There is no central authority in Hindu religion. There is no priest or head priest who controls the religious activities in any given region. No priest is under the control of any other priest from any other temple. All the temples are independent. The Brahmans were not under the control of any king so naturally they were not under the control of each other also. Only one thing could control them was the self-created Dharma and their teacher (the Guru), if any. All the authority was vested in the scriptures. They did not need any other authority. The divine fear or their paranormal power did all the work. All the basic tenets of Varna Dharma derive their authority from the timeless scriptures composed after 1400 B.C.E. The Shastras in turn derive their authority from being the Word of God. They are the dicta of God. None could dare defy the Rishis created "Word of God"! Such was the immovable faith - ignominy was acceptable under the Varna Dharma!
No supreme controlling authority on the earth is envisaged in the scriptures. One reason for the absence of this authority is the multitude of persons involved in formulating the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and Dharma Shastras etc. the Hindu scriptures are not the handiwork of a single man - note. These scriptures, sacred to Hindus, have been composed over different overlapping periods running into hundreds of years each. Whatever was produce by one Brahman could have been added to or altered by another Brahman in the coming generations. When this process runs into hundreds of years, we have an output where contributions have been made by different Rishis and Brahmans. In addition, there are many outputs like that - all of them sacred though with different levels of sacredness. An older scripture is usually more sacred than the others are. Therefore, the Manusmriti being one of the oldest of Dharma Shastras is more sacred than the other Dharma Shastras.
Therefore, we have many composers of the Vedas, many contributors to the Upanishads and many authors to each of Dharma Shastras and Puranas. Any man in his lifetime did not start and finalized any portion of the scriptures. These writings were carried on from generation to generation through oral traditions. This situation lasted until the scripture in question was finalized and a final word was said on it; it was then fossilized as the Word of God. It was a long time before any of the scriptures was finalized and written down. Thus, each scripture has the contribution of innumerable authors - or may be the gods. Thus, there is no single author or individual who can be claimed or identified as the most important or as the central authority in any of the scriptures. And, when all the scriptures are put together the difficulty of finding a single formulator becomes insurmountable. This explains why Hindu religion or Hindu society does not have a central authority or personality like the Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed. In the absence of such authority or personality, any learned Brahman who knew the scriptures became the local authority on the matters pertaining to Hindu Dharma and the Panchayats of isolated Villages became the instruments to implement it along with the local rulers. The absence of a central authority forced a kind of decentralization in Hindu society where biased scriptures were taken as the final authority. These scriptures in turn were monopolized by the Brahmans. Thus, the authority of scriptures got translated into the authority of the Brahmans with a significant element of divine fear. Therefore, a Brahman in a village in the South India was a local religious and social authority at village level and a Brahman in a village in North India was a local authority there. The Panchayats in independent / isolated / insulated villages became the instruments to uphold the Dharma. It automatically passed through inheritance from one generation to another. If one has to be a Brahman then one has to inherit the Brahmanhood. It is not an acquirable commodity - only the fools think otherwise. One needed to be born to cruel and dishonest lawmakers to make the cruel laws.
The Brahmans can be regarded as a well-trained and self-interested army in the scriptures, possessing ultra-rationality, ever ready to defend their well-swindled privileges. They did an indirect impenetrable defense through the scriptures that were inaccessible to others. The fort of scriptures was impregnable. All the social and religious attacks on others came from this fort where Brahmans were safe. There was Sanskrit also. There was God and Sanskrit in between the Brahmans and the lower castes. Nobody from the lower strata could criticize the religious authority vested in the lawmakers for the fear of acting aDharmically and thus becoming judiciable and punishable by the society itself.
The village headman was the only link between the kings and the people of villages; he was responsible collecting and paying the taxes to the powers that be. Rest of the village was insulated from the temporal power and was in awe of it; demilitarized it was. The kings were interested in the cities and the boundaries of kingdom. The villages were of no concern to them. The villages were managed by the village headman, the biggest landlord, generally and in time of disputes by the village councils (the Panchayats) largely made up of five people. They held up the traditions of villages, which were the same as the Dharma. The kings came and went but the local authority which managed the affairs of villages, collected and paid taxes, remained unchanged. Thus, the local authorities were not affected and as a result the power structure in the villages remain unaffected. As long as they paid the taxes, the dominant caste and/or family went unchallenged from within village providing the stability to caste based Dharma. All the bickering took place at the level of kings only. The village society normally appeared in an organized way in the form of the Panchayats and socially and economically adjusted different castes. The Panchayats could organize the village people on the basis of caste, Varna and Dharma. These Panchayats were made up of largely of the dominant caste people who ruled in their own favor - obviously, and in the favor of Dharma, to appease the dominant paranormal powers. Anybody in society could take the law into its own hand to save the Dharma which meant saving the Brahmans hiding behind the scriptures and the myth of divinity.
As already mentioned, the spread of the Varna system, which was against the majority right from the beginning, was not due to any conquest but because of the magnetic mystique of the Yagyas and their supposedly paranormal war winning qualities and the paranormal reputation of Brahmans as the people who could correctly invoke the gods without inviting the divine retribution. The culture of Yagyas was so strong that it could not be defeated through wars; for its defeat, it needed the cultural wars that came in the form of the Buddhism and the Jainism. In due course of time, the Yagyas impressed the local rulers so much that they scrambled for the skilled Brahmans for performing them. The kings patronized the Brahmans for performing the yagyas having paranormal powers to make them win the wars. They invited the Brahmans to their land, and gave them land grants, and accepted the superiority of the Vedas, and, thus of Brahmans in lieu of attaining the Kshatriya status and the promised victories in the wars. The Varna Dharma became the dominant doctrine. Thus, the Vedic religion spread all over India - from king to king and thereby from region to region. For calling Brahmans in their kingdoms, the local rulers offered them land grants and acknowledged their superiority. The Vedic Gods were invoked through the fire worship, mantras and offering of animal sacrifices. The invocation of war gods through fire worship played a major role in the spread of coming Sanatana Dharma. This invariably meant fighting a war with gods on their side, courtesy the Brahmans, which they could not lose. They had to be grateful to the Brahmans for the great selfless and compassionate action in performing the Yagyas. It was not necessary to convert the common people; only the kings needed to be converted; others were to be defined; then it was the function of kings to impose the Varna Dharma in their areas. The lower class people could be defined in terms of castes/Varnas as given in the scriptures. The Varna ashram notions of purity and pollution became dominant under the fog of Gyan (knowledge) of pure and pious people knowing the Vedas. And, it cut across the generations.
The all prevailing presence of the Brahmans all over India is the result of their cultural hegemony and not of any conquest. They were desperately sought after for their paranormal powers of making the gods dance at the chanting of the sacred mantras. As far Rishis were concerned those people who had not performed Yagya before a war, definitely, stood to lose; the canard was effective beyond the wildest dreams. The paranormal powers were more potent than the power of weapons thus overriding the kings' coercive power. The cultural hegemony of the Brahmans is very ancient and evident from the fact that by 200 B.C.E. they were performing Yagyas for the Dravidian kings in the deep South. We know that this cultural hegemony was provided by their paranormal power of invoking the blessing of gods and avoiding the divine retribution. For this, they gained land grants and acceptance of their superiority. If one agreed with superiority of the Vedas then one automatically agreed with the superiority of Brahmans. This superiority was imparted to them by the Purusha sukta of Rig Veda. That is why the necessary condition of being a Hindu is to have faith in the infallibility of Vedas; this cements their supremacy and thus by implication one has to follow them. No canards here. How could pure pious and sacred people spread the canards? Anyway, nobody could argue with the Word of God - the Vedas. It is also clear in the performance of Ashwamedha ceremony in the Yajura Veda. This ceremony adds nothing to the respect of either kings or queens. However, it tells that the Veda-Vakya or Veda statements were taken as the Word of God and followed to the last detail. This was a matter of faith in the divinity of the Vedas and also a matter of faith in the divine retribution - the divine fear loomed over largely and effectively - even the kings and queens were ready to suffer the ignominy. If the kings/queens could be made to go through this insulting ceremony then the honor of other Varnas had to be worthless. It was! All this, indicates general absence of pride within the Hindu society. It would be interesting to know many lower caste people have pride in relation to their caste status - empty unsubstantiated and unrecognized self-boasting claims not withstanding!
Any lower Varna individual worth his ego was a dangerous threat to Dharma and had to be moulded into a meek follower by the sustained invocation of the authority and the divinity of the Vedas. And also by invoking the meek dharmic conduct of his forefathers, whom he revered; add to that the fear of paranormal powers, the wrath of god that would visit the adharmic people and adharmic kings; and everybody believed that with open eyes and got moulded. Effective canards, you would agree. Of course, the threat of mutilation by the dharmic kings was also there along with a threat of ostracization. The mutilated Shudras gave a sense of jubilation to the higher Varnas. Many mutilations were not needed. Actually, few mutilated Shudras were sufficient to put an inductive sense of helplessness and fear among the unarmed Shudras. The Shudra kings were a different preposition; they were pacified and convinced by the granting the Kshatriya status. Of course, the Brahmans got the land grants in return for elevating their status. However, the soldiers or kith and kin of these Kshatriya kings were not granted the Kshatriya status because most probably they could not offer the land grants. Brahmans spread from land to land through invitations to them by the Shudra kings interested in the Yagyas and elevation of their status. These established social, religious and spiritual authorities were invited by the local rulers to help them in ruling their land according to Dharma and gain victory over their enemies. The Brahmans not only raised the status of Shudra kings but also upheld their divine right to rule over everybody except the Brahmans.
