A series of
short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our
volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear.
This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges,
live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness,
peace and contentment.
[Continued
from the previous post.]
When
families are destroyed, timeless family traditions are destroyed. And when that
happens, families plunge into lawlessness. And with families plunging into
lawlessness, women become corrupt. And when women become corrupt, Krishna, varna
sankara results. Varna sankara [the intermixture of varnas] leads to hell both
those who destroy the families and the families themselves. Deprived of the
offerings of water and food, the spirits of the ancestors fall. By these evil
deeds of those who destroy families, causing confusion of varnas, the eternal
dharmas of families and castes are destroyed. BG 1.40-43
We heard
Arjuna arguing earlier that one’s own people should not be killed, however
wicked they are, even if they are atatayis, the greatest of criminals. In fact,
he calls the people against whom he is waging the war by the name atatayis and
then says they should not still be killed because they are his swajana, his own
people, and asks how one can achieve happiness after killing one’s own people. Perhaps
he feels his argument to justify the decision he has already taken under his
emotional hijack to abandon the war and run away from the battlefield preferring
to become a monk is not strong enough. So here he is putting forward another
argument. This time the argument is that the war will eventually lead to varna
sankara, intermixing of varnas. This would happen because the death of the
kshatriya men in the war would misbalance the man-woman ratio among kshatriyas,
many kshatriya women would not find kshatriya men to marry and then they would either
have relationships with non-kshatriya men or marry non-kshatriya men, leading
to the birth of huge numbers of children whose varna would be indeterminate.
Let’s take a
look at this argument that Arjuna gives now to justify his decision to abandon
the war.
The varna
system is very different from what we speak of as the caste system today. The
varnas are just four, brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaishyas and shudras, whereas
casts are hundreds and hundreds. Every modern state in India has scores of
different castes, counting major and minor ones.
The varna
system is as old as the Vedas, which according to current understanding are
some ten to twelve thousand years old. Modern scholars studying the age of the
Vedas point out that the Taittiriya Samhita belonging to the Krishna Yajur Veda
places the constellation Pleiades at the winter solstice, which correlates with
astronomical events that took place around 8,500 BCE. Dr. B.G. Siddharth of Birla Science Institute
points out that the Taittiriya Brahmana refers to the Purva Bhadrapada star as
rising due east – an event that occurred no later than 10,000 BCE, which makes
the brahmana around 12000 years old. Since the Samhita parts of the Vedas are
much older than the brahmana books, these are much older than 12000 years. And
the Rig Veda in its Purusha Sukta speaks of the birth of the four varnas from
the cosmic person, the Virat Purusha, or God.
However this
system was very different from what we know as the varna system today. For the
Rig Veda, the system was based not on birth, but on psycho-spiritual qualities
of the individual called the gunas. They were a way of describing people by
their nature and not by their birth.
The Bhagavad
Gita speaks of the varna system in its fourth chapter where Krishna speaking as
God says that the system of fourfold
varnas was created by him based on the differences of gunas and karmas:
chaaturvarnyam
mayaa srishtam guna-karma-vibhaagashah; tasya kartaaram api maam viddhyakartaaram
avyayam BG 4.13
There is no
mention of birth [jaati, janma] here. As the verse says, the system was based
on gunas and karmas, psychological tendencies and professions followed, and not
on birth.
Ancient India
understood that all human beings are not the same, individuals differ from one
another in their temperaments, longings, drives, aspirations, needs, talents,
competencies and so on and based on these differences divided people into four
broad categories, just as modern psychologist Carl Jung divided people into the
three categories of extroverts, introverts and ambiverts and modern social
psychology divides people into Type A and Type B.
People who
loved calmness and serenity, who were highly intellectual and spiritual, contemplative
and meditative, dominated by the need to understand themselves and the world
around them, who sought the meaning of life, loved solitude and serenity and
had strong, to use a term by Dr Abraham Maslow, transcendence needs, were given
the name brahmanas. These were people who sought growth in their inner worlds, wanted
to grow vertically, so to speak.
People who
were oriented towards power and leadership, who felt the need to take charge of
others and to command and control them, were called kshatriyas. Their
orientation was towards expansion on the horizontal plain, at the level where
they were. They needed to conquer the world, were aggressive and territorially
oriented, tended to give generously, were excited by danger and adventure and
loved taking risks. They had tremendous energy, were steadfast and tenacious, frequently
acted impulsively not caring for consequences, had strong belongingness and
acceptance needs and were marked by raw courage and great strength of purpose.
These were the movers and shakers of the society.
And a third
group were the wealth producers of the society whose basic interest was in
producing more and more material wealth through all possible means such as
agriculture, cattle rearing, business and commerce and so on. They were called
vaishyas. They used their wealth to produce more wealth, and in a way it is
they who sustained the society since no society can survive and grow without
wealth.
