On the analytic presentation of Varna system in Gita Ch.18

[Guest guest]

Namaste all.

 

The discussion on the Varna system arising from the discussion on

Dharma Vyaadha's teachings prompts me to write the following.

I know I have written about this earlier, but I am not able to

locate it from the archives.

 

This discussion about Lord Krishna's conception of the Varna system

cannot be complete until we take up the eighteenth chapter where he

discusses this elaborately from shloka 19 to 48.

 

The existence of vAsanAs can be inferred by every person from the

way one's own intellect grapples with the spurting of different

tendencies in one's own mind. Krishna mentions six entities:

Knowledge; Action; Doer; Intellect; Will-power; Attitude to

Happiness. For each of these six entities, Krishna classifies human

behaviour into three categories. Human behaviour is generally

attributed to what is usually called his nature (svabhaava) and to

the training that he gets due to his environment and upbringing.

This is not denied by Hindu metaphysics. But the tendencies that he

brings along from his own past, including all previous lives, also

contribute to his svabhaava or own-nature. Krishna categorizes this

nature into Satva, Rajas and tamas in analysing the six entities

that he takes for discussion. Each of these six entities is

dissected into what shade of behavioural response belongs to the

satva mode,what belongs to the rajas mode, and what belongs to the

tamas mode. Thus there are six entities and three modes of responses

to each, altogether making 18 different responses. Krishna devotes

one verse (sloka) to each of these eighteen: 20 to 28 and 30 to 38.

 

For each entity one individual comes up with one of satva, rajas or

tamas mode of response. It could be, for instance,

a satva response in the case of KNOWLEDGE

a rajas response in the case of ACTION

a rajas response in the case of DOER

a rajas response in the case of INTELLECT

a tamas response in the case of WILL, and

a tamas response in the case of HAPPINESS.

This string of six responses is the individual's cumulative type.

 

The illustration given above, namely, one satva, three rajas, and

two tamas is just one type of response. How many such types are

possible?

There are 28 types that are possible

(See http://www.geocities.com/profvk/combinatorics.html for a

justification of this commonsense arithmetic)

These 28 types are classified into four varnas that locates each of

us in the spiritual ladder of evolution, according to the mode-

dominance in the cumulative type.

 

If satva is the dominant mode that type is called the character-type

B;

If rajas is the dominant mode with satva following, that type is

called the character-type K;

If rajas is the dominant mode with tamas following, that type is

called the character-type V;

If tamas is the dominant mode, that type is called the character-

type S.

 

The above example belongs to the V-type. The four character-types

arising out of the 28 only possible types are mentioned in the Hindu

scriptures as the four varnas.

 

For a chart-like presentation of these four types see

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/btype.html and three succeeding

pages.

 

There are only four, neither more nor less.By the very definition,

there is a hierarchy among them in terms of spiritual evolution. The

spiritually most evolved is the B-type just because of the dominance

of the satva in that type. The hierarchy for the purpose of

spirituality goes down as: the B-type; the K-type; the V-type; and

the S-type. The hierarchy is only for the purpose of spiritual

evolution and for no other purpose. For all other purposes they are

like the four walls of the society. The system has certainly

suffered misuse and misappropriation both individually and

collectively; but that does not take away the inherent nature of the

classification.The entire humanity is subject to this classification

of the svabhaava (one's-own-natue) of the mind for spiritual

objectives.

 

One's varna at birth, is dependent, according to the scriptures, on

the cumulative effect of responses in the previous life or lives to

the six entities: Knowledge, Action, Doer, Intellect, Will and

Happiness. There could certainly be other entities or factors which

are relevant but Krishna mentions only these in the Gita for

elaboration in this context. And since it illustrates the hidden

theory (which must be pretty complicated) very well, we stick to

these six entities as if they are everything. These are the genetic

roots of the individual's later manifestations. The soul in seeking

a rebirth, seeks that kind of genetic environment which matches with

its own vaasanaas.

 

There is not a single thing in the world which is not subject to

this guna-wise triple division. It is this triple division of the

vaasanas carried into a new life at birth that decides what are

inborn for him in that life. The qualities that a braahmana brings

with him at birth are listed. He says (Ch.18-42)

Serenity, self-restraint, austerity, purity, forgiveness,

uprightness, the urge to learn and know the truth of things, and

belief in God are the duties of braahmanas born of their own nature.

The words 'born of their own nature' (svabhaavajam) are important.

These qualities must be inherent in him; then only he is a

braahmana. If they are not his natural qualities, then he is not a

braahmana even though a parent of his may be a braahmana.

