One of the most frequently debated issues with regard to Indian caste system is with regard to who created this system after all. One motivation for such enquiry is purely academic and part of general origin tracing academic research. But there is yet another nonacademic, politically motivated and emotionally colored discussion on this topic. It is based on the demonizing of caste as nothing but an ill-motivated discriminating, exclusionist, hierarchical, social system. Based on such a demonizing of the caste system this second kind of enquiry is intended to pin the blame of creation of the system to some individual of the past or to the ancestors of a certain community of the present or some book held sacred by a certain culture / religion / nation or something like that, so that contemporary hateful social action can be directed towards such an individual, group or a book (again, community holding that book with respect).
Both these approaches, academic and nonacademic, usually have one thing in common: conflating caste system with Varna system. Those who follow this approach, as they confront the problem of needing to explain number of castes being humongous and the number of Varnas being only 4, jump to a theorization that the 4 Varnas are the beginning of the caste system, and the 4 Varnas proliferated into the numerous castes. This theorization fails the test of validity on the basis of the incompatibilities of the 2 systems on the one hand and contradicting evidence for the idea of the caste system being later in history to the Varna system. Researchers of ‘Dravidian’ (Tamil) cultures autonomy from the Vedic / Sanskritic culture show evidences for the existence of caste system in the ‘Dravidian’ (Tamil) culture that is older than or autonomous from the Vedic / Sanskritic culture (George Hart article). Many aspects of cultural traditions of caste can be shown to be independent of Vedic / Sanskritic culture.
Those who conflated caste system with Varna system showed textual evidence that are construed to be evidence for the origins of Varna system to be the origins of caste system too.
For example, the most quoted text for the origin of the caste system is the verse of the purusha sukta, a hymn of Rig Veda in which the 4 Varnas are described in relation to human body parts of Purusha, Person. Reading the hymn helps to understand that the Purusha, Person here is the personification of the Cosmos, and the human world as part of it. This hymn has a Creation Myth or a narrative of creation. As per this narrative, the cosmic ‘person’ offers itself as an oblation into a fire sacrifice organized / occurred with the help of aspects of nature such as seasons. From the fire of this sacrifice the ‘person’ is reborn. Various celestial objects are described as forming various parts / limbs of this cosmic person. Continuing this description, the 4 Varnas Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra are described as different parts of the body of the cosmic person. The verse goes as follows:
brAhmaNo asya mukhamAseet | bAhoo rAjanya: krta: |
ooru tadasya yad vaishya | padbhyAm shoodro ajAyata
The first line can be translated as the Brahmana community became the face of this person. The word Brahmana here is in the nominative case. In the other 3 lines, the words for Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra are not in the nominative case. They can either be taken as ablative (equivalent to the English preposition ‘from’) or genitive (equivalent to the English preposition ‘for’). Many translated these lines taking the words to be in the ablative case and interpreted them as:
- Kshatriyas came from the shoulders.
- Vaishyas came from the trunk.
- Shudras came from the feet.
But such an interpretation is incoherent with the meaning of the first line of the verse. For a coherent interpretation, the next 3 lines can be interpreted as Kshatriyas were for (born to become) the shoulders, Vaishyas were for (born to become) the trunk and Shudras were for (born to become) the feet.
In any case, since this is a creation myth it is taken as providing the story of origin of the Varnas. But any scientific researcher of such creation myths know that those stories are not the real origins of the facts mentioned in them, but are only explanations for the facts described in them. Thus, this hymn is not the origin of the Varna system. The hymn just provides a view towards the Varna system through an origin narrative. The explanation provided here is obviously that the 4 varnas form parts of an organic or a unified entity and as such are mutually connected, dependent and are equal and co-ordinate components of a whole.
This verse has been used as an evidence for the Vedas, particularly Rig Veda, Brahmins and Brahmanism being the creators of the Varna system and for the caste system because the caste system is nothing but the Varna system or evolution from the Varna system.
(It is a different matter that this verse has been used as an evidence for the hierarchical view allegedly inherent in the Varna system, placing Shudras at the bottom of the hierarchy by describing them as coming from the feet. Counter argument to this view is beyond the scope of this essay.)
As it has already been shown that the origin of Varna system cannot be the origin of caste system because the 2 systems are different from and independent of each other, this story even if taken as providing the origin of Varna system cannot be taken as providing the origin of Caste system.
Another textual source often quoted as providing the evidence for who created the caste system is a verse in the book Bhagavad-Gita in which Bhagavan Shri Krishna tells Arjuna that the system of 4 Varnas was created by him. The verse is as follows:
chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛiṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ
tasya kartāram api māṁ viddhyakartāram avyayam
This verse has been shown as the evidence for the claim that Shri Krishna created the caste system or Bhagavan Vishnu whose incarnation Shri Krishna is, created the caste system. Such a claim if made by the historian, or a history abiding rationalist or a person claiming to be anti-religious is ridiculous because Bhagavan Shri Krishna, as per such a view, is not a historical figure. A Hindu who believes in Bhagavan Shri Krishna to be a factual figure of the past, can think that Bhagavan created the system of 4 Varnas, but not a historian or a history abiding, anti-religious, rationalist.
Coming to rationality for that matter, it is absolutely irrational to believe that an individual or an organization or a social group or a community can create cultures, traditions, or social systems such as Varna or Caste on one fine morning, sitting under a tree through a declaration, decree, order, ordinance or announcement. Such cultural traditions, social institutions, or social systems, from a rational understanding evolve over a period of time as social conventions contributed unconsciously by all the members of the society through an informally and unconsciously evolving agreement among all the members of the society. That languages, their grammars, their semantics, their speech artifacts all evolve through such unconsciously and informally evolving conventions is a well-established understanding in the science of linguistics.
Similarly, cultures, social institutions, social systems, etc. too evolve through informally and unconsciously evolving conventions is a well-established understanding in the science of cultural anthropology. Viewed from such an understanding Varna system and the Caste system can be understood as ‘evolved’ independent of each other in the Vedic and outside the Vedic societies. Just as, many aspects of cultures, social institutions, or social systems or traditions including languages and other communication systems of these 2 cultural groups came into interaction with each other, influencing each other and merging to some extent to give rise to a mixed culture in the aspect of Varna system and caste system also a mutual influence, development of mixed systems, etc. happened over a period of time.
Deviating from such rational and scientific understanding of social systems and going in search of an individual or a community or a book that created these systems is either irrational academics or ill-intentioned manipulative politics. In any case, it is absolutely wrong.
– Sadyogi