People who
did not belong to any of these three categories belonged to the fourth group
and were given the name shudras. The largest number of people in the society
belonged to this group. They did not share the aspirations of the first three
groups of people: they did not have the strong spiritual needs of the first
group of people, the strong territorial and authority needs of the second group
and were not driven by the wealth and possession needs of the third group. They
were contented with their lives as they lived it every day and wanted to make
sure that their tomorrows were taken care of.
Since this
division was based on your gunas and karmas, on our drives, motives and
aspirations and the professions we chose for ourselves based on these, it was a
highly flexible and mobile system and anyone could move from any group to any
other group as their gunas and karmas changed, as their nature and drives
changed.
In the Vedic
literature we find examples of people being treated as belonging to one varna
or another on the basis of their gunas – their psychological nature. For
instance the Chhandogya Upanishad belonging to the Sama Veda tells us the story
of Satyakama, the son of a poor woman called Jabala who earned her living by doing
odd jobs in different houses and was contented with her simple life. Jabala herself
did not have any higher aspirations in life, but her son wanted to know the
Truth, to become what the varna system of the day called a brahmana. The boy
approached the famous guru of the day, Rishi Haridrumata Gautama who asked him
what gotra lineage he belonged to. When he said he did not know, Rishi Gautama sent
Satyakama back to his mother to find out, and she told him she herself did not
know it, she worked in different houses and a man in one of those house should
be his father. She told him, “Go and tell your guru that my name is Jabala and
you are therefore Styakama Jabala.’
When the boy
came and told his guru the exact words of his mother without any embarrassment
or shame, repeating his desire to seek the Truth, Gauytama’s face beamed with
pleasure and he told Satyakama that anyone who had the desire he had to learn
and that kind of integrity and commitment to truth is a brahmana and therefore
he was a brahmana. Stayakama Jabala becomes Gautama’s disciple and eventually
one of the greatest Vedic rishis in his own right.
The purpose
of this division into four categories was so that people could understand
themselves and live their life in accordance with their essential nature and
drives, follow professions they had maximum aptitude for so that individuals
reached self-actualization and the society was assured of maximum benefit from
each individual. It was an elitist system that provided lots of opportunities for
the three ‘upper’ classes who were also given plenty of privileges. An
important weakness of the system was that it did not take into consideration and
provide for the needs of the vast majority of ‘average’ people who neither had the
brahmanical orientation nor the kshatriya or vaishya orientation. The word
shudra, a word of unknown etymology, for all we know did not have any negative
connotations to begin with, and probably just meant an ordinary person, though
eventually it came to be associated with a lot of social prejudices and became for
all practical pruposes a word of abuse.
However, soon
the sons of the brahmanas started claiming they too were brahmanas, the sons
kshatriyas that they too are kshatriyas and the sons of vaishyas that they are
vaishyas too. The sons claimed for themselves too the privileges their fathers
were given, whether they had the temperaments and competencies required or not,
forgetting that the human being is not just the body born of his parents but
much more than that, that each one of comes into this world with a rich
collection of vasanas, sanskaras and karmas that we have acquired through the
endless lifetimes we have lived. Over time the varna system that was based on
gunas and karmas was reduced to one based exclusively on birth.
Thus in the
Mahabharata we find Karna refused the privileges of a kshatriya because he was
supposed to have been a non-kshatriya by
birth even though he had all the qualities of a kshatriya. We also find
that Drona and his son Ashwatthama treated as brahmanas though by temperament
and karma they were kshatriyas, particularly Ashwatthama. Vidura, being calm,
serene, intellectual and spiritual, a great yogi filled with inner light and every
inch a brahmana by guna and karma, was never given brahmanical privileges and
was throughout his life treated as a shudra because he was the son of a shudra
maid.
Once it fell
from its original form and the original ideas died out, the varna system decayed
further and eventually became a thoroughly dreadful thing and one of the worst
human institutions ever. It bound and shackled with invisible chains the vast
majority of people who fell into its all-powerful hands, refused them all human
dignity, denied them all social mobility, condemned them to the dirtiest jobs
society wanted to be done and then treated them as dirty for doing these jobs.
The battle
against the caste system is old. The Buddha revolted against it two thousand
six hundred years ago, enlightened men like Basaveshara, chief minister of the
Kalachuri king of Karnataka and founder of the Lingayats revolted against it a
thousand years ago. All the Sikh gurus and the Natha saints rejected it. In
modern times Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Ambedkar fought against it, the constitution
of India holds discrimination based on cast illegal, but in spite of all this,
it is still very much with us, condemning to the peripheries of society some
eighty percent of India’s population, denying them social dignity and in some
cases even basic human dignity.