There was a gigantic but peaceful reaction against the Vedic religion and the Yagyas that was started by the Buddha. The Yagyas culture could only be fought through the cultural means. The Buddhism became widely prevailed over the country and a dominant religion but mainly to the cities. It did not get stronghold in the insulated villages that remained within the stronghold of Vedic Dharma and from where it came back in full strength. However, ultimately the Buddhism lost to the Sanatana Dharma of Vedics. One of the reasons for the ultimate victory of Sanatana Dharma over Buddhism was the relative importance given to the welfare of king by the former. The Buddhism does not believe in the authority of the Vedas and denies the very existence of God or soul. The Buddhism became widely prevalent all over urban India because of its opposition to Vedic philosophy of animal sacrifice in performing the Vedic ceremonies. The upsurge and great popularity of Buddhism, and its strong opposition to useless animal sacrifices indicate an excessive animal sacrifices. These sacrifices were excessive and the defenders of Varna Dharma are in a constant state of denial of practice of meat eating and beef eating in the Vedic society. If they are correct then it only means that the Brahmans performed the Yagyas involving the sacrifice of innumerable animals excluding cows; after that, the dead animals were thrown away! However, these offerings never reached the gods until the paranormal Brahmans ate them. If they were thrown away then the gods could not be appeased. The road to appeasement of gods was through the Brahmans and Brahmanwada or Agrahara. To appease the gods one had to visit the pure area of the pure Brahmans where the polluting Untouchables were to be killed if they gained an illegal entry. And, there was no legal entry for them. A thrown away rotting sacrifice could not have appeased the gods. It was impossible. If they threw it away then they were fools but we know that they were anything but the fools. Therefore, it means that the sacrificed animals were necessarily eaten by the crucial middle men - the paranormal Brahman without whom any ceremony or ritual was not possible. Since there is no Rig Vedic mention that the cows should be excluded from these, it can be safely assumed that the cows were eaten also. Such a great destruction of cattle stock meant a great loss to agriculture because it used animal power extensively. It created resentments among Vaisyas who were still agriculturists and cattle herders. All the animals to be sacrificed ultimately came from the Vaisyas which increased the burden of taxes on them. The philosophy of Ahimsa (nonviolence) of Buddhism attracted them since it reduced taxes on them by prohibiting the animal sacrifices. The sacrifices under the influence Buddhism and the Jainism became abhorred (taking life was sinful!) activities. This reduced the importance of sacrifices and that in turn reduced the importance the Yagyas. But the Yagyas did not lose their mystique forever. Further, the Yagyas served the purpose of piously augmenting the wealth and welfare of the Brahmans, and the Kshatriyas. The real producers stood to lose from such ceremonies. Further, Buddhism promised Nirvana or salvation to Shudras that was denied to them under Vedic Dharma. However, the salvation was available only when they joined the Buddhist Sangha; joining the Sangha meant giving up family life and becoming ascetic. There was no Varna within the Buddhist Sangha. Anybody from any Varna could join Sangha and aspire for Nirvana. However, Buddhism did not deny the existence of Varnas altogether. Buddha held that the Kshatriya was a superior Varna compared to the Brahman Varna. The Varna was supposed to be dependent on Karma. Buddha denied the determination of Varna by birth but ultimately it amounted to the same. Further, according to Buddhist tradition the Bodhisattvas could take birth only in the Brahman or the Kshatriya Varnas. The lower castes were excluded from this event. Thus, the Varna Dharma was not denied; it only became based on the deeds or Karma. That essentially meant a Varna system based on birth decided by the Karmas of the previous lives. Buddhism was an attack on unnecessary sacrifices in Vedic ceremonies but it did not lead any fundamental attack on the Varna system. Any Buddhist criticism of the Varna system was not sufficient attack on the Varna Dharma. There was no fundamental attack on the Varna Dharma. There was no special emphasis on alleviating the sufferings of the Shudras and the Untouchables. The Brahmans exploited the weakness of this attack and returned with full vigor. Even Buddhism could not solve the problems of occupations, inter-dining and marriages that were outside the Buddhist Sangha. There was equality within the Buddhist Sangha (of ascetic - the ascetics (monks - Bhikkus) could be from any castes) but out of the Sangha there were degrading inequalities. The Varna was not important in the Sangha because the occupations and the marriages were not involved. If one did not marry then it was mainly useless from the point of Varna Dharma; there was no threat of Varna-Sankars or to Varna system in reality. If one got his food through begging or donations then there was no question of transgressing on the occupations of others. Becoming a monk or a member of Sangha was like becoming an ascetic. One who was in Sangha cannot affect the bloodlines in society. All the Buddhist people who remained outside the Sangha retained their inherited Varna. There was no way in which they could give up their inherited Varna in a situation where the blood ties were exclusive. The first two Varnas were not willing to give up their Varnas for obvious reasons. The Vaisyas, the third Varna, could become Buddhist but could not get, generally, the rulership like Kshatriyas because it needed the use of arms. They also could not become the lawmakers and attain the highest social status. They could not raise their Varna if the higher two Varnas who still had respective powers were not willing to accept them as their equivalent. The problem of acceptance is perennial in Hindu society - note. It is built on exclusiveness and exclusion. The position of higher Varna was exclusive and the position of lower caste was that of exclusion from any stake in society. The higher Varnas were/are not ready to accept the lower Varna as their equal. Why should this nasty and nefarious question of equality arise at all?
However, the Buddhism became popular among the general urban population because of anti-sacrifice stand. It was taught in Pali, the people's language, and not in Sanskrit, the Deva (gods') language. Buddha showed that the Moksha or Nirvana (if any?) was achievable without animal sacrifice and that undid the Brahmans. The Brahmans felt threatened. Their cultural hegemony was at stake. Many kings also started patronizing the Buddhism. This led to a reduction in the Yagyas and a loss of income to the Brahmans. The Buddhism was able to convert the sacrifices into abhorred activities; this led the sacrifices to be included into impure activities and that made the Brahman somewhat less pure or less respected; the aim of the Brahmans was to regain the lost purity due to the sacrifices and accepting the sacrificed animals' meat as food. It was quite logical. When the sacrifices were important they got the biggest share from them; when agriculture became important then they got the land grant and cows in donations; when temple became important they got all the donations to temples; they kept shifting their stand as per their interests and situations. With the development of Buddhism, the stupas came to be constructed and along with that, the temples made their appearance. These temples overseen by the Brahmans were another source of income so they did not need sacrifices on regular basis; only occasional sacrifices for the kings would do. Then in a purity-based society, the emphasis on purity was increasing; many jobs had been degraded and, now, the meat which involved the blood was degraded. It was not a question of life; they never bothered about others' lives; it was a question of purity and self-interest. Therefore, they refused to deal with any kind of impurity including the blood and that meant a refusal to eat the meat; we know that the onion, garlic and mushroom were already prohibited and the meat joined the prohibited list. Brahmans retaliated by joining the enemy; unsurprisingly, by doing a grand somersault; once a while it looked like that they were answerable. If they could not beat the Buddhists then at least they could join them. They went one-step ahead and completely stopped eating any kind of meat; an incredible somersault and there is no dearth of such somersaults. The Buddhists still allowed people to eat meat and also ate it themselves. It was a difficult somersault in the eating habits but a tough competition from the Buddhism and emphasis on purity forced them to do it. They had to remain more pure than the Buddhist if they had to beat the competition. In it, they were helped by the ideas of Upanishads. The Upanishads also discounted the philosophy of animal sacrifice of the Vedas. The immediate effect was that the anti-Brahman feelings among the Vaisyas and the Kshatriyas went down. There was no dharmic danger to agriculture and to the income of Vaisyas, and also that of kings. Ultimately, the Brahmans gave up all the meat eating including the beef. It was a great historical somersault that was extremely crucial. Nevertheless, they still retained the mystique Yagyas with the minimum sacrifices and that too on occasional basis. The cow sacrifice was changed to the donations of cows in the Yagyas. Still it was a pious and sacred transfer of wealth but not to the required extent. The cow was elevated to sacred level from being important and slaying of cow was later made the second highest crime next only to slaying of a Brahman. It was an evolving society along the lines of purity paradigm.
Then one more factor is that the Buddhist philosophy had some common points with the Sanatana Dharma though it denied the existence of God and soul. It believed in rebirth like Sanatana Dharma. It also believed in Karma theory like Sanatana Dharma. It believed in the concept of Nirvana that had its counter part of Moksha in Vedic Dharma. It also believed in Varna like the Vedic Dharma. The rebirth in Buddhism took place through Chetana (Conscious) while in the Vedic Dharma it took place through the soul. The counter part of soul in Buddhism was Chetana. The medium to carry forward the Karmas in Buddhism was Chetana while in Vedic Dharma it was the soul. The Varna in Buddhism was decided by Karmas and by birth in Vedic Dharma; both of them are essentially the same. Both the religions believed in the concept of reincarnation. The world according to both the religions was not permanent. The only change was the negation of God, the Vedas and the sacrifices. Simply by negating God in one and accepting God in another you will get the other philosophy. Why Buddha negated the existence of God and found the Vedas useless? It was so because accepting the supremacy of Vedas meant accepting the superiority of Brahmans that he was not willing to accept. He is stated to have said that as far as the Varnas were concerned the Kshatriya Varna was better than the Brahman Varna. Further he is believed to have said that a Vassal (Virshal - outcaste) was a vassal because of his Karmas. All the other things were almost similar. Thus, there was not much philosophical departure in Buddhism. Nevertheless, that was its undoing. When the occasion arose, all the Buddhists again became part of the Sanatana Dharma. In other words, they got reassimilated.
The Buddhists remained confined to the cities and the Brahmans dominated the isolated, insulated and independent taxpaying dharmic villages. For the rulers the villages were important from the point of view of collection of taxes; the rulers were otherwise not interested in the villages because being demilitarized the villages were rarely a source of trouble; so the villages were left alone in the hands of caste councils and the land holding high castes. This kept the Sanatana Dharma alive till today. The existence of the ghastly Panchayats, which made outcastes and awarded punishments for transgressing the Varna Dharma, provided the durability to the heinous caste system. Their stronghold in rural areas was the main reason for survival where no foreigners usually moved. The invaders normally confined themselves to the cities hardly interfering with the structure of the Hindu society. Moreover, the high castes headmen collected the taxes and dutifully paid to the powers that be; this left them unaffected at the local level; in turn the local level societal caste structure remained the same; this was probably due to the system laid out by Chanakya in 3rd century B.C.E. The rulers were not deeply interested in the villages as they were never the source of any serious trouble – note the effect of demilitarization. They held the cities and the borders. It was sufficient for them. The preserving of Dharma became the sole task of the Brahmans and the ghastly Panchayats. It means that all the people who matter were defending the Varna Dharma. How did these Panchayats maintain Dharma and suppress any rebellion? It was simple. The people they had to keep in line were famished and defenseless as society has been demilitarized, disarmed and dispropertied. It was as good as keeping a flock of sheep together with the help of a stick; and the people terrorized by the divine retribution were no match to the defenders and preservers of Dharma. Even in the war time society was not affected. The whole cowardly village society moved away from the path of the coming army, and, came back to its original place when the army left. In this way, the villages insulated themselves, from any outside influence; they retained their chilling innocence. Thus, political wars did not have much impact on the villages. The villages remained untouched and so did the caste and the casteism.
The Varna system was maintained outside the Buddhist Sangha. The Bodhisattva could only be born in either the Brahman Varna or the Kshatriya Varna indicating the importance of Varna - no place for lowly people in the high places! There is no indication that the Varna system and endogamy had disappeared during the Buddhist Period.
It was easy to maintain equality within Sangha because Buddhist Bhikshus were not allowed to marry. They were also not required to follow a profession, thus the caste lost much of its significance within Sangha. However, the acceptance of Varna outside the Sangha even on basis of Karmas allowed the discriminatory Varna Dharma to flourish. It was so because if one had to change his Varna then one had to change his occupation. If the Shudras wished to change their occupations then it essentially meant that they had to take up the occupations of other Varnas. A change to higher-level occupations required the acquisition of the resources of society which could be had from the higher three Varnas, and their willingness to teach them high Varna skills, which was not forthcoming. It was not possible without bloodshed. It required the Shudras to improve their might which they could not do. Further Buddhism required that there should be no killings. The violence was prohibited by it for the welfare of society. Therefore, the Shudras remained where they were. And society was stabilized. Harmony prevailed. Hail the non-change in society!
When the Brahmans became vegetarian to be purer than the Buddhists, then it became the question for the kings so as to which religion to support or patronize? It was essential because an irreligious king had an inbuilt weakness affecting his durability. One alternative was to patronize the religion which he got through inheritance. The other alternative was to choose the religion which suited him best to further his territorial ambitions and which solidified his grip on the state. In this respect, the Vedic religion scored heavily over the Buddhist religion. It provided direct divinity to the Sanatani or Hindu kings. The Brahmans always extolled the virtues of kings who upheld Dharma and performed the Yagyas - no canards at all. They performed Rajsuya and Ashwamedha Yagyas for the welfare of kings while the Buddhist did not have any such concept. The Buddhism also eschewed the violence; the violence in fact was essential element of the coercive power of the state. Thus, the Buddhism was not attractive to the newly emerging kings because any violence was indispensable to formation of a new kingdom and a subsequent increase in its territory. However, it was a god sent opportunity to the Brahmans who were ever willing to grant the Kshatriya status to new kings of obscure origin in return of land grants and plum postings with the kings and to save Dharma - nothing personal about it. In addition, they used the performing of Yagyas as a mighty weapon. The magnetic Yagyas in themselves had a fascinating and a beneficial mystique around them. The kings who did not aspire to be Kshatriyas opted for the Buddhism. The Buddhism automatically granted them Kshatriya status on the basis of presumed deeds of past lives. However, their kingly ambitions suffered because of the non-violence principle of Buddhism. Thus, the new kings were more oriented toward the Vedic Dharma and that ultimately led to its victory over Buddhism. There was a shifting of patronage towards the Brahmans. Over a period of time, Vaisyas also shifted to Vedic religion to be on the safe side of the political powers that be. After that, the Shudras also followed; they did not have much of a choice. There was a complete reversal to Hinduism. The insulated villages were already Vedic. The policy of the Brahmans of being deeply interested in the welfare of kings through performance of Yagyas paid rich dividends. At the same time, Aadishankarachrya defeated the Buddhist philosophy by borrowing heavily from the Buddhist concept of Sunyata and representing it as Nirgun Bruhm. For this Aadishankarachrya is also known as the Crypto-Buddha. It straight forwardly indicates toward plagiarism. Hardly demeaning!
