Guest guest Posted October 6, 2002 Report Share Posted October 6, 2002 > leena taneja wrote: > > > Anyone know what percentage of the Indian population > > are brahmin, Kshaitrya, Vaishya and Sudra? > > I know the figure for scheduled caste is around 15%. I should mention that for all practical purposes, the 4 varnas ceased to exist as distinct groups quite a long time ago. The existance of the 4 separate varnas today is largely a myth. There are several views one can use to classify a caste into a varna. I would list them thus: Liberal view: In this view all traders are Vaishyas, all landowning castes are kshatriyas etc. Orthodox view: In this view only those who have traditionally received the sacred thread can be Kshatriya or Vaishya. Thus a caste can be 'sachchuudra vanika', a clean trader shudra. Extreme view: This has been taken by some very orthodox scholars who say that Kshatriyas and Vaishyas have ceased to exist. This view is not just simply arrogance, but has a historical basis. There have been many court cases in the british period regarding placement of a caste into a varna. I am aware of many disagreements about many of the castes. I think these disagreements generally started in the british period. Take a caste such as the Kayasthas. They have a distinguished background. India's first president was a kayastha. Vivekananda, Aurobindo were kayasthas and Maharshi Mahesh Yogi is one. Which varna do they fit in? There have been several court cases, articles and even some books taking one or the other side. If one accepts the view that the four varnas do exist today, it would be complex excercise to classify most castes in to a specific varna. In Jati-bhaskara, placement of several castes is specifically discussed; a lot of scholars would disagree with the conclusions presented there. No generally satisfactory algorithm can be specified for placing various communities into the four varnas. If the varna system did exist today, it would have been possible to do a satisfactory classification. The significant interest in attempting this classification generally seems to have been revived during the British period, when the censuses offer a chance of claiming a higher status to many groups. My own view is that the 4 varnas today exist only as concepts. We can consider Mahatma Gandhi as a rishi and lawgiver for modern times. By spiritual leadership he was a Brahmin (his son married daughter of the most brahmanical of the brahmins: Chakravarti Rajagopalacharya), by birth in the Modh caste a Vaisya, by political leadership of the people a Kshatriya, and by insisting on cleaning public toilets a shudra. What is applicable to him, is applicable to all. Yashwant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 7, 2002 Report Share Posted October 7, 2002 INDOLOGY, "ymalaiya" <ymalaiya> wrote: > > leena taneja wrote: > > > > > Anyone know what percentage of the Indian population > > > are brahmin, Kshaitrya, Vaishya and Sudra? > > > I know the figure for scheduled caste is around 15%. > > I should mention that for all practical purposes, the 4 varnas > ceased to exist as distinct groups quite a long time ago. The > existance of the 4 separate varnas today is largely a myth. Not just today, Atleast in the South (and the East), the varNa theory has no validity. The oldest Tamil texts do not place people according to varNa theory. Even the term, antaNan, which a medieval commentator takes it (wrongly) as coming from anta from vedanta, is pure Tamil. Native priests in ancient Tamil scoiety was at the bottom rather than the top of society, eg., funerary ritual priests. Regards, N. Ganesan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 7, 2002 Report Share Posted October 7, 2002 INDOLOGY, "ymalaiya" <ymalaiya> wrote: > I should mention that for all practical purposes, the 4 varnas ceased > to exist as distinct groups quite a long time ago One can debate whether "4 varnas" have disappeared long time ago. But even today in newspapers and media, one can find mention of "suvarna" and "avarna" i.e. tensions between caste hindus and harijans. Hence the social stratification of varna itself remains, even though intra-varna classifications and meaning of it have changed a lot since canonical writings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 7, 2002 Report Share Posted October 7, 2002 INDOLOGY, "ymalaiya" <ymalaiya> wrote: > We can consider Mahatma Gandhi as a rishi and lawgiver for modern > times. By spiritual leadership he was a Brahmin (his son married > daughter of the most brahmanical of the brahmins: Chakravarti > Rajagopalacharya), I have heard this being mentioned many times by foreign writers etc. Sure he was a leader of the brahmins but he was not particularly brahminical. There were others more brahminical than him e.g., Pt Pant, Malaviya etc and some leaders from Maharashtra. Rajaji was less brahminical perhaps than other contemporary Brahmin leaders. He probably knew the popular epics viz., Ramayana, Mahabharata etc better than most people and apparently had a habit of quoting from these to establish precedents for political expediency. He was not known to be particularly ritually orthodox, never wore the caste mark on his forehead, did marry off one of his daughters to a 'paradesi' Vaishya. It might perhaps be more accurate to say that he was a typical upper caste Hindu but not quite accurate to say that he was very brahminical. As for his other daughter, people with long memories in Salem (Tamilnadu) still recall with horror that he sent his prospective son-in-law candidates to medical check ups to make sure presumably that they could perform . He was not a stuck up brahmin at all. I have always been curious to know where this perception of Rajaji originates from. Thanks, Lakshmi Srinivas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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