 

At the dawn of the twenty-first century it is ridiculous to

interpret the verse in any other way. The verse should be taken as a

definition of a braahmana thus: those who have these qualities as

their own svabhaava (= one's own nature) are braahmanas. . A Mahatma

Gandhi, a Mother Teresa, a Srinivasa Ramanujan, a Martin Luther King

Jr., are the braahmanas.

 

Some others, because of their vaasanaas are born in an environment

which makes them leaders and executives of society, men who can

organize, govern and fight for a cause and even give their lives on

the field for it. These are the kshatriyas of the society. Krishna

describes them: (Gita, Ch.18-43):

Bravery, vigour, constancy, resourcefulness,promptitude, courage in

the face of the enemy, generosity and nobility as well as a quality

of leadership and lordship - these are the duties of a kshatriya,

born of his own nature.

Again these have to be taken as the qualities defining a kshatriya.

In other words, those who have these qualities inherent in them are

the kshatriyas, even of this day.

 

A third category of people is the group of technical personnel who

have a skill, trade or profession and each one is a specialist in

his own way. These are the vaisyas; they are the hands and limbs of

society. Without them the society cannot survive. When the Gita says

that agriculture, cattle-rearing and trade are the duties of the

vaisyas, born of their nature (Gita Ch.18-44), it proceeds on the

maxim that the mental temperament of a man determines what class he

belongs to and each class has his own duties for which he is

temperamentally tuned.

 

None belonging to the 'higher' varnas is justified in looking down

upon the other varnas on the 'lower' rung of the ladder. In

fact 'higher' and 'lower' are misnomers in the context of society

and everyday life. The high-and-low concept originated in the levels

of spiritual evolution at which the accumulated tendencies of an

individual peg him.This idea of 'level' has been wrongly imported

into the context of society by several centuries of degenerate

application by the people involved.

 

Each of these varnas has a function for which his inborn tendencies

fit him well. That is why the Lord says: Better you follow the

dharma that befits your nature and not something that is foreign to

your nature. It must also be remembered that the rigours and

standards of behaviour expected of a braahmana are far stricter than

those expected of, say, a vaisya or a soodra. The 'lower' you come

in the ladder of spiritual evolution the more liberal are the norms

of behaviour prescribed for you.

 

There is an interesting anecdote in the Mahabharata, in this

connection, where King Yudhishtira recommends four different

punishments for four people, (who have individually committed the

same crime), because they belong to the four different varnas. The

punishments are; for the soodra it is just a warning, for the vaisya

it is a beating; for the kshatriya it is a prison term, and for the

braahmana it is death sentence!

 

If the nature of responses to the six deciding factors in the

previous births cumulate into one of dominant tamas type, the

individual is born of the fourth varna, the s-type, whose nature

will be to serve. Again where the Gita verse (Ch.18-44, 2nd line)

says that the inborn nature of a soodra is servitude, we have to

correctly interpret it as follows. Those whose inborn nature is one

of servitude, they are the soodras. Looked at this way, the verse

loses all its 'sting' attributed to it by successive social

reformers. Properly understood it means that all the clerks of the

world, all the 'employees' who cannot do anything else except 'obey

orders' -- maybe because they have been put in those circumstances,

but more often because they cannot do anything better -- belong to

the fourth varna. The so-called brahmin who quill-drives all his

life-time, not knowing anything else to do, and not having anything

else to do, is a soodra by this definition. He has no business to

take pride in the fact that he was born of brahmin parentage and

therefore deserves respect. If he makes any claim to brahminhood it

has to be on the basis of the definition of a braahmana, given in

verse no.42. The 'brahmin' who has defaulted on the Gaayatri, the

Queen of all mantras, must be considered lower in spiritual

evolution than the fourth varna who just chanted the names of God.

 

The context in the Gita , in which all this discussion of the varna

system appears , is significant. Arjuna is told that he is a

kshatriya, his foremost duty is not to run away from the field in

compassion to his enemies, and it is better to do one's duty born

out of one's own nature (sva-dharma) rather than adopt the dharma

foreign to one's calling and nature. It is in this context the

entire varna system is elaborated. So Krishna concludes this

discussion by saying : Whoever performs diligently and contentedly

the work allotted to him he is the one who finds perfection. Even if

you put him in a different environment he would not blossom. And

those whose natural instinct, born of his varna, is very strong,

they will even transcend their immediate man-made limitations and

will themselves, drawn by their Prakriti, seek the environment and

the work which suit their nature.

 

A Ramanujan, though compelled to work as a quill-driving clerk in

the Port Trust Office in Madras, could not restrict his braahmana

urge toknow, which was predominant in him, and he finally ended up

in Cambridge to become the twentieth century's most famous self-made

genius of a mathematician.