Buddhism was in dying stage when Islam entered India. The Muslim invaders in later centuries only destroyed the monasteries of a dying religion in the north India.
It may be mentioned here that there have been many Shudra kings notably the Maurya dynasty. The Gupta dynasty was a Vaisya dynasty. But, unfortunately, all these changes took place at the top only. The local (village) authorities remained the same indicating no change in the Varna groups. The eternal caste system in villages was never really defeated. All the land was held by the state, courtesy Chanakya, and the middle men (upper castes) remained comfortable by collecting taxes from the village and paying to the powers that be.
However, we find that by the time of Gupta kings (4th century C.E.), the Brahmans had been successful in getting prohibited the slaughter of cow - the divine and pure animal giving purifying sacred excreta and sacred urine. Therefore, they were the ultimate victors. Killing this animal (the Cow) with the sacred excreta and the sacred urine was made the most serious crime, after the crime of killing/slaying a Brahman. Nobody can say that the Sanatani society was not dynamic. Any religion which raises the cow to sacred level cannot be static.
We recall that the Hindu religion was a system of inherent division of the hereditary occupations. The Brahmans were engaged in lawmaking, statecraft, intellectual and priestly work. The Kshatriyas were engaged in statecraft, military and administrative work. The Vaisyas were engaged in the business activities. The Shudras were engaged in manual labor activities. The Untouchables were engaged in impure and unclean jobs. Everybody was supposed to be doing the job he was naturally (by birth) most suitable for - a great kind of dharmic harmony. It was birth-attached suitability. There is no earned merit in Hindu society but only caste merit. That is the unofficial India
Let us see how the limitations imposed in Varna system worked. On the face of it, it looks like scientific division of labor; the most suitable job goes to the most suitable man. Only condition was that this suitability had to be acquired by birth. Actually, the most suitable jobs went to the most suitable castes. The status of a man also appeared to be job related. The man and his heredity job were the same; and, thus the status of the heredity job was his status. The Higher was the job; higher was the status. Or higher the inherent status the higher was the actual job. Actually it works from birth-attached status to job and not otherwise. The Brahmans doing the supposedly intellectual job got the highest status. The Shudra doing the blue-collar jobs had the lowest status among the Varnas. The Untouchables doing the lowest level unclean jobs got the lowest position in society. This state where everybody is doing his divinely ordained function is also known as the cosmic order - with its all pervading divine harmony and cruelties. However, the question was how to maintain this cosmic order if the Shudras were to aspire to become the Kshatriyas and the Brahmanas? If such aspirations of Shudras were to be realized then the cosmic order of the things would have broken down. The harmony was to get converted into disharmony at the hint of mere threat of demand for equality by the Shudras. But how come the Shudras, who were reciting Vedas, and ruling over the people like Kshatriyas, would have been responsible for a break down in the cosmic order of the pure and sacred Sanatana Dharma? Nobody knows! Or will somebody please tell me? Please, please!!! I beg of you!
Here one has to understand that the Varna system is not a system of allocation of jobs on the basis of individual merit. There is no earned merit but caste merit in the Hindu society. The talents or merits of ineligible individuals were to rot in the garbage as they were impure coming from the impure people. Nurturing impure talent was not the idea of higher Varna people; it was self-destructive. Indeed, the individual on his own and as an independent identity does not figure anywhere in the Varna Dharma. It is a group oriented system where the allocation of jobs to individuals is not possible; the group has to be considered first then the individual. The individual is a derivative of his caste; he and his caste are the same. The job of an individual is derived from the occupation of his caste group; and so does his status. The Varna system is actually an artificially inherited group meritocracy where merit is birth-attached; and that is the proof. No further confirmation is needed other than caste of a man; there is no litmus test. The merit of an individual is derived from the supposed merit of his inherited group. One has to do the jobs postulated for his Varna in the scriptures. To be considered as meritorious one has to take birth in a particular group. No proof is needed for merit and/or eligibility other than birth. In practice no individual is intelligent enough to deliberately take birth in a particular Varna, but, this is precisely one should do in Hindu society; it does not make sense; yes it does not; but it does to some on the top, by the birth. But who can make sense of the divinely ordained cruelty! The unintelligible and unknown Karmas of his previous lives are supposed to decide it for him - this gives it a spiritual touch - please do not forget this spiritual element. The cosmic order in Hindu society is the state where people belonging to all the Varnas are doing birth-attached jobs ordained to them in the scriptures - a picture perfect harmony. It was king's duty to see that all the Varnas were doing the jobs allotted to them cosmically. He had to see that the Vaisyas and the Shudras were doing the jobs cosmically ordained for them. Thus, maiming and mutilation of Shudras and killing of Untouchables were perfectly in order if they defied Dharma. The king also had to separate the Untouchables by forcing them to carry an identification mark on their bodies and dwellings in the city and out of the cities; in the villages the ghastly Panchayats were there to bring the correct alignments in society. It was done so that the people from the higher Varnas could get away from them, and thereby avoided getting polluted - so much emphasis on the unproven purity of Brahmans - underwhelms me. Further, the Untouchables lived outside cities in marked huts to differentiate them from others. In addition, the Shudras and Untouchables were not allowed to carry the arms. They were forced to do so by the kings. Thus, we see that so called natural division of the so called specialized labor was achieved under the maiming, mutilating and killing force of the Kshatriyas, kings and the Panchayats. Any deviations from this divine division of labor were adharmic which impinged like the blood sucking creatures on the minds of the lawmakers.
Further, the pure and inherited Varna was maintained by outlawing the inter-Varna marriage. Any attempt for inter-Varna marriage meant ostracization. This ostracization was to be done by the caste Panchayats (a committee of five prominent people in a given caste in a given village). These Panchayats did wield considerable power and helped in maintaining the Dharma. These were another power centers - each committed to Dharma. These Panchayats do wield considerable influence in Indian rural areas. Further discouragement to such marriage was in the form of branding their children as outcastes because they did not inherit any Varna. The existence of only four Varnas precluded the possibility and existence of any mixed Varna. The Varna-Sankars were a grave and serious threat to the existence of Dharma. They were mutual antagonists. We know that already.
The provision of making a person outcaste helped in maintaining the caste structure of society. This limitation limited the role of an individual. An outcaste person was permanently boycotted because he flouted the rules or became impure by not following the rules of his caste. It was a very potent weapon and effectively wielded by the Panchayats. The ostracization, we know, meant the loss of his family, disinheritance of Varna, disinheritance of property and occupation, and a prohibition from entering the village. Any person found to unknowingly associate with the outcastes was heavily fined along with atonement or penance and purification. If somebody did associate himself with the outcastes then he himself ran the risk of becoming an outcaste and stood to lose his family and property. Any person flouting the rule of his castes or Varna was punishable with excommunication. Very few people were willing to take the risks of flouting the caste Panchayats.
This provision gave authority to caste and the caste Panchayats. Therefore, it was not voluntary to follow the rules of caste but it was mandatory. Any recalcitrant person defying the rules of his caste or Varna could have been easily made an outcaste. It maintained the purity of the caste and society. The people who dared to defy the Varna Dharma were thrown out of the villages. And there was no appeal against it. The man who lost his property due to becoming an outcaste could not appeal to the king for restoration of his property. As far he was concerned, the decision of his caste was final. As we have already said that, the Hindu society was characterized by multiple power centers. It was one of the reasons for the sustainability of caste system because at least the local caste authority was always there to regulate the caste conduct of a man. The absence of king hardly mattered in the caste matters. The dominant caste regulated the caste system. Thus, the caste system did not disintegrated when the kings fought with each other. It remained safely hidden in the isolated and insulated villages. We can see the caste or Varna forces at work.
It is needless to repeat that all the doors of society were closed for an outcaste – the most important limitation for smooth working of the pure society. His social privileges and duties were taken away. He was barred from communicating with the people. The village caste council or the Village caste Panchayats usually enforced the collective excommunication. The man was deprived of sustenance means. Then he had no alternative but to join the Untouchables and take up their occupation because other occupations were closed to him. Usually these people were a couple who took fancy of each other and produced the Varna-Sankar offspring. The only punishment was to make them outcaste and throw them out of the village. It maintained the purity of Varna system by expelling the adharmic and impure people and their progenies. It also increased the population of the Untouchables.
Thus, the Panchayat and its authority to ostracize acted as a very crucial and ever ready weapon to maintain the purity of caste system and stop people from rebelling; it provided the stability in society by imposing the life long sentences which through inheritance were applicable to next generations. This weapon greatly contributed to the survival of the caste system. The system of community boycott and non-cooperation was used in the independence struggle of India.
The caste structure, caste effect and caste mechanism of the Hindu society make the better jobs available to higher Varnas and lower level jobs to lower Varnas – that is how they function. A lower Varna within the Hindu framework is allotted the job; which is in consonance with his heredity status. A person belonging to higher Varna is trained for the higher-level jobs and a lower Varna person is trained for the lower-level jobs keeping in view the utmost necessity of maintaining social harmony. Here social harmony essential means - not making higher caste people angry. It is so because in inheritance oriented society the training for jobs is also based on inheritance. The only persons available to teach somebody are his parents or the persons belonging to his caste. Others would not teach him because of caste non-cooperation or exclusion.
Any Brahman would never teach Vedas to a Potter who provided the pots for the village. The caste effect is in operation. The socially disparaging disassociations take place. A Shudra artisan would never teach his job to higher Varnas because nobody would be interested in his job, which infringes on his Dharma. The pure (powerful controller) should not learn the impure (manual and unclean) jobs and the impure (landless and powerless) should not learn the pure (pious and power) jobs. These are the intricacies of Varna Dharma. Either way would be adharmic and hence extremely desirable, a heavenly sign of the corruption of Dharma. If the pure and impure got mixed and spread impurities and contaminating Dharma then it was a highly undesirable and despicable activity. The social disassociation given in the Dharma Shashtras enforced the rule that the only training one got was the hereditary one. It was natural also that the son was taking up the father's occupation; it is another point that no other option was available to son. Who cares? The optionless son got the occupation as if though it was predestined for him. By now you must be knowing that how everything is made predestined in Hindu society barring the accidents. His birth-attached occupation was supposed to be in harmony with his birth-attached qualities. Harmony, harmony everywhere! The purity based harmony! And the purity is unproven!!! But it is supposed to exists and it produces the repulsive forces in society – hardly worth bothering about when the high castes are living an easy life at the cost of the lower strata. Who is bothered about repulsive force? Nobody. In fact, the life of the son was predestined; the selfish and cruel lawmakers ensured it. It was a predestined birth-attached allocation, which was supposed to last till eternity; it was a hallmark of the eternal system. It was the vision of the lawmakers, which took account of all times to come till eternity. They aimed to provide the eternal solution to the problems of all their coming generations. Nobody was really bothered about society as whole as such. The societal bonding needed identification with society which was conspicuous by its absence; it place was taken by the caste bonding which had no effect outside the caste in question. And in midst of so much purity in Hindu society, the purity is still unproven. The unproven purity rules along with the unproven Karma hypothesis in the traditional Hindu society. And all the litmus papers are missing.
