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Sociology
of groups in Ancient India
The
whole philosophy of Indian social organization may be summarized in one word,
varna-ashrama-dharma, which may be appropriately translated as Social
Federalism. This principle of social integration or synthesis was
understood as early as the times of the Samhitas in the Vedic age. The
Vedic seers realized that the best and surest way of saving society from
frequent suicidal chaos was to divide its members into specific groups, with
well-defined functions and privileges or rewards for each.
 The
first group was that of the Brahmans, the
teachers and the priests. They were the custodians of the social and spiritual
heritage of the group and were to pass it on to the succeeding generations. They
were to preserve the purity of idealism, point the way to the Eternal discovered
by them through study and meditation, while their fellowmen were busy with
life’s daily tasks which left little leisure. The Brahman was a man of
intellect; he came from the mouth of Brahma.
Watch
video - Brahmins
in
India
have become a minority
 The
second group was that of the Kshatriya. They
were men of action. They were the guardians of the race. They were soldiers,
sailors, civil servants and legislators. They kept the peace and order within
the group and protected it from alien aggression. Theirs was a life of service
and sacrifice; they came from the arms of Brahma.
The third group was that of the
Vaishyas, the merchants. They attended to
the distribution of the necessities of life. The vaishya was the merchant who
made wealth; he was a man of desire. He was born from the thighs of Brahma.
 The
fourth and last group was that of the Sudras.
The sudra was engaged in producing life’s necessities, food, clothing and
shelter, so that the physical organism of the group was kept in good health. On
this group of working men depended the physical welfare of the whole community,
its industries, its prosperity. This working class was psychologically, a group
of undefined aptitudes, un-evolved, men of mechanical temperament, the common
men. They came from the feet of Brahma. Look where we will, whether it be a
primitive community or a modern nation, its population falls easily into these
four categories. According to Manu, there are no other groups.
Integration of various
factors
This division of men into four
types, the teacher, the warrior, the merchant and the laborer, is based on sound
psychology, ethics, biology and economics. Some men are intellectually by
temperament, some are active, some acquisitive and others undefined, none of
these. To each are assigned the task true to its type, in conformity with its
inherent temperament, svadharma. All together formed an organic whole. Under an
arrangement such as this, there is conservation of social energies; there is no
necessity of trial and error method. All are not equally endowed with equal
physical and mental capacities, but every one should be given an opportunity for
putting to use the faculties with which he has been endowed. Man should be
treated as man, and not as an economic hand. Danger of exploitation of one group
by another can be eliminated. Social harmony and conscious co-operation were
made the chief characteristics of human association. The
ideal was to evolve a functional and not an acquisitive society. It is this
varna dharma that has been the bulwark of Indian civilization and saved it from
wreckage of time. Each group had its duties and its own rewards or
compensation. The laborer had to work, but he was to be looked after as a
younger member of a family. The man of desire, the vaishya, was to acquire
wealth; power and authority was vested in the kshatriya, while all these were to
honor the teacher, to obey his religious and spiritual injunctions and accept
his guidance. The teacher was to be supported by the gifts of the other three
groups.
It was with the aid of this
mechanism that India sought to solve her racial problem. The
Aryans did not resort to the short cut of annihilating the primitive people with
whom they came into contact as the European races have done whenever they have
occupied lands in America, Asia, Africa and Australia, but they gave
them a place in their body-politic, assigning to them the task befitting their
intelligence and subordinate status. Observant scholars of the West have not
failed to notice the spiritual significance of the varna-ashrama-dharma and
given it its due praise.
 Writing
of this varna-ashrama-dharma, Auguste
Comte (1798-1857) the great French sociologist, wrote in his book Système
de philosophie positive or
Positive Society:
“No institution has ever
shown itself more adopted to honor, ability to various kinds than this
polytheistic organization…In a social view, the virtues of the system are not
less conspicuous. Politically, its chief attribute was stability…As to the
influence on mortals, this system was favorable to personal morality, and yet
more to domestic, for the spirit of caste
was a mere extension of the family spirit….As to social morals, the system was
evidently favorable to respect for age and homage to ancestors.”
These principles formed the
background of the Indian social organization; on them was built a superstructure
of social institution, such as education, marriage, family and the state.
It was
realized by the Indian sociologists that both the individual and the group could
find self-expression and fulfillment only in and through a complex of social
institutions, based on dharma, co-operation, mutual aid, integration, synthesis,
the vision of the whole.
Balance,
orderly progress of individual and group, harmonious relationship between both,
was the ideal aimed at by the Indian sociologist.
(source: India:
A synthesis of cultures – by Kewal Motwani p
120 -128).
