|
|
The caste system is more elaborate than that in any of the
other Hindu or Buddhist countries. Society is so fragmented
into castes that there can be twenty or thirty distinct
castes within a village.
This society has a hierarchy of endogamous, birth-ascribed
groups, each of which traditionally is characterized by one
distinctive occupation and had its own level of social
status. Because an individual cannot change his or her caste
affiliation, every family belongs in its entirety and
forever to only one named caste, and so each caste has
developed a distinctive subculture that is handed down from
generation to generation.
Hindu religious theory justifies the division of society
into castes, with the unavoidable differences in status and
the differential access to power each one has. Hindus
usually believe that a soul can have multiple reincarnations
and that after the death of the body a soul will be
reassigned to another newborn human body or even to an
animal one. This reassignment could be to one of a higher
caste if the person did good deeds in the previous life or
to a lower-status body if the person did bad deeds.
The highest category of castes are those people called
Brahmins in the Hindu system; they were traditionally
priests and intellectuals. Below them in rank were castes
called Ksatriya, including especially warriors and rulers.
Third in rank were the Vaisyas, castes concerned with
trading and land ownership. The fourth-ranking category were
the Sudras, primarily farmers. Below these four categories
and hardly recognized in the ancient and traditional model,
were many castes treated as "untouchable" and traditionally
called Pancama.
|
Outside the system altogether were several hundred tribes,
with highly varied cultural and subsistence patterns. The
whole system was marked not just by extreme differences in
status and power but by relative degrees of spiritual purity
or pollution.
A curious feature of the caste system is that despite its
origins in the Hindu theory of fate and reincarnation, caste
organization is found among Indian Muslims, Jews, and
Christians in modern times. In the Buddhist lands of Korea,
Japan, and Tibet, there are rudimentary caste systems, their
existence signaled especially by the presence of untouchable
social categories. |
India
Travel Guide
Rajasthan
Travel Guide
Kerala Travel Guide
Pictures
of
India
by
Cecilia dos Guimaraes
Bastos
Travel gallery |
|