Where does the fault lie responsible for the hellish lives of the Shudras and the Antyajas? The fault of being a Shudra or an Untouchable lies with himself! No kidding! No God, no scripture, no Brahman, no king, no Kshatriya, no Vaisya no caste council are responsible for his wretched existence. The wretched existence in which he lived from birth to death was entirely of his own making. Not surprisingly – nobody takes any responsibilities in Sanatana Dharma. He should look first inside him then blame others; it is another thing that whenever he looks inside him he finds no evidence of the Karmas of his previous lives. The emptiness is remarkable. All his sufferings are blamed on his unintelligible previous lives' unknown Karmas. The Karma hypothesis was probably developed around 700 B.C.E. when it was deemed necessary to relate the higher Varna birth with the hypothetical karmas, to justify the unearned merits of the upper castes or the Varnas. And as a corollary, the demerits were imposed on low Varna/caste that were dependent on the unknown accumulated bad Karmas. Since he was the doer in his previous lives, now he is the sufferer. Thus, he is the agent of his own sufferings. He is the creator of his own wretched life. And for that he was born into the same kind of wretched people who had performed the equally bad Karmas. All the members of the groups of low caste people are guilty of committing ghastly deeds in previous life – no, no, no fraudulent incrimination at all. You should not have any delusions like that. Blaming Dharma and Karma, the upper castes and the pious lawmakers are the acts of simply barking up the wrong tree. Is it not logical that one should suffer for his unknown, unconfirmed, unintelligible, assumed and accumulated bad deeds of all the unknown previous lives? It is a backward logic. The rigors of logic are thrown into dustbin. The causes do not decide the results. The result decides the existence of unspecific and unverifiable causes - there is no litmus test for the confirmation of these causes. The Hindu society has always shied away from the litmus tests - very shy society! You see! It depends upon realizations. Dharma is supreme without verifying its divinity. The existence of present wretched conditions implies the existence of previous bad Karmas. Nobody has actually seen or experienced such Karmas that directly result in a particular type of completely identifiable next life of the related individual. The Karma hypothesis is an unspecified exercise that establishes nothing, but establishes the comforts of high castes in concrete terms; it has some benefits, you see. The high castes sleep soundly, with a clear conscience. Nobody has seen any individual with his past Karmas and nobody will see; there is eternal non-existence of such person. The precision is also not even in the backward logic. This unestablished backward logic (deriving the reasons from results as opposite to deriving the results from the reasons) has played havoc with the millions and millions of lives in the Hindu society. These are the strange kinds of unconfirmed previous life’s bad Karmas that are not remembered even by the doer himself. It would be better if somebody were actually able to produce a man with his actual, precise and confirmable records of his previous life Karmas and their effects on present life. These actually verifiable Karmas should be precisely linked to the conditions of the present life. It should be possible to trace the previous life along with the Karmas, and, the life before that and the life before that and the respectively related karmas, and so on. It should at least applicable to seven cases out of every ten. Until then the previous life Karma hypothesis would be merely a figment of imagination. A dangerous doctrine used by the spiritual tormentors to justify the oppressed lives of the lower strata. Yes, the oppression is justified for unknown reasons! Oh, I forgot the Dharma!
However, according to the defunct and disconnecting Karma hypothesis, the birth of man in a particular Varna is justified and binding. This is given in the Brahman created divine scriptures. This prevents the emergence of any empathy and sympathy for the wretched lives of the Untouchables. Their present wretched conditions are due to the wretched Karmas of their previous lives; so no sympathy or empathy or any such kind of crap. Thus, the conscience of people goes to sound and selfish deep sleep under the dharmic guidance. The present life and its conditions are beyond the control of anybody because nobody can go back to his non-existent previous life and correct the Karmas. So everybody has the excuse of not doing anything about pathetic conditions of the lower strata.
Therefore, the cultural hegemony of the paranormal Brahmans, upholding of Dharma by the kings, demilitarization, total separation of blood ties, the mutilating system of justice, ostracization, Panchayats (the dominant caste council of five nominated people) and the junk hypothesis of previous life Karmas, kept the Shudras and the Untouchables in their places and served to make the Varna Dharma eternal. Any desire to rise up is killed by the Karma theory and any actual action in such direction was punishable by society, the Panchayats and the kings.
Now, we will see how the system worked as an economic unit. One way for the economic system to work was to give small pieces to non-land owning caste man to grow the food for his family and provide his goods or services to whole of the village. For example, a Chamar family supplying the shoes to whole of village or a Kumhar (potter) family providing the pots for all the villages in lieu of the small piece of land received. Second was the Jajmani system.
The Jajmani system is probably borrowed from the later Vedic period Yajmans. The Yajmans were the Kshatriya patrons of the Brahmans. The Yajman or Jajman was the Kshatriya landholder or king for whom the Brahman performed all the Yagyas and ritualistic ceremonies. The Jajman and the Brahman were tied personally to each other with generational ties. Once tied together, the Jajman and the Brahman did not normally part company through mutually unstated agreement among the Brahmans for not poaching on each other's patrons. The relationship continued for the generations altogether until some natural calamity occurred or when the patron or client became spatially separate due to some reasons. In the south India the role of jajman was played by the dominant land holding castes in the absence of the Kshatriyas; these people were higher level Shudras who took up the role of Kshatriyas without any upgradation in their Varna status. These people we call as the pseudo-kshatriyas. The faith of these people in the caste system is unfailing.
This Jajmani system was also carried in the villages where the Jajman was the patron of the village artisans also. The Jajmani system did the job of distribution of agriculture produce among the non-land owning castes. The principle of distribution was to each according to his caste provided the Dharma was maintained. They controlled the distribution of food and with it the lives of the village people. There was no money transaction. The Jajman not only had the land but also an army of musclemen to help in maintaining the Dharma in the innocent village society. These musclemen were the tillers on his land. They were ready to perpetrate violence on the demilitarized village society. This provided the Shudras enough persuasions to fall in line. The muscle force, the socially dissociative forces (mutual alienation) and the economic forces were really persuading factors that effectively prohibited the Shudra and the Untouchables from rebelling. This eliminated the use of frequent violence in the village. The subordination of low castes was naturalized. The caste councils played a regulatory role. The traditions were created which induced subordination in coming generations with little efforts. It is another thing that cowardly villages moved out of the route of the coming armies with all the brave people of the village thus displayed the absolute loyalty to the land and the local ruler and the born unbeatable bravery by running away. The naturalized subordinated next generation took place of the earlier generation until the forces of modern world were unleashed by the history contaminating the spiritual and dharmic society of the sacred Sanatana Dharma.
However, the Jajmans owned/held the land. Thus, they owned all the food supply in the village. It induced servility in the lower castes that served the cause of Dharma. Those who tilled their land and those who provided the labor were paid in the form of grains and other agriculture produce. However, this was not sufficient to put nice clothes on them but enough for a wretched and servile survival. The provision for the food of Shudra artisans was also to be made so that they did not die of hunger. With all the servility, they had to look up to the Jajmans to fill their hungry bellies or obtain their sustenance. The dignity was reserved for the upper castes by Dharma. What could the insulted others do? The Shudras and those below them were born undignified; with indignity fused in them. The Shudra artisans those who were not connected with the land as either tillers or labor got the food by permanently connecting themselves with the Jajmans - with all the induced servility at their command. The Jajmans on their own needed the servants to do all their menial non-agriculture jobs. When they did not do the agriculture labor then it was unrealistic for them to do other menial jobs especially when a full community of heredity servants was available to perform such divine vocation. If the Shudra artisans did the work for each other then any income (in kind) was not possible because they did not have enough land or resources to pay each other – the Varna Dharma ensured that. Therefore, the only alternatively was to perform the jobs for the landed upper castes. The upper caste Jajmans lived a comfortable life while the Shudras did all the menial jobs. Thus, the Shudras gave their services to Jajmans to get their undignified sustenance. It was a really, real merciful system where all the Shudras lived at the mercy of the Jajman. The richer was the Jajman, the better off were his clients or workers, as they got more to eat. A richer Jajman performed many more ceremonies that needed all the services of the Shudra artisans like barbers, potters, carpenter, ironsmith, goldsmith, weavers, construction workers, actors, the washer men and others. All the ceremonies related to marriage, birth, death, festivals and social functions were performed smoothly, and, everybody got his share, barely enough for sustenance. No desire was there to the leave the surplus with the artisans and others as it could have made them to forget their Dharma of serving the higher castes. It would have been too cruel to higher Varna if any surplus was left with low castes, yes too cruel. Everybody left in happiness after the function or ceremony - now they had something to eat until next time. Then they blessed the Jajmans. They showed their reverence by prostrating on the land, a highly virtuous act. The helplessness and indignities in their lives were a normal part of their lives, a fait accompli since birth.
Many consider the Jajmani system as a socially amicable system where the relations between Jajmans and Shudra artisans and others (or between independent patrons and dependent clients) were amicable. These clients were known as the Kaamwale - the work doers (or Kammens). There was a mutual understanding in the dependent Shudras that they would not encroach on others' Jajmans. It had become a relationship, which neither patron nor dependent clients could relinquish. They were almost bound to each other. The Jajman would not easily get another Kaamwale and Kaamwale would not get any other patrons. The Kaamwale almost had an exclusive right to work to the exclusion of any right of other Kaamwale. It was an internal arrangement of the serving castes. It was a kind of agreement of non-competition between all the Kaamwale. It seems everybody adhered to one caste one occupation rule like the Varna system. It also evolved into one Jajman and the fixed attached workers. Anybody defying the caste rules of non-competition had to face their respective caste Panchayats. The Jajman was virtually the social and local government. His authority was not limitless but he was the main deciding voice in the caste councils where he had his due weight for belonging to dominant caste; even though he also could not go against the caste rules; and there was no point as the caste rules favored him. He believed that it was necessary to give grains and other things to work doers enabling them to survive and serve him. The dead man serves nobody. If the Jajman chose to neglect the Kaamwale then they were bound to suffer. In Jajmani, the links of generations developed familiarity between the two parties. But the bonding did not develop to the point of nurturing the status aspirations of the Shudras and the Untouchables. They knew their undignified limits and thus in the absence of any effective rebels the system was stable. It was a matter of survival. It was a dependency of the Shudra workers on the powerful Jajmans. The Shudra workers had to walk, talk, and wear their respective caste while working or any other time, as usual. All of their dignity was fractured and torn up. The Jajmani system maintained the status quo in a rigid caste system. No Shudra worker ever became a landlord due to Jajmani system. No Shudra or Untouchable became a Sahukar or moneylender under a Jajman. It was not designed for that. It was designed to maintain the servile dependence of lower castes on the higher castes. In the Jajmani system, the Chamarins did the job of midwives; they helped in delivery, cleaned up the child and everything else, and could not touch the child afterward; the untouchability moved in. The scavengers beat the drum in front of the Jajmans' house. There was no possibility of happening it the other way round. It was an unequal system that appeased the Dharma. The permanent interests of unimpeachable upper castes created insurmountable obstacles for the Karmically incriminated lower castes.
You can sincerely expect a pure man to carry his heart on his hand showing the pity and mercy he has for all the mankind - yes, all the mankind. Or can you? Yes, you can except in the matters where it does not matter. And Jajmani system was not one where it did not matter. The basic and permanent interests of lower strata play a subsidiary role to the trivial desires, impulses, whims and fancies of the higher strata. In Hindu society, the provision of basic necessities reaches its nadir when you reach the bottom of the caste system. A dying and hungry Untouchable hardly matters. The divinity pours down through all their pores and cripples the Untouchables to the core. The divinity is too cumbersome for some people. The lower you go down the more cumbersome it becomes. The bottomless pit of Hindu compassion keeps the scavengers in the bottom of stinking pit.