A shepherd boy of twelve could not be restricted to tend sheep and

cattle in the distant land of Corsica, for his kshatriya genius

would urge him to run away and seek aposition in the French army in

which he quickly rose up to become the world's most well-known

general, for all time, Napolean.

Another lad of age sixteen, was sweating it out in the staircases of

a multi-storeyed building in Calcutta carrying the share documents

up and down, to the brokers and owners, and was not allowed, by the

English overlords, even to use the lifts, because he was a 'native' -

- but nothing could restrain his vaisya genius to become within the

next decade so dynamic as to start his own business which in due

time madehim one of the two tallest industrial giants of India,

Ghanshyamdas Birla.

All these three started their lives with a profession of servitude

which was not in their inborn nature, but finally rose to shine in

the work and calling that was theirs by their svabhaava, which they

pursued diligently to perfection.

 

A Dhanurdasa, of low birth, a wrestler by profession, was spotted by

Sri Ramanujacharya in a most lustful act of meanness, but was

converted by him overnight into the most noble devotee of the Lord

and disciple of his guru -- that the braahmana disciples of the Guru

felt jealous; and the teacher taught them by putting Dhanurdasa and

his wife, of equally condemnable antecedents, to the most severe

test out of which the couple came out not only as the winners but

became the model of Brahmana devotees to the rest of the disciples

of their teacher. There are scores of such instances in the ocean of

Hindu tradition that emphasize the viewpoint that it is not the

caste that one is born in but the present behaviour that really

matters.

 

PraNAms to all advaitins.

profvk

[Guest guest]

 

RESPECTED SIR,

 

There is a lot of misunderstanding over this caste system so that people are

crazy about it and split this nation into chaos.

 

Your article is a good reminder of what is what?

 

I want to ask u about teaching Gayathri (Sandhyavandanam) .I read in the book

that in the olden days all the four varnas used to do gayathri - that is a

Brahman say sarmaham, a kshatriya varmaham, a viasya guptaham and a sudra

dasoham. but The brahmins - some - feel that it is only they who do it and

others should not be allowed.

The mother of all problems is ignorance, avidya

 

U have any thing to say on manisha panchakam in this context?

 

May Sri samkara Bhagavatpujyapada help us all in his oceanic love

 

 

On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 VKrishnamurthy wrote :

>Namaste all.

>

>The discussion on the Varna system arising from the discussion on

>Dharma Vyaadha's teachings prompts me to write the following.

>I know I have written about this earlier, but I am not able to

>locate it from the archives.

>

>This discussion about Lord Krishna's conception of the Varna system

>cannot be complete until we take up the eighteenth chapter where he

>discusses this elaborately from shloka 19 to 48.

>

>The existence of vAsanAs can be inferred by every person from the

>way one's own intellect grapples with the spurting of different

>tendencies in one's own mind. Krishna mentions six entities:

>Knowledge; Action; Doer; Intellect; Will-power; Attitude to

>Happiness. For each of these six entities, Krishna classifies human

>behaviour into three categories. Human behaviour is generally

>attributed to what is usually called his nature (svabhaava) and to

>the training that he gets due to his environment and upbringing.

>This is not denied by Hindu metaphysics. But the tendencies that he

>brings along from his own past, including all previous lives, also

>contribute to his svabhaava or own-nature. Krishna categorizes this

>nature into Satva, Rajas and tamas in analysing the six entities

>that he takes for discussion. Each of these six entities is

>dissected into what shade of behavioural response belongs to the

>satva mode,what belongs to the rajas mode, and what belongs to the

>tamas mode. Thus there are six entities and three modes of responses

>to each, altogether making 18 different responses. Krishna devotes

>one verse (sloka) to each of these eighteen: 20 to 28 and 30 to 38.

>

>For each entity one individual comes up with one of satva, rajas or

>tamas mode of response. It could be, for instance,

>a satva response in the case of KNOWLEDGE

>a rajas response in the case of ACTION

>a rajas response in the case of DOER

>a rajas response in the case of INTELLECT

>a tamas response in the case of WILL, and

>a tamas response in the case of HAPPINESS.

>This string of six responses is the individual's cumulative type.

>

>The illustration given above, namely, one satva, three rajas, and

>two tamas is just one type of response. How many such types are

>possible?

>There are 28 types that are possible

>(See http://www.geocities.com/profvk/combinatorics.html for a

>justification of this commonsense arithmetic)

>These 28 types are classified into four varnas that locates each of

>us in the spiritual ladder of evolution, according to the mode-

>dominance in the cumulative type.