Caste in India - By John Campbell Oman 
If we consider the condition of
society in the United States of America – a racial problem surpassing interest
presents itself to us.
Four distinct varieties of human
kind.
1.
A dominant white
population of mixed European races.
2.
Remnants of so-called
Red Indian race.
3.
Certain colonies of
Chinese and Japanese
4.
A mass of Black
descendants of West African imported into the country as slaves, not conquered
but kidnapped or else bought with gold, and only emancipated from bondage as
recently as 1863.
Here the dominant Whites disallow
all matrimonial relations between their women and men of other races more
especially the Blacks. To such a degree is this sentiment encouraged that in
Southern states of the Union an outrage by Black man on a White woman is
generally avenged by death of the Negro Black at the hands of infuriated Whites
who rarely suffer any punishment whatever for such lawless acts.
Whites and Blacks even though they
belong to the same Christian sect or denominations, do not worship together,
they do not attend same school, do not dine together, or even sit at the same
tables – do not travel in same cars and are buried in distinct cemeteries.
White men had for centuries formed
irregular unions with their Black female slaves, the result being an addition to
the slave population of persons of mixed descent.
Yet the treatment of Pariahs of South India have scandalized the so called good
Europeans in the past.
***
British form a distinct caste, the most exclusive and Haughty varna in the
land
In India, the British form a distinct caste, the most exclusive and Haughty
varna in the land. Though theoretically, Englishman laugh at and condemn caste,
they like others are sticklers for it whenever their own interests are concerned
and whatever their official utterances may be, Anglo Indians are well pleased
that the caste ridden Hindus are what they are.
To members of the ruling race in private life, no one is more distasteful than
the denationalized Hindu gentleman, whatever his rank, who, putting aside his
caste prejudices, and willing to conform to European social laws and etiquette,
would seek to establish intimate friendly relations with the disinterested
exiles, who devote their lives to the thankless task of governing and uplifting
their Indian fellow subjects.
From a general survey of matter it may be asserted that, carried away by
conceit, a dominant race naturally arrogates itself to a fundamental, inherent
and permanent superiority and Western science explains such claims by setting up
Anthropological stands and studies.
(source:
The Brahmans, theists and Muslims of India. -
By John Campbell
Oman
p. 62 - 70).
Note to
Ponder
Failure of
Communism, Globalization and Capitalism?
From
Rooftops - The West Countries, and So called Christian Missionaries in India
claim that Christianity is an Egalitarian Religion - then why this discontent
and why are all these protests happening on Wall Street?
Refer to the Occupy Wall
street,
Occupy
Wall Street protests and
London
Riots 2011 and
Violence in Rome 2011 and
Dante's Inferno in Italy
Same with The Arab World
- Protests are sweeping across the deserts of the
Muslim world - the question is Why? -
Riots spread across Arab World
Communism
(a morally bankrupt idea) - imploded in 1989 with the fall of Soviet Union.
Karl Marx couldn’t comprehend the subtlety
of God nor foresee the opiate inhumanity of the bloody, godless religion his
philosophy created.
The essential
belief that all men are equal—an admirable thought—lies at the heart of
communism. Unfortunately, all men are not equal. That is the logic behind
religion. Because all men are not equal, they depend on the infinite mercy of
god to overcome fate’s travails.
Refer to
Political correctness and the refuge of faith – By Ravi Shankar Etteth
Caste system in Europe
Caste is a word "which in most minds is most strongly connected with Hindu
social order", wrote A. L. Basham, while noting that
this practice did not exist
in the ancient India.
A study of writings by early twentieth century
sociologists makes it obvious that the caste system was deeply rooted in
European customs and laws until 200 years back. But tactfully this fact was
suppressed by most of the later authors, and the caste system was projected on
exclusively to India.
Views of John Oman Campbell
The unjustifiable treatment and bullying of Hinduism in name of `caste system'
was criticized a hundred years back by
John Campbell Oman, who was a
professor of social sciences at Government College, Lahore at the end of the
nineteenth century. He wrote in his book, "Caste in
India", in
Brahmanas, Theists and Muslims of India
"No little amused wonder and
supercilious criticism on
the part of Europeans has been aroused by the caste system of India, which has
generally been regarded as an absurd, unhealthy, social phenomenon, without
parallel elsewhere… but caste prejudices, and institutions based on such
prejudices, are not wholly absent from social life outside India, even in the
highly civilized states of the western World. And a little consideration of such
indications of caste feelings will help us account in some measure for the more
salient characteristic of the Indian system, or at any rate serve to clear our
minds of certain unfounded prejudices and offensive cant…but it is nevertheless
undeniable that, even in Europe, certain genuine hereditary caste distinctions
have at various times been maintained by law, and are to be found there at the
present day."