No supreme controlling authority on the earth is envisaged in the scriptures. One reason for the absence of this authority is the multitude of persons involved in formulating the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and Dharma Shastras etc. the Hindu scriptures are not the handiwork of a single man - note. These scriptures, sacred to Hindus, have been composed over different overlapping periods running into hundreds of years each. Whatever was produce by one Brahman could have been added to or altered by another Brahman in the coming generations. When this process runs into hundreds of years, we have an output where contributions have been made by different Rishis and Brahmans. In addition, there are many outputs like that - all of them sacred though with different levels of sacredness. An older scripture is usually more sacred than the others are. Therefore, the Manusmriti being one of the oldest of Dharma Shastras is more sacred than the other Dharma Shastras.
Therefore, we have many composers of the Vedas, many contributors to the Upanishads and many authors to each of Dharma Shastras and Puranas. Any man in his lifetime did not start and finalized any portion of the scriptures. These writings were carried on from generation to generation through oral traditions. This situation lasted until the scripture in question was finalized and a final word was said on it; it was then fossilized as the Word of God. It was a long time before any of the scriptures was finalized and written down. Thus, each scripture has the contribution of innumerable authors - or may be the gods. Thus, there is no single author or individual who can be claimed or identified as the most important or as the central authority in any of the scriptures. And, when all the scriptures are put together the difficulty of finding a single formulator becomes insurmountable. This explains why Hindu religion or Hindu society does not have a central authority or personality like the Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed. In the absence of such authority or personality, any learned Brahman who knew the scriptures became the local authority on the matters pertaining to Hindu Dharma and the Panchayats of isolated Villages became the instruments to implement it along with the local rulers. The absence of a central authority forced a kind of decentralization in Hindu society where biased scriptures were taken as the final authority. These scriptures in turn were monopolized by the Brahmans. Thus, the authority of scriptures got translated into the authority of the Brahmans with a significant element of divine fear. Therefore, a Brahman in a village in the South India was a local religious and social authority at village level and a Brahman in a village in North India was a local authority there. The Panchayats in independent / isolated / insulated villages became the instruments to uphold the Dharma. It automatically passed through inheritance from one generation to another. If one has to be a Brahman then one has to inherit the Brahmanhood. It is not an acquirable commodity - only the fools think otherwise. One needed to be born to cruel and dishonest lawmakers to make the cruel laws.
The Brahmans can be regarded as a well-trained and self-interested army in the scriptures, possessing ultra-rationality, ever ready to defend their well-swindled privileges. They did an indirect impenetrable defense through the scriptures that were inaccessible to others. The fort of scriptures was impregnable. All the social and religious attacks on others came from this fort where Brahmans were safe. There was Sanskrit also. There was God and Sanskrit in between the Brahmans and the lower castes. Nobody from the lower strata could criticize the religious authority vested in the lawmakers for the fear of acting aDharmically and thus becoming judiciable and punishable by the society itself.
The village headman was the only link between the kings and the people of villages; he was responsible collecting and paying the taxes to the powers that be. Rest of the village was insulated from the temporal power and was in awe of it; demilitarized it was. The kings were interested in the cities and the boundaries of kingdom. The villages were of no concern to them. The villages were managed by the village headman, the biggest landlord, generally and in time of disputes by the village councils (the Panchayats) largely made up of five people. They held up the traditions of villages, which were the same as the Dharma. The kings came and went but the local authority which managed the affairs of villages, collected and paid taxes, remained unchanged. Thus, the local authorities were not affected and as a result the power structure in the villages remain unaffected. As long as they paid the taxes, the dominant caste and/or family went unchallenged from within village providing the stability to caste based Dharma. All the bickering took place at the level of kings only. The village society normally appeared in an organized way in the form of the Panchayats and socially and economically adjusted different castes. The Panchayats could organize the village people on the basis of caste, Varna and Dharma. These Panchayats were made up of largely of the dominant caste people who ruled in their own favor - obviously, and in the favor of Dharma, to appease the dominant paranormal powers. Anybody in society could take the law into its own hand to save the Dharma which meant saving the Brahmans hiding behind the scriptures and the myth of divinity.
As already mentioned, the spread of the Varna system, which was against the majority right from the beginning, was not due to any conquest but because of the magnetic mystique of the Yagyas and their supposedly paranormal war winning qualities and the paranormal reputation of Brahmans as the people who could correctly invoke the gods without inviting the divine retribution. The culture of Yagyas was so strong that it could not be defeated through wars; for its defeat, it needed the cultural wars that came in the form of the Buddhism and the Jainism. In due course of time, the Yagyas impressed the local rulers so much that they scrambled for the skilled Brahmans for performing them. The kings patronized the Brahmans for performing the yagyas having paranormal powers to make them win the wars. They invited the Brahmans to their land, and gave them land grants, and accepted the superiority of the Vedas, and, thus of Brahmans in lieu of attaining the Kshatriya status and the promised victories in the wars. The Varna Dharma became the dominant doctrine. Thus, the Vedic religion spread all over India - from king to king and thereby from region to region. For calling Brahmans in their kingdoms, the local rulers offered them land grants and acknowledged their superiority. The Vedic Gods were invoked through the fire worship, mantras and offering of animal sacrifices. The invocation of war gods through fire worship played a major role in the spread of coming Sanatana Dharma. This invariably meant fighting a war with gods on their side, courtesy the Brahmans, which they could not lose. They had to be grateful to the Brahmans for the great selfless and compassionate action in performing the Yagyas. It was not necessary to convert the common people; only the kings needed to be converted; others were to be defined; then it was the function of kings to impose the Varna Dharma in their areas. The lower class people could be defined in terms of castes/Varnas as given in the scriptures. The Varna ashram notions of purity and pollution became dominant under the fog of Gyan (knowledge) of pure and pious people knowing the Vedas. And, it cut across the generations.
The all prevailing presence of the Brahmans all over India is the result of their cultural hegemony and not of any conquest. They were desperately sought after for their paranormal powers of making the gods dance at the chanting of the sacred mantras. As far Rishis were concerned those people who had not performed Yagya before a war, definitely, stood to lose; the canard was effective beyond the wildest dreams. The paranormal powers were more potent than the power of weapons thus overriding the kings' coercive power. The cultural hegemony of the Brahmans is very ancient and evident from the fact that by 200 B.C.E. they were performing Yagyas for the Dravidian kings in the deep South. We know that this cultural hegemony was provided by their paranormal power of invoking the blessing of gods and avoiding the divine retribution. For this, they gained land grants and acceptance of their superiority. If one agreed with superiority of the Vedas then one automatically agreed with the superiority of Brahmans. This superiority was imparted to them by the Purusha sukta of Rig Veda. That is why the necessary condition of being a Hindu is to have faith in the infallibility of Vedas; this cements their supremacy and thus by implication one has to follow them. No canards here. How could pure pious and sacred people spread the canards? Anyway, nobody could argue with the Word of God - the Vedas. It is also clear in the performance of Ashwamedha ceremony in the Yajura Veda. This ceremony adds nothing to the respect of either kings or queens. However, it tells that the Veda-Vakya or Veda statements were taken as the Word of God and followed to the last detail. This was a matter of faith in the divinity of the Vedas and also a matter of faith in the divine retribution - the divine fear loomed over largely and effectively - even the kings and queens were ready to suffer the ignominy. If the kings/queens could be made to go through this insulting ceremony then the honor of other Varnas had to be worthless. It was! All this, indicates general absence of pride within the Hindu society. It would be interesting to know many lower caste people have pride in relation to their caste status - empty unsubstantiated and unrecognized self-boasting claims not withstanding!
Any lower Varna individual worth his ego was a dangerous threat to Dharma and had to be moulded into a meek follower by the sustained invocation of the authority and the divinity of the Vedas. And also by invoking the meek dharmic conduct of his forefathers, whom he revered; add to that the fear of paranormal powers, the wrath of god that would visit the adharmic people and adharmic kings; and everybody believed that with open eyes and got moulded. Effective canards, you would agree. Of course, the threat of mutilation by the dharmic kings was also there along with a threat of ostracization. The mutilated Shudras gave a sense of jubilation to the higher Varnas. Many mutilations were not needed. Actually, few mutilated Shudras were sufficient to put an inductive sense of helplessness and fear among the unarmed Shudras. The Shudra kings were a different preposition; they were pacified and convinced by the granting the Kshatriya status. Of course, the Brahmans got the land grants in return for elevating their status. However, the soldiers or kith and kin of these Kshatriya kings were not granted the Kshatriya status because most probably they could not offer the land grants. Brahmans spread from land to land through invitations to them by the Shudra kings interested in the Yagyas and elevation of their status. These established social, religious and spiritual authorities were invited by the local rulers to help them in ruling their land according to Dharma and gain victory over their enemies. The Brahmans not only raised the status of Shudra kings but also upheld their divine right to rule over everybody except the Brahmans.