>

>If satva is the dominant mode that type is called the character-type

>B;

>If rajas is the dominant mode with satva following, that type is

>called the character-type K;

>If rajas is the dominant mode with tamas following, that type is

>called the character-type V;

>If tamas is the dominant mode, that type is called the character-

>type S.

>

>The above example belongs to the V-type. The four character-types

>arising out of the 28 only possible types are mentioned in the Hindu

>scriptures as the four varnas.

>

> For a chart-like presentation of these four types see

>http://www.geocities.com/profvk/btype.html and three succeeding

>pages.

>

>There are only four, neither more nor less.By the very definition,

>there is a hierarchy among them in terms of spiritual evolution. The

>spiritually most evolved is the B-type just because of the dominance

>of the satva in that type. The hierarchy for the purpose of

>spirituality goes down as: the B-type; the K-type; the V-type; and

>the S-type. The hierarchy is only for the purpose of spiritual

>evolution and for no other purpose. For all other purposes they are

>like the four walls of the society. The system has certainly

>suffered misuse and misappropriation both individually and

>collectively; but that does not take away the inherent nature of the

>classification.The entire humanity is subject to this classification

>of the svabhaava (one's-own-natue) of the mind for spiritual

>objectives.

>

>One's varna at birth, is dependent, according to the scriptures, on

>the cumulative effect of responses in the previous life or lives to

>the six entities: Knowledge, Action, Doer, Intellect, Will and

>Happiness. There could certainly be other entities or factors which

>are relevant but Krishna mentions only these in the Gita for

>elaboration in this context. And since it illustrates the hidden

>theory (which must be pretty complicated) very well, we stick to

>these six entities as if they are everything. These are the genetic

>roots of the individual's later manifestations. The soul in seeking

>a rebirth, seeks that kind of genetic environment which matches with

>its own vaasanaas.

>

>There is not a single thing in the world which is not subject to

>this guna-wise triple division. It is this triple division of the

>vaasanas carried into a new life at birth that decides what are

>inborn for him in that life. The qualities that a braahmana brings

>with him at birth are listed. He says (Ch.18-42)

>Serenity, self-restraint, austerity, purity, forgiveness,

>uprightness, the urge to learn and know the truth of things, and

>belief in God are the duties of braahmanas born of their own nature.

>The words 'born of their own nature' (svabhaavajam) are important.

>These qualities must be inherent in him; then only he is a

>braahmana. If they are not his natural qualities, then he is not a

>braahmana even though a parent of his may be a braahmana.

>

>At the dawn of the twenty-first century it is ridiculous to

>interpret the verse in any other way. The verse should be taken as a

>definition of a braahmana thus: those who have these qualities as

>their own svabhaava (= one's own nature) are braahmanas. . A Mahatma

>Gandhi, a Mother Teresa, a Srinivasa Ramanujan, a Martin Luther King

>Jr., are the braahmanas.

>

>Some others, because of their vaasanaas are born in an environment

>which makes them leaders and executives of society, men who can

>organize, govern and fight for a cause and even give their lives on

>the field for it. These are the kshatriyas of the society. Krishna

>describes them: (Gita, Ch.18-43):

>Bravery, vigour, constancy, resourcefulness,promptitude, courage in

>the face of the enemy, generosity and nobility as well as a quality

>of leadership and lordship - these are the duties of a kshatriya,

>born of his own nature.

>Again these have to be taken as the qualities defining a kshatriya.

>In other words, those who have these qualities inherent in them are

>the kshatriyas, even of this day.

>

>A third category of people is the group of technical personnel who

>have a skill, trade or profession and each one is a specialist in

>his own way. These are the vaisyas; they are the hands and limbs of

>society. Without them the society cannot survive. When the Gita says

>that agriculture, cattle-rearing and trade are the duties of the

>vaisyas, born of their nature (Gita Ch.18-44), it proceeds on the

>maxim that the mental temperament of a man determines what class he

>belongs to and each class has his own duties for which he is

>temperamentally tuned.

>

>None belonging to the 'higher' varnas is justified in looking down

>upon the other varnas on the 'lower' rung of the ladder. In

>fact 'higher' and 'lower' are misnomers in the context of society

>and everyday life. The high-and-low concept originated in the levels

>of spiritual evolution at which the accumulated tendencies of an

>individual peg him.This idea of 'level' has been wrongly imported

>into the context of society by several centuries of degenerate

>application by the people involved.