"One much derided peculiarity of the Hindu caste system is the hereditary
character of trade and occupations, and in this connection it is interesting to
recall to mind that at certain epochs the law in Europe has compelled men to
keep, generation after generation, to the calling of their fathers without the
option of change." (Oman, J. C.; pp. 63-64).
"..in England an ancient enactment required all men who at any time took up the
calling of coal-mining or drysalting, to keep to those occupations for life, and
enjoined that their children should also follow the same employment. This law
was only repealed by statutes passed in the 15th and 39th years of the reign of
George III; that is in the lifetime of the fathers of many men who are with us
today. A more striking European example of a compulsory hereditary calling,
common enough in the Middle Ages and down to the last century in Russia, is that
of the serfs bound to the soil from generation to generation. Then again there
existed through long periods of European history, the institution of hereditary
slavery, with all its abominations." (Oman, p. 65)
A further study of European social history will reveal more of details how an
extremely tyrannical and rigid caste system was operative in Europe with legal
sanction, which of course functioned under the theocratic rule of Church.
***
 Edward Alsworth Ross
(in his book Principles of Sociology, 1920
Ed.[iii] and 1922 Ed.) gives a detailed description of rigid and strict caste
system of Europe, which lasted till the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Ross noted that Europe had a strict caste system during the
Roman Empire period,
however, it had not been brought to Europe by the Roman conquests, but it was a
product of forces within the European society (Ross, 1922, p. 322).
Thus the
Europeans of the "Middle Ages lived in their caste rather than in their people…
Something of this spirit has lived on in Poland."
"The tendency of the later empire was to stereotype society by compelling men to
follow the occupation of their fathers, and preventing a free circulation among
different callings and grades of life. The man who brought the grain of Africa
to the public stores of Ostia, the labour who made it into loaves for
distribution, the butchers who brought pigs from Samnium, Lucania or Bruttium,
the purveyors of wine and oil, the men who fed the furnaces of the public baths,
were bound to their calling from one generation to another…
Every avenue of
escape was closed… Men were not allowed to marry out of their guild… Not even a
dispensation obtained by some means from the imperial chancery, not even the
power of the Church could avail to break the bond of servitude."
(Dill, p. 194, quoted by Ross, 1920, p. 322).[v]
In Prussia, not only men, but land too belonged to castes, and land belonging to
a higher caste could not be purchased by individual belonging to a caste lower
than that. This provision was abolished by the Emancipation Edict of 1807 (Ross,
1922, p. 182).
Oman quoted from
John Kells Ingram in his
book,
A History of Slavery and Serfdom, Adam
and Charles Black, 1895.
"This organization established in the Roman world a personal and
hereditary fixity of professions and situations, which was not very far removed
from the caste system of the East…Members of the administrative service were, in
general, absolutely bound to their employments; they could not choose their
wives or marry their daughters outside of the collegia to which they
respectively belonged, and they transmitted their obligations to their children…
In municipalities the curiales, or the members of the local senates, were bound,
with special strictness, to their places and their functions, which often
involved large personal expenditure… Their families, too, were bound to remain;
they were attached by the law to the collegia or other bodies to which they
belonged. The soldier, procured for army by conscription, served as long as his
age fitted him for his duties, and their sons were bound to similar service."
(Ingram, p. 75)
"In a constitution of Constantine (A.D. 332) the colonus is recognized as
permanently attached to the land. If he abandoned his holding, he was brought
back and punished; and anyone who received him had not only to restore him but
to pay a penalty. He could not marry out of the domain; if he took for wife a
colona of another proprietor, she was restored to her original locality, and the
offspring of the union were divided between the estates. The children of a
colonus were fixed in the same status, and could not quit the property to which
they belonged." (Ingram, p. 78, quoted in Oman, J. C., p. 64).[vi]
Max Weber's Comparison of Hindu Caste and
Untouchability with European Hereditary Guilds
Max Weber found that the Vedic Indian society did not
have anything like medieval European, or later Indian caste.
"Perhaps the most important gap in the ancient Veda is its lack of any
reference to caste.
The (Rig-) Veda refers to the
four later caste names in only one place, which is considered a very late
passage; nowhere does it refer to the substantive content of the caste order in
the meaning which it later assumed and which is characteristic only of Hinduism.
Max Weber was able to find similarities between
modern Hindu castes and pre-modern European guilds. He wrote: "In this case,
castes are in the same position as merchant and craft guilds, sibs, and all
sorts of associations."
Thus a review of works of Oman, Ross, Dill, Ingram and Weber is enough to prove
that the caste system existed in Europe throughout most of its history. On the
other hand, we find that the caste system has a history of less than 1000 years
in India.
(source:
Caste system in Europe).
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