There was a gigantic but peaceful reaction against the Vedic religion and the Yagyas that was started by the Buddha. The Yagyas culture could only be fought through the cultural means. The Buddhism became widely prevailed over the country and a dominant religion but mainly to the cities. It did not get stronghold in the insulated villages that remained within the stronghold of Vedic Dharma and from where it came back in full strength. However, ultimately the Buddhism lost to the Sanatana Dharma of Vedics. One of the reasons for the ultimate victory of Sanatana Dharma over Buddhism was the relative importance given to the welfare of king by the former. The Buddhism does not believe in the authority of the Vedas and denies the very existence of God or soul. The Buddhism became widely prevalent all over urban India because of its opposition to Vedic philosophy of animal sacrifice in performing the Vedic ceremonies. The upsurge and great popularity of Buddhism, and its strong opposition to useless animal sacrifices indicate an excessive animal sacrifices. These sacrifices were excessive and the defenders of Varna Dharma are in a constant state of denial of practice of meat eating and beef eating in the Vedic society. If they are correct then it only means that the Brahmans performed the Yagyas involving the sacrifice of innumerable animals excluding cows; after that, the dead animals were thrown away! However, these offerings never reached the gods until the paranormal Brahmans ate them. If they were thrown away then the gods could not be appeased. The road to appeasement of gods was through the Brahmans and Brahmanwada or Agrahara. To appease the gods one had to visit the pure area of the pure Brahmans where the polluting Untouchables were to be killed if they gained an illegal entry. And, there was no legal entry for them. A thrown away rotting sacrifice could not have appeased the gods. It was impossible. If they threw it away then they were fools but we know that they were anything but the fools. Therefore, it means that the sacrificed animals were necessarily eaten by the crucial middle men - the paranormal Brahman without whom any ceremony or ritual was not possible. Since there is no Rig Vedic mention that the cows should be excluded from these, it can be safely assumed that the cows were eaten also. Such a great destruction of cattle stock meant a great loss to agriculture because it used animal power extensively. It created resentments among Vaisyas who were still agriculturists and cattle herders. All the animals to be sacrificed ultimately came from the Vaisyas which increased the burden of taxes on them. The philosophy of Ahimsa (nonviolence) of Buddhism attracted them since it reduced taxes on them by prohibiting the animal sacrifices. The sacrifices under the influence Buddhism and the Jainism became abhorred (taking life was sinful!) activities. This reduced the importance of sacrifices and that in turn reduced the importance the Yagyas. But the Yagyas did not lose their mystique forever. Further, the Yagyas served the purpose of piously augmenting the wealth and welfare of the Brahmans, and the Kshatriyas. The real producers stood to lose from such ceremonies. Further, Buddhism promised Nirvana or salvation to Shudras that was denied to them under Vedic Dharma. However, the salvation was available only when they joined the Buddhist Sangha; joining the Sangha meant giving up family life and becoming ascetic. There was no Varna within the Buddhist Sangha. Anybody from any Varna could join Sangha and aspire for Nirvana. However, Buddhism did not deny the existence of Varnas altogether. Buddha held that the Kshatriya was a superior Varna compared to the Brahman Varna. The Varna was supposed to be dependent on Karma. Buddha denied the determination of Varna by birth but ultimately it amounted to the same. Further, according to Buddhist tradition the Bodhisattvas could take birth only in the Brahman or the Kshatriya Varnas. The lower castes were excluded from this event. Thus, the Varna Dharma was not denied; it only became based on the deeds or Karma. That essentially meant a Varna system based on birth decided by the Karmas of the previous lives. Buddhism was an attack on unnecessary sacrifices in Vedic ceremonies but it did not lead any fundamental attack on the Varna system. Any Buddhist criticism of the Varna system was not sufficient attack on the Varna Dharma. There was no fundamental attack on the Varna Dharma. There was no special emphasis on alleviating the sufferings of the Shudras and the Untouchables. The Brahmans exploited the weakness of this attack and returned with full vigor. Even Buddhism could not solve the problems of occupations, inter-dining and marriages that were outside the Buddhist Sangha. There was equality within the Buddhist Sangha (of ascetic - the ascetics (monks - Bhikkus) could be from any castes) but out of the Sangha there were degrading inequalities. The Varna was not important in the Sangha because the occupations and the marriages were not involved. If one did not marry then it was mainly useless from the point of Varna Dharma; there was no threat of Varna-Sankars or to Varna system in reality. If one got his food through begging or donations then there was no question of transgressing on the occupations of others. Becoming a monk or a member of Sangha was like becoming an ascetic. One who was in Sangha cannot affect the bloodlines in society. All the Buddhist people who remained outside the Sangha retained their inherited Varna. There was no way in which they could give up their inherited Varna in a situation where the blood ties were exclusive. The first two Varnas were not willing to give up their Varnas for obvious reasons. The Vaisyas, the third Varna, could become Buddhist but could not get, generally, the rulership like Kshatriyas because it needed the use of arms. They also could not become the lawmakers and attain the highest social status. They could not raise their Varna if the higher two Varnas who still had respective powers were not willing to accept them as their equivalent. The problem of acceptance is perennial in Hindu society - note. It is built on exclusiveness and exclusion. The position of higher Varna was exclusive and the position of lower caste was that of exclusion from any stake in society. The higher Varnas were/are not ready to accept the lower Varna as their equal. Why should this nasty and nefarious question of equality arise at all?
However, the Buddhism became popular among the general urban population because of anti-sacrifice stand. It was taught in Pali, the people's language, and not in Sanskrit, the Deva (gods') language. Buddha showed that the Moksha or Nirvana (if any?) was achievable without animal sacrifice and that undid the Brahmans. The Brahmans felt threatened. Their cultural hegemony was at stake. Many kings also started patronizing the Buddhism. This led to a reduction in the Yagyas and a loss of income to the Brahmans. The Buddhism was able to convert the sacrifices into abhorred activities; this led the sacrifices to be included into impure activities and that made the Brahman somewhat less pure or less respected; the aim of the Brahmans was to regain the lost purity due to the sacrifices and accepting the sacrificed animals' meat as food. It was quite logical. When the sacrifices were important they got the biggest share from them; when agriculture became important then they got the land grant and cows in donations; when temple became important they got all the donations to temples; they kept shifting their stand as per their interests and situations. With the development of Buddhism, the stupas came to be constructed and along with that, the temples made their appearance. These temples overseen by the Brahmans were another source of income so they did not need sacrifices on regular basis; only occasional sacrifices for the kings would do. Then in a purity-based society, the emphasis on purity was increasing; many jobs had been degraded and, now, the meat which involved the blood was degraded. It was not a question of life; they never bothered about others' lives; it was a question of purity and self-interest. Therefore, they refused to deal with any kind of impurity including the blood and that meant a refusal to eat the meat; we know that the onion, garlic and mushroom were already prohibited and the meat joined the prohibited list. Brahmans retaliated by joining the enemy; unsurprisingly, by doing a grand somersault; once a while it looked like that they were answerable. If they could not beat the Buddhists then at least they could join them. They went one-step ahead and completely stopped eating any kind of meat; an incredible somersault and there is no dearth of such somersaults. The Buddhists still allowed people to eat meat and also ate it themselves. It was a difficult somersault in the eating habits but a tough competition from the Buddhism and emphasis on purity forced them to do it. They had to remain more pure than the Buddhist if they had to beat the competition. In it, they were helped by the ideas of Upanishads. The Upanishads also discounted the philosophy of animal sacrifice of the Vedas. The immediate effect was that the anti-Brahman feelings among the Vaisyas and the Kshatriyas went down. There was no dharmic danger to agriculture and to the income of Vaisyas, and also that of kings. Ultimately, the Brahmans gave up all the meat eating including the beef. It was a great historical somersault that was extremely crucial. Nevertheless, they still retained the mystique Yagyas with the minimum sacrifices and that too on occasional basis. The cow sacrifice was changed to the donations of cows in the Yagyas. Still it was a pious and sacred transfer of wealth but not to the required extent. The cow was elevated to sacred level from being important and slaying of cow was later made the second highest crime next only to slaying of a Brahman. It was an evolving society along the lines of purity paradigm.
Then one more factor is that the Buddhist philosophy had some common points with the Sanatana Dharma though it denied the existence of God and soul. It believed in rebirth like Sanatana Dharma. It also believed in Karma theory like Sanatana Dharma. It believed in the concept of Nirvana that had its counter part of Moksha in Vedic Dharma. It also believed in Varna like the Vedic Dharma. The rebirth in Buddhism took place through Chetana (Conscious) while in the Vedic Dharma it took place through the soul. The counter part of soul in Buddhism was Chetana. The medium to carry forward the Karmas in Buddhism was Chetana while in Vedic Dharma it was the soul. The Varna in Buddhism was decided by Karmas and by birth in Vedic Dharma; both of them are essentially the same. Both the religions believed in the concept of reincarnation. The world according to both the religions was not permanent. The only change was the negation of God, the Vedas and the sacrifices. Simply by negating God in one and accepting God in another you will get the other philosophy. Why Buddha negated the existence of God and found the Vedas useless? It was so because accepting the supremacy of Vedas meant accepting the superiority of Brahmans that he was not willing to accept. He is stated to have said that as far as the Varnas were concerned the Kshatriya Varna was better than the Brahman Varna. Further he is believed to have said that a Vassal (Virshal - outcaste) was a vassal because of his Karmas. All the other things were almost similar. Thus, there was not much philosophical departure in Buddhism. Nevertheless, that was its undoing. When the occasion arose, all the Buddhists again became part of the Sanatana Dharma. In other words, they got reassimilated.
The Buddhists remained confined to the cities and the Brahmans dominated the isolated, insulated and independent taxpaying dharmic villages. For the rulers the villages were important from the point of view of collection of taxes; the rulers were otherwise not interested in the villages because being demilitarized the villages were rarely a source of trouble; so the villages were left alone in the hands of caste councils and the land holding high castes. This kept the Sanatana Dharma alive till today. The existence of the ghastly Panchayats, which made outcastes and awarded punishments for transgressing the Varna Dharma, provided the durability to the heinous caste system. Their stronghold in rural areas was the main reason for survival where no foreigners usually moved. The invaders normally confined themselves to the cities hardly interfering with the structure of the Hindu society. Moreover, the high castes headmen collected the taxes and dutifully paid to the powers that be; this left them unaffected at the local level; in turn the local level societal caste structure remained the same; this was probably due to the system laid out by Chanakya in 3rd century B.C.E. The rulers were not deeply interested in the villages as they were never the source of any serious trouble – note the effect of demilitarization. They held the cities and the borders. It was sufficient for them. The preserving of Dharma became the sole task of the Brahmans and the ghastly Panchayats. It means that all the people who matter were defending the Varna Dharma. How did these Panchayats maintain Dharma and suppress any rebellion? It was simple. The people they had to keep in line were famished and defenseless as society has been demilitarized, disarmed and dispropertied. It was as good as keeping a flock of sheep together with the help of a stick; and the people terrorized by the divine retribution were no match to the defenders and preservers of Dharma. Even in the war time society was not affected. The whole cowardly village society moved away from the path of the coming army, and, came back to its original place when the army left. In this way, the villages insulated themselves, from any outside influence; they retained their chilling innocence. Thus, political wars did not have much impact on the villages. The villages remained untouched and so did the caste and the casteism.
The Varna system was maintained outside the Buddhist Sangha. The Bodhisattva could only be born in either the Brahman Varna or the Kshatriya Varna indicating the importance of Varna - no place for lowly people in the high places! There is no indication that the Varna system and endogamy had disappeared during the Buddhist Period.
It was easy to maintain equality within Sangha because Buddhist Bhikshus were not allowed to marry. They were also not required to follow a profession, thus the caste lost much of its significance within Sangha. However, the acceptance of Varna outside the Sangha even on basis of Karmas allowed the discriminatory Varna Dharma to flourish. It was so because if one had to change his Varna then one had to change his occupation. If the Shudras wished to change their occupations then it essentially meant that they had to take up the occupations of other Varnas. A change to higher-level occupations required the acquisition of the resources of society which could be had from the higher three Varnas, and their willingness to teach them high Varna skills, which was not forthcoming. It was not possible without bloodshed. It required the Shudras to improve their might which they could not do. Further Buddhism required that there should be no killings. The violence was prohibited by it for the welfare of society. Therefore, the Shudras remained where they were. And society was stabilized. Harmony prevailed. Hail the non-change in society!
When the Brahmans became vegetarian to be purer than the Buddhists, then it became the question for the kings so as to which religion to support or patronize? It was essential because an irreligious king had an inbuilt weakness affecting his durability. One alternative was to patronize the religion which he got through inheritance. The other alternative was to choose the religion which suited him best to further his territorial ambitions and which solidified his grip on the state. In this respect, the Vedic religion scored heavily over the Buddhist religion. It provided direct divinity to the Sanatani or Hindu kings. The Brahmans always extolled the virtues of kings who upheld Dharma and performed the Yagyas - no canards at all. They performed Rajsuya and Ashwamedha Yagyas for the welfare of kings while the Buddhist did not have any such concept. The Buddhism also eschewed the violence; the violence in fact was essential element of the coercive power of the state. Thus, the Buddhism was not attractive to the newly emerging kings because any violence was indispensable to formation of a new kingdom and a subsequent increase in its territory. However, it was a god sent opportunity to the Brahmans who were ever willing to grant the Kshatriya status to new kings of obscure origin in return of land grants and plum postings with the kings and to save Dharma - nothing personal about it. In addition, they used the performing of Yagyas as a mighty weapon. The magnetic Yagyas in themselves had a fascinating and a beneficial mystique around them. The kings who did not aspire to be Kshatriyas opted for the Buddhism. The Buddhism automatically granted them Kshatriya status on the basis of presumed deeds of past lives. However, their kingly ambitions suffered because of the non-violence principle of Buddhism. Thus, the new kings were more oriented toward the Vedic Dharma and that ultimately led to its victory over Buddhism. There was a shifting of patronage towards the Brahmans. Over a period of time, Vaisyas also shifted to Vedic religion to be on the safe side of the political powers that be. After that, the Shudras also followed; they did not have much of a choice. There was a complete reversal to Hinduism. The insulated villages were already Vedic. The policy of the Brahmans of being deeply interested in the welfare of kings through performance of Yagyas paid rich dividends. At the same time, Aadishankarachrya defeated the Buddhist philosophy by borrowing heavily from the Buddhist concept of Sunyata and representing it as Nirgun Bruhm. For this Aadishankarachrya is also known as the Crypto-Buddha. It straight forwardly indicates toward plagiarism. Hardly demeaning!