>

>Each of these varnas has a function for which his inborn tendencies

>fit him well. That is why the Lord says: Better you follow the

>dharma that befits your nature and not something that is foreign to

>your nature. It must also be remembered that the rigours and

>standards of behaviour expected of a braahmana are far stricter than

>those expected of, say, a vaisya or a soodra. The 'lower' you come

>in the ladder of spiritual evolution the more liberal are the norms

>of behaviour prescribed for you.

>

>There is an interesting anecdote in the Mahabharata, in this

>connection, where King Yudhishtira recommends four different

>punishments for four people, (who have individually committed the

>same crime), because they belong to the four different varnas. The

>punishments are; for the soodra it is just a warning, for the vaisya

>it is a beating; for the kshatriya it is a prison term, and for the

>braahmana it is death sentence!

>

>If the nature of responses to the six deciding factors in the

>previous births cumulate into one of dominant tamas type, the

>individual is born of the fourth varna, the s-type, whose nature

>will be to serve. Again where the Gita verse (Ch.18-44, 2nd line)

>says that the inborn nature of a soodra is servitude, we have to

>correctly interpret it as follows. Those whose inborn nature is one

>of servitude, they are the soodras. Looked at this way, the verse

>loses all its 'sting' attributed to it by successive social

>reformers. Properly understood it means that all the clerks of the

>world, all the 'employees' who cannot do anything else except 'obey

>orders' -- maybe because they have been put in those circumstances,

>but more often because they cannot do anything better -- belong to

>the fourth varna. The so-called brahmin who quill-drives all his

>life-time, not knowing anything else to do, and not having anything

>else to do, is a soodra by this definition. He has no business to

>take pride in the fact that he was born of brahmin parentage and

>therefore deserves respect. If he makes any claim to brahminhood it

>has to be on the basis of the definition of a braahmana, given in

>verse no.42. The 'brahmin' who has defaulted on the Gaayatri, the

>Queen of all mantras, must be considered lower in spiritual

>evolution than the fourth varna who just chanted the names of God.

>

>The context in the Gita , in which all this discussion of the varna

>system appears , is significant. Arjuna is told that he is a

>kshatriya, his foremost duty is not to run away from the field in

>compassion to his enemies, and it is better to do one's duty born

>out of one's own nature (sva-dharma) rather than adopt the dharma

>foreign to one's calling and nature. It is in this context the

>entire varna system is elaborated. So Krishna concludes this

>discussion by saying : Whoever performs diligently and contentedly

>the work allotted to him he is the one who finds perfection. Even if

>you put him in a different environment he would not blossom. And

>those whose natural instinct, born of his varna, is very strong,

>they will even transcend their immediate man-made limitations and

>will themselves, drawn by their Prakriti, seek the environment and

>the work which suit their nature.

>

>A Ramanujan, though compelled to work as a quill-driving clerk in

>the Port Trust Office in Madras, could not restrict his braahmana

>urge toknow, which was predominant in him, and he finally ended up

>in Cambridge to become the twentieth century's most famous self-made

>genius of a mathematician.

>A shepherd boy of twelve could not be restricted to tend sheep and

>cattle in the distant land of Corsica, for his kshatriya genius

>would urge him to run away and seek aposition in the French army in

>which he quickly rose up to become the world's most well-known

>general, for all time, Napolean.

>Another lad of age sixteen, was sweating it out in the staircases of

>a multi-storeyed building in Calcutta carrying the share documents

>up and down, to the brokers and owners, and was not allowed, by the

>English overlords, even to use the lifts, because he was a 'native' -

>- but nothing could restrain his vaisya genius to become within the

>next decade so dynamic as to start his own business which in due

>time madehim one of the two tallest industrial giants of India,

>Ghanshyamdas Birla.

>All these three started their lives with a profession of servitude

>which was not in their inborn nature, but finally rose to shine in

>the work and calling that was theirs by their svabhaava, which they

>pursued diligently to perfection.

>

>A Dhanurdasa, of low birth, a wrestler by profession, was spotted by

>Sri Ramanujacharya in a most lustful act of meanness, but was

>converted by him overnight into the most noble devotee of the Lord

>and disciple of his guru -- that the braahmana disciples of the Guru

>felt jealous; and the teacher taught them by putting Dhanurdasa and

>his wife, of equally condemnable antecedents, to the most severe

>test out of which the couple came out not only as the winners but

>became the model of Brahmana devotees to the rest of the disciples

>of their teacher. There are scores of such instances in the ocean of

>Hindu tradition that emphasize the viewpoint that it is not the

>caste that one is born in but the present behaviour that really

>matters.

>

>PraNAms to all advaitins.

>profvk

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>Discussion of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta Philosophy of nonseparablity of Atman

and Brahman.

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