Varna (Hinduism)

• 1. Introduction

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  Rigveda hymn 10.90 describes the sacrifice of a primordial being called Purusha, and from that cosmic act, varna was born. From Purusha's mouth came the Brahmin priests; from his arms, the Kshatriya warriors. From his thighs came the Vaishyas, from his feet the Shudras. This fourfold division generated debate across two millennia of South Asian religious writing. Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, scholars of Sanskrit and Religious Studies, found no evidence of an overarching caste system in the Rigveda itself. They concluded that varna looks embryonic in that text, more a social ideal than a social reality. Some modern scholars go further, suggesting the Purusha Sukta was added later as a charter myth for a social order that already existed. Did the ancient texts actually agree on what varna meant? And how did the system described by Brahmanical writers compare to what Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh authors recorded?

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• 2. Two Words, Two Systems

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  The Sanskrit term varna appears first in the Rigveda carrying meanings of "colour, outward appearance, exterior, form, figure or shape." By the time of the Mahabharata, the same word was being used to mean "color, tint, dye or pigment." In some Vedic and medieval texts, varna stretched further still, covering "colour, race, tribe, species, kind, sort, nature, character, quality, property." This range of meaning hints at how fluid the concept remained long before it hardened into a social classification.

  Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras: these four names make up the theoretical varna scheme in Brahmanical literature. Brahmins were described as scholars, priests, and teachers. Kshatriyas were rulers, administrators, and warriors. Vaishyas were farmers, agriculturalists, and merchants. Shudras were artisans, labourers, and servants. Scholars consistently describe this arrangement as theoretical or idealized. What people actually lived within was jati: thousands of endogamous community groups spread across South Asia. A single jati might be further divided into exogamous sub-groups based on shared gotras. Classical Indian authors, and at times Indologists as well, have historically blurred these two very different systems.

  Communities within the four varnas bore the Sanskrit label savarna Hindus. Dalits and tribal groups who fell outside all four categories were called avarna. That labeling left open a fundamental question. Did varna, which the classical authors rarely applied to actual communities, have any reliable grip on the social world it claimed to describe?

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• 3. A System in Dispute

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  The Chandogya Upanishad traces a person's varna not to birth or bloodline, but to conduct in a previous life. Those who did good work, the text teaches, are born as a brahmin, a kshatriya, or a vaishya in the next life. Those who did bad work are born as a dog, a pig, or as a casteless person. The Vajrasuchi Upanishad pushes still further. Brahman status, it declares, rests on neither birth, knowledge, nor karma. Only direct realisation of the Atman, one's own inner self, confers that standing. The Upanishad poses the question directly: "Who indeed then is a Brahmana?" It answers that only the person who has realised the Atman, devoid of class and actions, truly deserves that name.

  The Mahabharata, estimated to have been completed by about the 4th century CE, devotes section 12.181 to varna and presents two competing models. In the first, the sage Bhrigu describes varna as a colour-coded scheme. Brahmin varna was white, Kshatriya red, Vaishya yellow, and Shudra black. Another sage, Bharadwaja, immediately challenges this. Colours, he argues, are found among all the varnas. Desire, anger, fear, greed, grief, anxiety, hunger, and toil prevail across all human beings. Bile and blood flow from all human bodies. What, he asks, actually distinguishes the varnas? The Mahabharata then issues a declaration, cited by the religion scholar Alf Hiltebeitel: "There is no distinction of Varnas. This whole universe is Brahman." Hiltebeitel also notes that the Mahabharata treats varna as non-genealogical. The four varnas, the text insists, are categories, not lineages.

  In section 12.181, a behavioural model then replaces the colour scheme. Those inclined to anger, pleasures, and boldness, the text says, attained the Kshatriya varna. Those drawn to cattle rearing and living off the plough attained the Vaishyas. Those fond of violence, covetousness, and impurity attained the Shudras. The Brahmin class is cast in the epic as the archetype default state of humanity: a person dedicated to truth, austerity, and pure conduct.

  The Bhagavad Gita assigns varna duties according to the gunas, the natural qualities arising from Prakriti, or material nature. For the Brahmin, those duties include control of the mind and senses, austerity, purity, forbearance, and uprightness. For the Kshatriya: prowess, boldness, fortitude, dexterity, and not fleeing from battle. Agriculture, cattle-rearing, and trade belong to the Vaishya. Service belongs to the Shudra. The Brahma Purana adds a warning: acting against both varna and ashrama, the stage of life that guides dharma, leads to hell. The Brahmanda Purana characterises relations between low and high varnas as a sign of the Kali Yuga, the age of immorality and decline.