Buddhism was in dying stage when Islam entered India. The Muslim invaders in later centuries only destroyed the monasteries of a dying religion in the north India.
It may be mentioned here that there have been many Shudra kings notably the Maurya dynasty. The Gupta dynasty was a Vaisya dynasty. But, unfortunately, all these changes took place at the top only. The local (village) authorities remained the same indicating no change in the Varna groups. The eternal caste system in villages was never really defeated. All the land was held by the state, courtesy Chanakya, and the middle men (upper castes) remained comfortable by collecting taxes from the village and paying to the powers that be.
However, we find that by the time of Gupta kings (4th century C.E.), the Brahmans had been successful in getting prohibited the slaughter of cow - the divine and pure animal giving purifying sacred excreta and sacred urine. Therefore, they were the ultimate victors. Killing this animal (the Cow) with the sacred excreta and the sacred urine was made the most serious crime, after the crime of killing/slaying a Brahman. Nobody can say that the Sanatani society was not dynamic. Any religion which raises the cow to sacred level cannot be static.
We recall that the Hindu religion was a system of inherent division of the hereditary occupations. The Brahmans were engaged in lawmaking, statecraft, intellectual and priestly work. The Kshatriyas were engaged in statecraft, military and administrative work. The Vaisyas were engaged in the business activities. The Shudras were engaged in manual labor activities. The Untouchables were engaged in impure and unclean jobs. Everybody was supposed to be doing the job he was naturally (by birth) most suitable for - a great kind of dharmic harmony. It was birth-attached suitability. There is no earned merit in Hindu society but only caste merit. That is the unofficial India
Let us see how the limitations imposed in Varna system worked. On the face of it, it looks like scientific division of labor; the most suitable job goes to the most suitable man. Only condition was that this suitability had to be acquired by birth. Actually, the most suitable jobs went to the most suitable castes. The status of a man also appeared to be job related. The man and his heredity job were the same; and, thus the status of the heredity job was his status. The Higher was the job; higher was the status. Or higher the inherent status the higher was the actual job. Actually it works from birth-attached status to job and not otherwise. The Brahmans doing the supposedly intellectual job got the highest status. The Shudra doing the blue-collar jobs had the lowest status among the Varnas. The Untouchables doing the lowest level unclean jobs got the lowest position in society. This state where everybody is doing his divinely ordained function is also known as the cosmic order - with its all pervading divine harmony and cruelties. However, the question was how to maintain this cosmic order if the Shudras were to aspire to become the Kshatriyas and the Brahmanas? If such aspirations of Shudras were to be realized then the cosmic order of the things would have broken down. The harmony was to get converted into disharmony at the hint of mere threat of demand for equality by the Shudras. But how come the Shudras, who were reciting Vedas, and ruling over the people like Kshatriyas, would have been responsible for a break down in the cosmic order of the pure and sacred Sanatana Dharma? Nobody knows! Or will somebody please tell me? Please, please!!! I beg of you!
Here one has to understand that the Varna system is not a system of allocation of jobs on the basis of individual merit. There is no earned merit but caste merit in the Hindu society. The talents or merits of ineligible individuals were to rot in the garbage as they were impure coming from the impure people. Nurturing impure talent was not the idea of higher Varna people; it was self-destructive. Indeed, the individual on his own and as an independent identity does not figure anywhere in the Varna Dharma. It is a group oriented system where the allocation of jobs to individuals is not possible; the group has to be considered first then the individual. The individual is a derivative of his caste; he and his caste are the same. The job of an individual is derived from the occupation of his caste group; and so does his status. The Varna system is actually an artificially inherited group meritocracy where merit is birth-attached; and that is the proof. No further confirmation is needed other than caste of a man; there is no litmus test. The merit of an individual is derived from the supposed merit of his inherited group. One has to do the jobs postulated for his Varna in the scriptures. To be considered as meritorious one has to take birth in a particular group. No proof is needed for merit and/or eligibility other than birth. In practice no individual is intelligent enough to deliberately take birth in a particular Varna, but, this is precisely one should do in Hindu society; it does not make sense; yes it does not; but it does to some on the top, by the birth. But who can make sense of the divinely ordained cruelty! The unintelligible and unknown Karmas of his previous lives are supposed to decide it for him - this gives it a spiritual touch - please do not forget this spiritual element. The cosmic order in Hindu society is the state where people belonging to all the Varnas are doing birth-attached jobs ordained to them in the scriptures - a picture perfect harmony. It was king's duty to see that all the Varnas were doing the jobs allotted to them cosmically. He had to see that the Vaisyas and the Shudras were doing the jobs cosmically ordained for them. Thus, maiming and mutilation of Shudras and killing of Untouchables were perfectly in order if they defied Dharma. The king also had to separate the Untouchables by forcing them to carry an identification mark on their bodies and dwellings in the city and out of the cities; in the villages the ghastly Panchayats were there to bring the correct alignments in society. It was done so that the people from the higher Varnas could get away from them, and thereby avoided getting polluted - so much emphasis on the unproven purity of Brahmans - underwhelms me. Further, the Untouchables lived outside cities in marked huts to differentiate them from others. In addition, the Shudras and Untouchables were not allowed to carry the arms. They were forced to do so by the kings. Thus, we see that so called natural division of the so called specialized labor was achieved under the maiming, mutilating and killing force of the Kshatriyas, kings and the Panchayats. Any deviations from this divine division of labor were adharmic which impinged like the blood sucking creatures on the minds of the lawmakers.
Further, the pure and inherited Varna was maintained by outlawing the inter-Varna marriage. Any attempt for inter-Varna marriage meant ostracization. This ostracization was to be done by the caste Panchayats (a committee of five prominent people in a given caste in a given village). These Panchayats did wield considerable power and helped in maintaining the Dharma. These were another power centers - each committed to Dharma. These Panchayats do wield considerable influence in Indian rural areas. Further discouragement to such marriage was in the form of branding their children as outcastes because they did not inherit any Varna. The existence of only four Varnas precluded the possibility and existence of any mixed Varna. The Varna-Sankars were a grave and serious threat to the existence of Dharma. They were mutual antagonists. We know that already.
The provision of making a person outcaste helped in maintaining the caste structure of society. This limitation limited the role of an individual. An outcaste person was permanently boycotted because he flouted the rules or became impure by not following the rules of his caste. It was a very potent weapon and effectively wielded by the Panchayats. The ostracization, we know, meant the loss of his family, disinheritance of Varna, disinheritance of property and occupation, and a prohibition from entering the village. Any person found to unknowingly associate with the outcastes was heavily fined along with atonement or penance and purification. If somebody did associate himself with the outcastes then he himself ran the risk of becoming an outcaste and stood to lose his family and property. Any person flouting the rule of his castes or Varna was punishable with excommunication. Very few people were willing to take the risks of flouting the caste Panchayats.
This provision gave authority to caste and the caste Panchayats. Therefore, it was not voluntary to follow the rules of caste but it was mandatory. Any recalcitrant person defying the rules of his caste or Varna could have been easily made an outcaste. It maintained the purity of the caste and society. The people who dared to defy the Varna Dharma were thrown out of the villages. And there was no appeal against it. The man who lost his property due to becoming an outcaste could not appeal to the king for restoration of his property. As far he was concerned, the decision of his caste was final. As we have already said that, the Hindu society was characterized by multiple power centers. It was one of the reasons for the sustainability of caste system because at least the local caste authority was always there to regulate the caste conduct of a man. The absence of king hardly mattered in the caste matters. The dominant caste regulated the caste system. Thus, the caste system did not disintegrated when the kings fought with each other. It remained safely hidden in the isolated and insulated villages. We can see the caste or Varna forces at work.
It is needless to repeat that all the doors of society were closed for an outcaste – the most important limitation for smooth working of the pure society. His social privileges and duties were taken away. He was barred from communicating with the people. The village caste council or the Village caste Panchayats usually enforced the collective excommunication. The man was deprived of sustenance means. Then he had no alternative but to join the Untouchables and take up their occupation because other occupations were closed to him. Usually these people were a couple who took fancy of each other and produced the Varna-Sankar offspring. The only punishment was to make them outcaste and throw them out of the village. It maintained the purity of Varna system by expelling the adharmic and impure people and their progenies. It also increased the population of the Untouchables.
Thus, the Panchayat and its authority to ostracize acted as a very crucial and ever ready weapon to maintain the purity of caste system and stop people from rebelling; it provided the stability in society by imposing the life long sentences which through inheritance were applicable to next generations. This weapon greatly contributed to the survival of the caste system. The system of community boycott and non-cooperation was used in the independence struggle of India.
The caste structure, caste effect and caste mechanism of the Hindu society make the better jobs available to higher Varnas and lower level jobs to lower Varnas – that is how they function. A lower Varna within the Hindu framework is allotted the job; which is in consonance with his heredity status. A person belonging to higher Varna is trained for the higher-level jobs and a lower Varna person is trained for the lower-level jobs keeping in view the utmost necessity of maintaining social harmony. Here social harmony essential means - not making higher caste people angry. It is so because in inheritance oriented society the training for jobs is also based on inheritance. The only persons available to teach somebody are his parents or the persons belonging to his caste. Others would not teach him because of caste non-cooperation or exclusion.
Any Brahman would never teach Vedas to a Potter who provided the pots for the village. The caste effect is in operation. The socially disparaging disassociations take place. A Shudra artisan would never teach his job to higher Varnas because nobody would be interested in his job, which infringes on his Dharma. The pure (powerful controller) should not learn the impure (manual and unclean) jobs and the impure (landless and powerless) should not learn the pure (pious and power) jobs. These are the intricacies of Varna Dharma. Either way would be adharmic and hence extremely desirable, a heavenly sign of the corruption of Dharma. If the pure and impure got mixed and spread impurities and contaminating Dharma then it was a highly undesirable and despicable activity. The social disassociation given in the Dharma Shashtras enforced the rule that the only training one got was the hereditary one. It was natural also that the son was taking up the father's occupation; it is another point that no other option was available to son. Who cares? The optionless son got the occupation as if though it was predestined for him. By now you must be knowing that how everything is made predestined in Hindu society barring the accidents. His birth-attached occupation was supposed to be in harmony with his birth-attached qualities. Harmony, harmony everywhere! The purity based harmony! And the purity is unproven!!! But it is supposed to exists and it produces the repulsive forces in society – hardly worth bothering about when the high castes are living an easy life at the cost of the lower strata. Who is bothered about repulsive force? Nobody. In fact, the life of the son was predestined; the selfish and cruel lawmakers ensured it. It was a predestined birth-attached allocation, which was supposed to last till eternity; it was a hallmark of the eternal system. It was the vision of the lawmakers, which took account of all times to come till eternity. They aimed to provide the eternal solution to the problems of all their coming generations. Nobody was really bothered about society as whole as such. The societal bonding needed identification with society which was conspicuous by its absence; it place was taken by the caste bonding which had no effect outside the caste in question. And in midst of so much purity in Hindu society, the purity is still unproven. The unproven purity rules along with the unproven Karma hypothesis in the traditional Hindu society. And all the litmus papers are missing.
