A Cross-Culture Interpretation of the Caste System

The Essence of China 2011-08-14 Source: Utopia

Generally speaking, the caste system is a historical relic unique to the ancient Indian Brahmanic society and has no universal significance. This is not entirely true. This clearly structured social caste system is extremely cross-culturally instructive: different cultures are institutional combinations of various elements, but the order and weight of each element are different.

The Brahmanism caste system originated in the middle of the second millennium BC, when the Caucasian tribes of the Indo-European family poured into the Punjab area from Central Asia and conquered the local indigenous people. These invaders called themselves Aryans, that is, noble people, to distinguish themselves from the dark-skinned Dravidians. Due to racial conflicts and the differentiation between the rich and the poor among the Aryans, the Aryan religious priests formulated a caste system with the Brahmans who presided over religious affairs at the top, namely Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. Its mythological basis can be found in the Brahman classic Vedas: Brahma created Brahman with the mouth of the giant Purusha, made Kshatriya with his hands, made Vaishya with his legs, and made Shudra with his feet.

As the first class, Brahmins are the supreme leaders of society. Other classes, including the Kshatriyas, including the king, should respect and yield to Brahmins. Brahmins are composed of clan nobles in charge of sacrifices, and later become religious priests. They monopolize religious and cultural power, and also participate in governance and management of other industries. They often serve as advisors to the king, using divination and incantations to influence government orders and even accompany the army to war. Brahmins own a large amount of land and slaves, and also accept donations. The donations and gifts received by Brahmins from the king and nobles are actually the distribution of war captives and national taxes, making them the richest class.

The Kshatriyas, as the second class, consisted of royal families and military administrative groups and were regarded as the arms of society, that is, the people who ruled and controlled the state machinery. In theory, Brahmins were superior to Kshatriyas, but the king, as the supreme ruler, belonged to the Kshatriya class, and the struggle between the two castes was inevitable. The ideological and cultural manifestation of this was the creation of Buddhism. Kshatriyas also owned a large amount of land and slaves, and because they could directly control spoils and taxes, they were sometimes richer than Brahmins.

The third class, Vaishya, was originally composed of ordinary members of the Aryan community, but later generalized to civilians engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, industry and commerce. There is a polarization between the rich and the poor among Vaishyas, and those who have become rich even engage in usury. Below the Brahmins and Kshatriyas, Vaishyas only have the obligation to pay taxes, serve, and support the rulers, but have few political rights. However, according to Brahman doctrine, Vaishyas are also a high caste, and can be reborn as a human again after death, so they are called reborn people, so they can participate in religious sacrifices and listen to teachings hosted by Brahmins. It is believed that the boundary between reborn and non-reborn is a remnant of the original racial boundary.

The Shudras were the fourth class, the lowest class of the working people. They were originally composed of conquered non-Aryan tribes, and later also included the Aryans who were suppressed and demoted. They had no religious or political rights and could only engage in farming, animal husbandry, fishing, hunting and various menial occupations. A few of them were self-reliant, while most were servants or even slaves.

The above caste system remains unchanged throughout life and is inherited from generation to generation. In principle, inter-caste marriage is prohibited.

Since the pursuit of spiritual liberation is an ultimate concern of Indian culture, religious authority has a stable social foundation in the field of spiritual life. Although religious authority must obey political rulers in the public political field, it is higher than political authority in the field of personal spiritual life and moral life. As priests and nobles, Brahmins enjoy spiritual privileges and are in charge of spiritual affairs such as worshiping gods, educating, imparting knowledge, and divination of good and bad fortune. Therefore, they have the highest social status and can be called the religious caste; Kshatriyas are military nobles, including kings and even government officials at all levels, who enjoy all state powers except divine power and can be called the political caste. Vaishyas are the middle and lower class production personnel in society who pay taxes to the state, including farmers, handicraftsmen and merchants, and can be called the economic caste; Shudras are free people who have lost their land and conquered Dravidians, belonging to the bottom of society, and can be called the life caste.

In this way, the caste system is the religious version of human stereotyped culture. We can create its political and economic versions by simply adjusting or reversing the order of importance. For details, please see the post Reconstructing Cultural Ontology in this forum. I will not elaborate on it here.

Here I will only talk about the Western version of the Indian caste system - Plato\'s Republic in ancient Greece: Plato (who was said to have been a slave in the East) advocated ruling the country with virtue, using philosophers as rulers to transform society and the country, and even risked his life to realize his ideal country. He believed that the ideal just country originated from the division of labor, and citizens were divided into three levels: rulers, warriors, and workers, representing the three virtues of wisdom, courage, and desire. The ruler is a respected philosopher king who relies on his philosophical wisdom and moral power to rule the country; the warriors assist in governing the country and defend the country with their loyalty and courage; the workers provide material living materials for the country; and the slaves at the bottom of society are obviously equivalent to the Shudra caste. It can be seen from this that whether it is caste, level or class, they are just different names for the three institutionalized forces of religion, economy, and politics (that is, what the author calls the three talents of heaven, earth and man).

According to French biographer Romain Rolland, Indian philosopher Vaidyas once made a generalized interpretation of the caste system. In 1896, he told his American female disciple Christina that the first was the rule of the Brahmins, the second was the rule of the Kshatriyas, and now the world is in the third period under the rule of the Vaishyas (merchants), and the fourth period will be ruled by the Shudras (proletariat).
Bianxi believed that each kind of rule had its own advantages and disadvantages: priests molded people\'s spirits because they ruled through spirits, but they were extremely exclusive; warrior rule was autocratic and brutal, but not exclusive, and was conducive to improving the art and culture of the whole society; the rule of merchants was silent oppression and bloodsucking, which was very terrible, but it was conducive to the spread of culture, although the culture at that time had begun to decline; perhaps in the future there would be workers\' rule, which could evenly distribute material benefits and popularize education, but would reduce culture. If such a rule could be established, in which the knowledge of the priest era, the culture of the warrior era, the distribution spirit of the merchant era, and the ideal of equality of the last era could be maintained, and their disadvantages could be removed, then that would be an ideal rule. (Critical Biography of Famous Oriental Philosophers, Indian Volume)

Bian Xi also predicted that Chinese culture will be reborn like a phoenix and take on the great mission of integrating the West and the East, which is surprisingly consistent with Liang Shuming\'s views after the May Fourth Movement. Liang Shuming takes Chinese culture as the middle way and believes that it can overcome the extroversion and materialism of Western culture and the introversion and nihilism of Indian culture. This is a very correct view. (Knowledge and Value - A Collection of New Confucianism Works by Cheng Zhongying) And Toynbee also predicted that the experience of the Chinese nation, the humanism, rationalism, pacifism, and cosmopolitanism in Chinese civilization make the Chinese... in the process of human unity that is considered indispensable and inevitable, may play a leading role... (Xin Xiangyang et al., ed. Prayer for Civilization)

The author believes that only by thoroughly clearing up the May Fourth cultural nihilism can the Chinese people live up to the expectations of the above-mentioned Chinese and foreign philosophers and correctly respond to the upcoming global cross-cultural integration.

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