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• 4. What the Law Books Said

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  Patrick Olivelle, credited with modern translations of Vedic literature, Dharma-sutras and Dharma-shastras, examined how ancient texts actually discuss purity and impurity. His conclusion challenged a widely held assumption. The texts discuss purity in relation to the individual: eating certain kinds of food, urination and defecation, moral and ritual behaviour. He found no instance in the Dharma-shastra texts where the terms pure or impure apply to a group, a varna, or a caste. The only mention of impurity related to groups concerns people who have committed grievous sins and thereby fallen out of their varna. These, Olivelle notes, are called "fallen people" and impure. All four varnas, in his reading, could attain purity or impurity by the content of their character, ethical intent, and actions.

  Manusmriti assigns cattle rearing as a Vaishya occupation. Historical evidence tells a different story. Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Shudras all owned and reared cattle, and livestock wealth was a mainstay of households across varnas. Ramnarayan Rawat, a professor of History specialising in social exclusion in the Indian subcontinent, cites 19th-century British records about the Chamars. Listed as untouchables, Chamars owned land, owned cattle, and were active agriculturalists. The emperors of Kosala and the prince of Kasi are other historical figures whose lives did not match the textbook varna assignments.

  Tim Ingold, an anthropologist, describes Manusmriti as a highly schematic commentary on the varna system that provides models rather than descriptions. Susan Bayly argues that Manusmriti and similar scriptures helped elevate Brahmin social standing. But she also argues that these ancient texts did not somehow create the phenomenon of caste in India. Recent scholarship holds that the discussion of varna and outcastes in these texts does not resemble the modern era caste system.

  The restriction on Veda study for Shudras first appears in the Dharmashastra texts. It has no precedent in the Vedic era literature, a gap the other religious traditions of South Asia would each address in their own way.

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• 5. Dissenting Voices

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  Peter Masefield, a Buddhism scholar and ancient Pali texts translator, studied the varna system in the Nikaya literature. He found it far more fluid than Brahmanical sources suggest. The Nikaya texts run from roughly the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD. In this period, varna is attested as a class system, but not as a caste system. People in any varna could in principle perform any profession. Some Brahmins in the early Buddhist texts are identified as farmers. The texts record that anyone of any birth could perform priestly functions. Brahmins took food from anyone, suggesting that strict rules of commensality had not yet emerged. Masefield concluded that if any form of caste system existed during the Nikaya period, it was likely restricted to certain non-Aryan groups.

  The Digha Nikaya records a conversation between Gotama Buddha and a Brahmin named Sonadanda, who was very learned in the Vedas. Buddha asked by how many qualities a Brahmin could recognise another Brahmin. Sonadanda initially named five qualities. First, pure descent on both the mother's and father's side. Second, mastery of mantras. Third, fair colour and a pleasing appearance. Fourth, being virtuous, learned, and wise. Fifth, being first or second to hold the sacrificial ladle. Buddha then asked whether any of those qualities could be removed without disqualifying a person as a Brahmin. One by one, Sonadanda eliminated fair colour, then birth into a varna, then the ability to recite mantras and conduct sacrifices. He arrived at just two essential qualities: being virtuous and being learned and wise. Sonadanda added that wisdom and morality are inseparable. The moral person has wisdom, the wise person has morality, and their combination, he said, is the highest thing in the world.

  The Adi Purana, an 8th-century Jain text by Jinasena, is the earliest mention of varna and jati in Jain literature. Jinasena traces varna not to the Rigveda but to the Bharata legend. In that legend, Bharata performed an ahimsa-test, a test of non-violence. Those who refused to harm any living being were called the priestly varna. Jinasena calls them dvija, twice born, and deva-Brahmanas, divine Brahmins. According to Padmanabh Jaini, a professor of Indic studies, the Adi Purana states there is only one jati: manusyajati, the human caste. All other divisions arise from different professions. The Kshatriya varna emerged when Rishabh took up weapons and assumed the powers of a king. The Vaishya and Shudra varnas arose from different means of livelihood.

  Sikhism, a late 15th-century religion that originated in the Punjab region, calls varna by the term varan. Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of Religion specialising in Sikh studies, notes that 18th- to 20th-century Sikh literature describes varan as a class system. Jati appears in those texts as Zat, marking the endogamous occupational groups. The Sikh Gurus, along with non-Sikh Bhagats including Namdev, Ravidas, and Kabir, declared the varan of one's birth irrelevant to spiritual destiny. They taught that all of humanity had a single refuge. In practice, however, the Sikh tradition was more ambiguous. The Khalsa Dharam Sastar of 1914 argued that certain Sikh castes should be barred from major shrines. All Sikh Gurus were Khatri, married within their own zat, and practiced arranged marriages. Ravidassia Sikhs and Ramgarhia Sikhs today gather in their own places of worship, organized along varan lines. The Ravidassia religion movement has sought to replace the Guru Granth Sahib in their Gurdwaras with the texts of Ravidas. Ravidas was a poet-saint born into a family whose traditional occupation involved work with dead animals and leather. Both communities now gather in separate Gurdwaras. The Ravidassia movement continues to press its claim that the texts of Ravidas carry equal authority to the historic Sikh scriptures.

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