Page 118 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 6 : Caste

varna organization refers to the work that an individual would undertake in the society Notes
according to his nature.
• There was nothing like higher or lower varna in the Vedic period. The division of society into
four varnas (or four orders or classes) was based on the division of labour. Brahmins acted as
priests, Kshatriyas as rulers and fighters, Vaishyas as traders, and Sudras as a servile class.
Each varna worshipped different deities and followed different rituals. This difference was
because each group had to achieve different object according to its occupational role. Brahmins
wanted maximum holy lustre for which they worshipped agni (fire) and recited Gayatri
mantras; Kshatriyas wanted physical strength (viryam) for which they worshipped Indra and
recited Trishtubh mantras; and Vaishyas wanted cattle-wealth (pasavah) for which they
worshipped Visvedevas and recited Jagati mantras.
• Varna means ‘colour’, and it was in this sense that the word seems to have been employed in
contrasting the Arya and the Dasa, referring to their fair and dark colours respectively. The
colour-connotation of the word was so strong that later on when the classes came to be
regularly described as varnas, four different colours were assigned to the four classes, by
which their members were supposed to be distinguished. The colour associated with the
Brahmin is white, with Kshatriya red, with Vaishya yellow, and with Sudra black.
• “The difference in religious practices and techniques reflects the separate existence and
history of these entities than serves as cause for their separation from the larger units.”
• Krickpatrick (1912) has explained that sub-castes, which are the fissioned groups of castes,
were earlier formed as the result of migration and political and social factors but today they
are the results of attempts by the well-to-do elements in a despised caste to cut adrift from
their humbler caste brethern and raise themselves in the social scale by finding a new name
and a dubious origin, and associating themselves with some higher caste.
• According to Mayer (1960 : 8) : “At the level of the regional study, a sub-caste may be the
unit of inter-caste as well as intra-caste relations, though within the village, inter-caste relations
can be seen in terms of castes rather than sub-castes.”
• Max Weber (1960 : 31) also holds : “Today one caste frequently contains several hundred
sub-castes. In such cases, these sub-castes may be related to one another exactly or almost
exactly as are different castes. If this is the case, sub-castes in reality are castes; the caste
name common to all of them has merely historical significance”.
• This means that because we find admixture of Hindu religious elements and values in tribal
religion and tribal values in Hindu religion, religion as a single criterion cannot be used to
distinguish between a tribe and a caste. Ghurye, Naik and Bailey have also rejected this
criterion.
• The tribals live in geographically isolated regions like hills and mountains, but Hindus live
in plain regions. Due to lesser contacts with the civilized neighbours, tribals are more
uncivilized than the Hindus. It may be true by and large that tribals live in hills away from
the lines of communication but we have examples which show that many caste Hindus also
live in isolated regions and many tribals live in plains. This means that in addition to a
purely geographical isolation, we demand other criteria also to distinguish a tribe from a
caste.
• Economic backwardness too is not a correct criterion for distinction between a tribe and a
caste. To maintain that tribals are backward and primitive but caste Hindus are not is not a
correct statement. It is true that many tribes even today are economically backward; they
have low income, use primitive methods in cultivation and in some cases still use barter
system in exchange, but there are many tribes (for example, Meena) which are economically
advanced. At the same time, there are many castes which are as much economically backward
as many tribes.

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