar to the struggles against the Mandal Commission, which advocated greater affirmation action for Hindu minorities. The fear of increased claims by minority groups can be produced among decent people.

This can begin the journey from fear to suspicion to anger.

But these arguments have to be created, they have to be distributed, and they have to be put into textbooks, as we know them in India. Such arguments are inculcated systematically through the cadres and are put into political speeches. And they also profit from random events.

Such events can be faraway events, such as violence against one's group in another city or country; or the rumour of some sort of religious outrage; or news of a specific neighbourhood battle over space or processions; or legal battles over clothing or language in public schools.

These events provide the sparks. But the fuel is the deeper resentment that minorities in the era of human rights can make legitimate claims for improved status in their own countries or beyond.

You suggest that globalisation has actually increased the fear with which the Muslim community in India is viewed -- a claim that on the surface seems hard to accept.

In the global Islamic movement, there are certainly people who believe in radical forms of Islam, radical forms of political action, including armed terrorism. There is no denying it. What has happened is that your internal minority begins to be seen as a tool of the external majority.

The Hindutva people could say, these people are in small numbers here but they are connected to very big numbers worldwide.

As global Islam acquires more capacities for terror and armed violence in the Middle East and beyond, Hindu nationalist identity in India and other similar identities elsewhere in the world react by becoming predatory.

A predatory identity is one that is premised on the notion that its survival requires the elimination of its opposed religious or ethnic other.

Indian society is still interdependent, people know they need each other, whether they like each other or not. They have to work together, live together and function together. So it is not a natural tendency to say that I am totally different from you, I cannot have anything to do with you. But the Hindutva people try to do just that.

And to do that, the negative idea, of someone being different, hence unwanted, has to be created and instilled and socialised, either by religious organisations, political propagandists, or the leaders. Their main message, that my own group identity survives only when your group identity disappears, is unnatural -- but it is being articulated in many parts of the country against some minorities.

08-09-2006, 08:42 PM

QUOTE(rkumar @ Aug 6 2006, 08:21 PM)According to B R Ambedkar, there were only three varnas in vedic society, and no fourth varna of shudras. He says, the economy had advanced enough to give rise to a division of labour but there was no hierarchy. He refers to other cosmologies in Hindu texts, but they are all secular, without hint of a hierarchy and without hint of a divine origin. He feels therefore that the two verses in Purusha Sukta are an interpolation, added much later after the caste system was established.1 According to him shudras as an ethnic group were a part of kshatriyas, and a part of Aryan society itself. He does not accept the theory of western scholars according to which shudras and untouchables were originally non-Aryans who were defeated by Aryans, and taken into the vedic society giving them a lower status. On the other hand, shudras were very much a part of the ruling society, several of them being kings. As per Ambedkar, they fell from grace and became the fourth varna when brahmins stopped performing the rite of âupanayanaâ for them as a revenge against harassment and insults suffered by them at the hands of some shudra kings. He also says that untouchability is a post-Buddhist phenomenon, which emerged as a result of Hindus giving up sacrifice of animals and beef-eating under the influence of Buddhism, but they went to such an extreme that those who continued to eat beef were regarded as untouchables.2



i have read this in few places. Any one knows where did Ambedkar mention this (biography, books)? and what was the bases of his conclusion?

..Ma' Bad should have googled first..The ambedkar link

agnivayu · 08-10-2006, 01:36 AM

Not at all true. India has a surplus of people. As an example if all 160 million muslims decided to leave India in disgust to the middle east or Africa, they will likely not be missed either culturally, politically, or even economically. The savings from internal security will actually boost economic growth as resources are freed for investment in infrastructure etc.

Muslims will shave off your heads no matter what. Learn to deal with it, and accept reality that conflict with Islam is inevitable as the history of India has shown (and that of just about every nation that has encountered Islam).

QUOTE(acharya @ Aug 9 2006, 09:54 AM)
Indian society is still interdependent, people know they need each other, whether they like each other or not. They have to work together, live together and function together. So it is not a natural tendency to say that I am totally different from you, I cannot have anything to do with you. But the Hindutva people try to do just that.[/b]

And to do that, the negative idea, of someone being different, hence unwanted, has to be created and instilled and socialised, either by religious organisations, political propagandists, or the leaders. Their main message, that my own group identity survives only when your group identity disappears, is unnatural -- but it is being articulated in many parts of the country against some minorities.
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Husky · (This post was last modified: 08-11-2006, 01:47 PM by Husky.)

