THE caste system is not likedby many educated Hindus. But what do they really propose to do about it ? Total abolitionists of caste are stil in a minority and include only persons who have some real experience of western society. The masses are certainly vehement supporters of the systyem.
Those among the educated classes, who want to retain the institution as it is ,sometimes wrongly identify it with the Shastric Varnashrama institution. But neither Varna nor Ashrama has anything to do with caste. Varnma did not mean colour. Varna is explained by the Mahabharata as individual disposition. Asharama means the four-fold division of the life of a twice-born,prescribed by the Shastras.
Caste is the division of the Hindu society into a very large number of exclusive hereditary groups. This arrangement is wrongly believed, on the supposed authority of the Shastras, to be the Karma of individuals in their previous births. A person is supposed to be born in a higher or a lower caste according as his Karma in the previous births is better or worse.
Such belief is sometimes sought to be supported by misinterpretation of certain passages ofthe Shastras with Varna and not with jati (birth,heredity). The inborn disposition of a person is the result of his deeds in his previouslives. It is changed by deeds performed during the present lige. There are many texts to the effect that a Brahman isliable to lose his Varna, by unspiritual conduct,during his life-time.Rebirth in the forms of lower animal,tree,or stone is declared to be the result of the deliberate practice of thoughtlessness by a person in his previous births as man. There is no mention of cast in this connection.
The Varnashrama organisation of society is part and parcel of the Vedic religion. The present Hindu society is however, not organised into castes by reference to the stage of life and individual disposition. The caste-system is proobably te historical descendant of the tribal organisation of pprimitive society on which was imposed, in an unwarrantable way , the decayed tradition of the Vasrnashrama organisation. It seems to be one of the worst crimes that have been ever committed against the well-being of a eole by ecclesiastical self-seeking.
Current Hinduism has learnt to take its stand on the caste under the wrong impression that it is identical with the Varnashrama organisation. Sufficient cogent historical causes have made the caste system a necessary part of the present social order of the Hindus, and its summary abolition is, therefore sure to lead to social anarchy and far worse confusion that what we are experiencing by its retention.
Nevertheless it is not less true that the Vedic religion can be practised in its living form only within the Varnasharma oooooooorganisation. In caste-ridden India however it is very difficult to obtain a sympathetic hearing for the Varnashrama organisation which is altogether different in its form and spirit from the caste. The tradition of this Shastric organisation is maintained in the caste arrangement by the retention of certain designatins and forms of practice. Under the cover of these forms of practice. Under the cover of these names and forms there have grown up very strong vested interests within the caste,whose very life is threatened by any proposal for the re-establishment of the Varnasharama organisation in India.
The soocial supremacy of the caste-Brahmanass is.however, opposed to the democratic sirit of the Age. It is also being assailed by the labours of scholars who are restoring the ppproper reading of the texts of the Shaastras, on the deliberate perversions of which the superstitiooous andirrational upholders of a spurious system have been accustomed upptil now to place their chief reliance.
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Namaskar
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