One of my
students in a teacher-education college where I taught, a young lady who had
already taught in a school for many years, once told me about a student in one
of her classes. The student sat away in class from all other students, wouldn’t
ask any questions and volunteer any answers, in the lunch break she wouldn’t
join the other students but would go away to a distant corner and eat there all
alone. In the games periods she wouldn’t join the other students but would
stand under a tree quietly and watch other students playing. The young teacher
took interest in this lonely, sad girl and eventually after much effort
discovered that the girl was born into a cast that was considered untouchable
and it was the fear of social rejection that kept her away from active school
life.
Another
student of mine in the same college was bright, one of the toppers of the
college, beautiful, lighted up any place she went to, but came from a village
where the entire community shared a common well. The villagers did not stop her
from drawing up water from the well but every time she came and fetched water
from the well, they came and washed up the walls of the well and its cemented
surroundings and only then would they use the well.
One of my
friends witnessed a sad and shocking scene in a village in Vaishali – the
sacred land where the Buddha walked and taught, one of the oldest democracies
in the world – just a few years ago while travelling by bus. A city-educated
young man was pulled out of a bus and thoroughly beaten up with slippers for
daring to sit next to another youth from his village in the bus – the beaten up
young man belonged to one of the ‘lower castes’.
The
Shatarudriya – One Hundred Prayers to Rudra – is one of the most beautiful
prayers anywhere in the world, belonging to any religion, still ritually
chanted everyday in millions of Hindu homes. The prayer, also known by such names
as the Rudri Path, Rudradhyayi, Rudra Prashna and so on, is an ancient prayer
from the Taittiriya Samhita of the Krishna Yajur Veda which sees divinity in
everything and everyone. Among the prayers addressed to Rudra we find:
namo
mahadbhyah kshullakebhyas cha vo namo...
“Salutations
to you, O Lord! The great ones and the small ones alike you are! Salutations to
you, O Lord! The carpenters and the chariot makers are none other than you!
Salutations to you, O Lord! The potters who mold clay and make pots and the
smiths who work in metals are none other than you! Salutations to you, O Lord! The
fowlers who trap birds and fishermen who catch fish are none other than you!
Salutations to you, O Lord! You are the bow and arrow makers, the hunters and the
leaders of hounds. Salutations to you, O Lord! You the source of all things and
you are the destroyer of all things too!”
That is the
spirit of the Vedas! To the Shatarudriya everything is divine and nothing
pollutes And once the varna system began decaying and in its decayed form
became the caste system based on jati, birth, it started seeing some people
polluting and untouchable, whose very shadow falling on your shadow would
pollute you!
When Arjuna
says the war will lead to varna-sankara, intermingling of varnas, through
corruption in women and the birth children of mixed varnas, he is not speaking
of the varna system based on gunas and karmas. He is speaking of the highly
corrupt system of classifying people based exclusively on birth and totally
ignored competencies, drives, and other elements of human nature. He is
speaking of the system that made the saintly Vidura a shudra for life, that
denied the glorious Karna kshatriyahood, that called the vicious, monstrous
Ashwatthama a brahmana in spite of the darkest deeds he did in the kalaratri of
the Sauptika Parva of Mahabharata. He is speaking of a system that would soon
become the highly corrupt caste system we have today and is one of the greatest
evils in our society: a system that limits opportunities for social
participation, social mobility, job opportunities, selection of life partners,
etc. exclusively to what is decided by one’s birth, a system that reduces the
vast majority of population to the lowest rungs of the society forever with no
chance of escape.
The
destruction of such a system is perhaps one of the prices that have to be paid
for establishing dharma in the society and among its leaders.
O0O
Even if we do
not go to the profound depths of ancient Indian understanding of the gunas and
what they teach us about human nature, human growth, human excellence and so
on, which we will have plenty of opportunities to talk about during our
discussions of the Gita later since the gunas are central to three of the
eighteen chapters of the Gita, and confine our discussion at this stage to
varnas as birth-based, Arjuna’s fears about varna-sankara still do not have a
strong foundation. Just as varna purity – somewhat like racial purity – has its
strengths, genetically speaking mixing of varnas too has several advantages. When
we do not mix the genes, children inherit both the strengths and weaknesses our
parents. Many genetic groups have become extinct just because they did not mix
with other groups and many others have widespread defects because of inbreeding.
Of course we are not discussing incest but that too is a form of inbreeding. There
are several reasons why the incest taboo exists all over the world, but the
most important of them is the fear of possible genetically inherited defects. On
the whole, nature prefers mixing of genes rather than purity of genes.
Basically, sex itself is nature’s way of making sure of genes being mixed to
produce stronger and varied offspring.
Arjuna cannot
escape the call to the war for establishing dharma hiding behind the argument
that varna-sankara will take place and that will be disastrous. That is another
lame argument, like his earlier argument that felons should not be destroyed if
they are one’s own people.
Arjuna has
become temporarily blind to truth because of his attachment and refuses to see
things as they are. The Gita will teach him to come out of this blindness and
help him see things objectively, through eyes that are detached, and practice
anasakti yoga which is one of the central teachings for the Gita.
O0O
No comments:
Post a Comment