Where does the fault lie responsible for the hellish lives of the Shudras and the Antyajas? The fault of being a Shudra or an Untouchable lies with himself! No kidding! No God, no scripture, no Brahman, no king, no Kshatriya, no Vaisya no caste council are responsible for his wretched existence. The wretched existence in which he lived from birth to death was entirely of his own making. Not surprisingly – nobody takes any responsibilities in Sanatana Dharma. He should look first inside him then blame others; it is another thing that whenever he looks inside him he finds no evidence of the Karmas of his previous lives. The emptiness is remarkable. All his sufferings are blamed on his unintelligible previous lives' unknown Karmas. The Karma hypothesis was probably developed around 700 B.C.E. when it was deemed necessary to relate the higher Varna birth with the hypothetical karmas, to justify the unearned merits of the upper castes or the Varnas. And as a corollary, the demerits were imposed on low Varna/caste that were dependent on the unknown accumulated bad Karmas. Since he was the doer in his previous lives, now he is the sufferer. Thus, he is the agent of his own sufferings. He is the creator of his own wretched life. And for that he was born into the same kind of wretched people who had performed the equally bad Karmas. All the members of the groups of low caste people are guilty of committing ghastly deeds in previous life – no, no, no fraudulent incrimination at all. You should not have any delusions like that. Blaming Dharma and Karma, the upper castes and the pious lawmakers are the acts of simply barking up the wrong tree. Is it not logical that one should suffer for his unknown, unconfirmed, unintelligible, assumed and accumulated bad deeds of all the unknown previous lives? It is a backward logic. The rigors of logic are thrown into dustbin. The causes do not decide the results. The result decides the existence of unspecific and unverifiable causes - there is no litmus test for the confirmation of these causes. The Hindu society has always shied away from the litmus tests - very shy society! You see! It depends upon realizations. Dharma is supreme without verifying its divinity. The existence of present wretched conditions implies the existence of previous bad Karmas. Nobody has actually seen or experienced such Karmas that directly result in a particular type of completely identifiable next life of the related individual. The Karma hypothesis is an unspecified exercise that establishes nothing, but establishes the comforts of high castes in concrete terms; it has some benefits, you see. The high castes sleep soundly, with a clear conscience. Nobody has seen any individual with his past Karmas and nobody will see; there is eternal non-existence of such person. The precision is also not even in the backward logic. This unestablished backward logic (deriving the reasons from results as opposite to deriving the results from the reasons) has played havoc with the millions and millions of lives in the Hindu society. These are the strange kinds of unconfirmed previous life’s bad Karmas that are not remembered even by the doer himself. It would be better if somebody were actually able to produce a man with his actual, precise and confirmable records of his previous life Karmas and their effects on present life. These actually verifiable Karmas should be precisely linked to the conditions of the present life. It should be possible to trace the previous life along with the Karmas, and, the life before that and the life before that and the respectively related karmas, and so on. It should at least applicable to seven cases out of every ten. Until then the previous life Karma hypothesis would be merely a figment of imagination. A dangerous doctrine used by the spiritual tormentors to justify the oppressed lives of the lower strata. Yes, the oppression is justified for unknown reasons! Oh, I forgot the Dharma!
However, according to the defunct and disconnecting Karma hypothesis, the birth of man in a particular Varna is justified and binding. This is given in the Brahman created divine scriptures. This prevents the emergence of any empathy and sympathy for the wretched lives of the Untouchables. Their present wretched conditions are due to the wretched Karmas of their previous lives; so no sympathy or empathy or any such kind of crap. Thus, the conscience of people goes to sound and selfish deep sleep under the dharmic guidance. The present life and its conditions are beyond the control of anybody because nobody can go back to his non-existent previous life and correct the Karmas. So everybody has the excuse of not doing anything about pathetic conditions of the lower strata.
Therefore, the cultural hegemony of the paranormal Brahmans, upholding of Dharma by the kings, demilitarization, total separation of blood ties, the mutilating system of justice, ostracization, Panchayats (the dominant caste council of five nominated people) and the junk hypothesis of previous life Karmas, kept the Shudras and the Untouchables in their places and served to make the Varna Dharma eternal. Any desire to rise up is killed by the Karma theory and any actual action in such direction was punishable by society, the Panchayats and the kings.
Now, we will see how the system worked as an economic unit. One way for the economic system to work was to give small pieces to non-land owning caste man to grow the food for his family and provide his goods or services to whole of the village. For example, a Chamar family supplying the shoes to whole of village or a Kumhar (potter) family providing the pots for all the villages in lieu of the small piece of land received. Second was the Jajmani system.
The Jajmani system is probably borrowed from the later Vedic period Yajmans. The Yajmans were the Kshatriya patrons of the Brahmans. The Yajman or Jajman was the Kshatriya landholder or king for whom the Brahman performed all the Yagyas and ritualistic ceremonies. The Jajman and the Brahman were tied personally to each other with generational ties. Once tied together, the Jajman and the Brahman did not normally part company through mutually unstated agreement among the Brahmans for not poaching on each other's patrons. The relationship continued for the generations altogether until some natural calamity occurred or when the patron or client became spatially separate due to some reasons. In the south India the role of jajman was played by the dominant land holding castes in the absence of the Kshatriyas; these people were higher level Shudras who took up the role of Kshatriyas without any upgradation in their Varna status. These people we call as the pseudo-kshatriyas. The faith of these people in the caste system is unfailing.
This Jajmani system was also carried in the villages where the Jajman was the patron of the village artisans also. The Jajmani system did the job of distribution of agriculture produce among the non-land owning castes. The principle of distribution was to each according to his caste provided the Dharma was maintained. They controlled the distribution of food and with it the lives of the village people. There was no money transaction. The Jajman not only had the land but also an army of musclemen to help in maintaining the Dharma in the innocent village society. These musclemen were the tillers on his land. They were ready to perpetrate violence on the demilitarized village society. This provided the Shudras enough persuasions to fall in line. The muscle force, the socially dissociative forces (mutual alienation) and the economic forces were really persuading factors that effectively prohibited the Shudra and the Untouchables from rebelling. This eliminated the use of frequent violence in the village. The subordination of low castes was naturalized. The caste councils played a regulatory role. The traditions were created which induced subordination in coming generations with little efforts. It is another thing that cowardly villages moved out of the route of the coming armies with all the brave people of the village thus displayed the absolute loyalty to the land and the local ruler and the born unbeatable bravery by running away. The naturalized subordinated next generation took place of the earlier generation until the forces of modern world were unleashed by the history contaminating the spiritual and dharmic society of the sacred Sanatana Dharma.
However, the Jajmans owned/held the land. Thus, they owned all the food supply in the village. It induced servility in the lower castes that served the cause of Dharma. Those who tilled their land and those who provided the labor were paid in the form of grains and other agriculture produce. However, this was not sufficient to put nice clothes on them but enough for a wretched and servile survival. The provision for the food of Shudra artisans was also to be made so that they did not die of hunger. With all the servility, they had to look up to the Jajmans to fill their hungry bellies or obtain their sustenance. The dignity was reserved for the upper castes by Dharma. What could the insulted others do? The Shudras and those below them were born undignified; with indignity fused in them. The Shudra artisans those who were not connected with the land as either tillers or labor got the food by permanently connecting themselves with the Jajmans - with all the induced servility at their command. The Jajmans on their own needed the servants to do all their menial non-agriculture jobs. When they did not do the agriculture labor then it was unrealistic for them to do other menial jobs especially when a full community of heredity servants was available to perform such divine vocation. If the Shudra artisans did the work for each other then any income (in kind) was not possible because they did not have enough land or resources to pay each other – the Varna Dharma ensured that. Therefore, the only alternatively was to perform the jobs for the landed upper castes. The upper caste Jajmans lived a comfortable life while the Shudras did all the menial jobs. Thus, the Shudras gave their services to Jajmans to get their undignified sustenance. It was a really, real merciful system where all the Shudras lived at the mercy of the Jajman. The richer was the Jajman, the better off were his clients or workers, as they got more to eat. A richer Jajman performed many more ceremonies that needed all the services of the Shudra artisans like barbers, potters, carpenter, ironsmith, goldsmith, weavers, construction workers, actors, the washer men and others. All the ceremonies related to marriage, birth, death, festivals and social functions were performed smoothly, and, everybody got his share, barely enough for sustenance. No desire was there to the leave the surplus with the artisans and others as it could have made them to forget their Dharma of serving the higher castes. It would have been too cruel to higher Varna if any surplus was left with low castes, yes too cruel. Everybody left in happiness after the function or ceremony - now they had something to eat until next time. Then they blessed the Jajmans. They showed their reverence by prostrating on the land, a highly virtuous act. The helplessness and indignities in their lives were a normal part of their lives, a fait accompli since birth.
Many consider the Jajmani system as a socially amicable system where the relations between Jajmans and Shudra artisans and others (or between independent patrons and dependent clients) were amicable. These clients were known as the Kaamwale - the work doers (or Kammens). There was a mutual understanding in the dependent Shudras that they would not encroach on others' Jajmans. It had become a relationship, which neither patron nor dependent clients could relinquish. They were almost bound to each other. The Jajman would not easily get another Kaamwale and Kaamwale would not get any other patrons. The Kaamwale almost had an exclusive right to work to the exclusion of any right of other Kaamwale. It was an internal arrangement of the serving castes. It was a kind of agreement of non-competition between all the Kaamwale. It seems everybody adhered to one caste one occupation rule like the Varna system. It also evolved into one Jajman and the fixed attached workers. Anybody defying the caste rules of non-competition had to face their respective caste Panchayats. The Jajman was virtually the social and local government. His authority was not limitless but he was the main deciding voice in the caste councils where he had his due weight for belonging to dominant caste; even though he also could not go against the caste rules; and there was no point as the caste rules favored him. He believed that it was necessary to give grains and other things to work doers enabling them to survive and serve him. The dead man serves nobody. If the Jajman chose to neglect the Kaamwale then they were bound to suffer. In Jajmani, the links of generations developed familiarity between the two parties. But the bonding did not develop to the point of nurturing the status aspirations of the Shudras and the Untouchables. They knew their undignified limits and thus in the absence of any effective rebels the system was stable. It was a matter of survival. It was a dependency of the Shudra workers on the powerful Jajmans. The Shudra workers had to walk, talk, and wear their respective caste while working or any other time, as usual. All of their dignity was fractured and torn up. The Jajmani system maintained the status quo in a rigid caste system. No Shudra worker ever became a landlord due to Jajmani system. No Shudra or Untouchable became a Sahukar or moneylender under a Jajman. It was not designed for that. It was designed to maintain the servile dependence of lower castes on the higher castes. In the Jajmani system, the Chamarins did the job of midwives; they helped in delivery, cleaned up the child and everything else, and could not touch the child afterward; the untouchability moved in. The scavengers beat the drum in front of the Jajmans' house. There was no possibility of happening it the other way round. It was an unequal system that appeased the Dharma. The permanent interests of unimpeachable upper castes created insurmountable obstacles for the Karmically incriminated lower castes.
You can sincerely expect a pure man to carry his heart on his hand showing the pity and mercy he has for all the mankind - yes, all the mankind. Or can you? Yes, you can except in the matters where it does not matter. And Jajmani system was not one where it did not matter. The basic and permanent interests of lower strata play a subsidiary role to the trivial desires, impulses, whims and fancies of the higher strata. In Hindu society, the provision of basic necessities reaches its nadir when you reach the bottom of the caste system. A dying and hungry Untouchable hardly matters. The divinity pours down through all their pores and cripples the Untouchables to the core. The divinity is too cumbersome for some people. The lower you go down the more cumbersome it becomes. The bottomless pit of Hindu compassion keeps the scavengers in the bottom of stinking pit.
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