Very interesting page on the real history of the destruction of Zoroastrianism (Sassanian empire) at the hands of Islam, versus the one the faithful like to parade. Parallels with Hinduism on this page at a Zoroastrian site:

From Islamic era history of Zoroastrians of Iran through political analysis and historical letters
QUOTEThe Arab invasion of Iran in 630 A.D. and its consequences have never been researched impartially, because they always carry religious sentiments. It is taught and popularized that the Arabs brought Islam to Iran, and the Iranians being frustrated by their government, the strict religious code interfering with their daily life and the established Sasanian's caste system embraced Islam's message of equality and brotherhood. This view however is not only far from the historical evidences but contradicts the basic human instincts.Same Islamic spiel about how 'egalitarian' Islam convinced 'oppressed classes' of Zoroastrians to convert. These are all common Islamic lies, whether they are repeated in Hindu India or in Zoroastrian Persia. The linked page shows more of the real history of Zoroastrian Persia's conversion.

What's termed 'Sassianian caste system' above has also been described as feudal by Europeans, who could not really understand other cultures without reference to their own.
Systems of social specialisation occur the world over. P-secs, marxists and ChristoIslamists probably won't like the facts of Persia's history clashing with their AIT race theory of caste in India.

08-11-2006, 08:16 PM

Husky,

Thanks for the post.

Parsis have been wiped out from Iran by the Moslems.

However it is funny how ungrateful some of these rogues are.

Hindus gave them shelter, food, land and allowed them to practice their religion freely.

Yet we find the ungrateful rogue Sam Manekshaw(a Parsi) who was promoted to the the rank of Field Marshal passing anti-Hindu statements in a popular magazine like "India Today".

He said, "All your(Hindus) problems are because you worship too many Gods...".

What a joke.
The rogue comes to my land, eats my food and talks nonsense about me?

In the same issue of India Today, Farroq Abdullah the chief minister of Kashmir parrots the same line about how Kashmiris converted because of the caste system.

Actually the "Kashmiri" muslims are not even Kashmiri.
They are Turks and Arabs. Illegal immigrants who have killed most of the native Hindus and stolen the land.

agnivayu · (This post was last modified: 08-11-2006, 08:44 PM by agnivayu.)

I think his problem is that he worships too few gods.

Who the hell are these dogs to tell me what I can or cannot worship. This dog comes to Hindusthan, and lectures Hindus.
THe wonderful egalitarian religion of Islam, that's probably why those animals are murdering each other (shia/sunni) in Iraq and Pakistan. All civilized people need to ensure that the Shia-Sunni conflict is turned global and these muslims kill each other.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 08-11-2006, 08:49 PM by Husky.)

QUOTEYet we find the ungrateful rogue Sam Manekshaw (a Parsi) who was promoted to the the rank of Field Marshal passing anti-Hindu statements in a popular magazine like "India Today".
He said, "All your(Hindus) problems are because you worship too many Gods...".Methinks Sam might be a Christo. From browsing through other forums I've found that many of the Parsees who've converted to Christianity believe that 'Parsee' is a community name or an ethnicity. Just like Christos who call themselves 'brahmin Christians', there are Christos who think they are Parsees. (They feel they need a legitimate Indian identifier - similar to 'Dalit Christian'.) It upsets real Parsees, from what I've read.

'Parsee' Christos, like all Christos, are ungrateful people. So are you certain that Sam M isn't one of these - his statement sure exhibits the usual ChristoIslamic monotheistic supremacy? And the name 'Sam' seems to point in this general direction too. Even if Sam was of Parsee ancestry and hadn't converted to ChristoIslamism, he might just have become a p-sec (probably has no respect for his own Zoroastrian religion either).

Parsee (Indian Zoroastrian) sites generally tend to show great respect for India and Hindus, saying that Hinduism had been very kind to them.

QUOTEIn the same issue of India Today, Farroq Abdullah the chief minister of Kashmir parrots the same line about how Kashmiris converted because of the caste system.
Actually the "Kashmiri" muslims are not even Kashmiri.
They are Turks and Arabs. Illegal immigrants who have killed most of the native Hindus and stolen the land.I was under the impression that most Kashmiris were of Indian ancestry, the usual enforced conversion to Islam. I read somewhere that Indian, Pak and Bd Muslims have 90% or more Indian ancestry.
(Although a couple of Kashmiri actors I've caught glimpses of do seem more Arabian looking than Indian. Maybe that's a dominant trait that was passed on in their case?)
For the rest, they don't look either Arabian or Turkic, but look just like very North Indian N Indians. What do I know, never been to Kashmir.

Bharatvarsh · 08-12-2006, 08:28 AM

QUOTEI was under the impression that most Kashmiris were of Indian ancestry, the usual enforced conversion to Islam. I read somewhere that Indian, Pak and Bd Muslims have 90% or more Indian ancestry. 
Yes majority are of Indian ancestry, not foreign, the foreign influence is more in evidence in POK, NWFP etc but all that doesn't matter, all of them need to be reconverted or else Hindus will have to face some unpleasent consequences.

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