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Early ossification

varNa classification was ancient and predated Arya entry into India. More notes in the Aryan entry page.
By the time Megasthenes visited, there were already rigid restrictions about intermarriage and avocations. [MI]
- " Such, then, are about the parts into which the body politic in India is divided. No one is allowed to marry out of his own caste, or to exercise any calling or art except his own: for instance, a soldier cannot become a husbandman, or an artizan a philosopher. "
Ancient Hindu legal texts, such as the Manu-smRRiti, favored the maintenance of the varNa system - for example, by enjoining the rulers not to let the shUdra-s become too powerful, by fixing higher standards of behavior and harsher punishments for people of higher varNa-s, by emphasizing the need for close cooperation between the brAhmaNa-s and the kShatriya-s. Many Hindu kings were proud of maintaining the varNa-Ashrama-dharma.
Xuan Zang [XZ_GB]
- “With respect to the division of families there are four classifications. The first is called the Brahman, men of pure conduct. They guard themselves in religion live purely, and observe the most correct principles.he second is called Kshattriya, the royal class: they apply themselves to virtue and kindness. The third is called Vaisyas, the merchant class:they engage in commercial exchange, and they follow profit at home and abroad. The fourth is called Sudra, the agricultural class: they labor in plowing and tillage. … In these four classes purity or impurity of caste assigns to every one place. When they marry they rise or fall according to their new relationship.”
Alberuni confirms [ALB]:
- “The kings of antiquity, who were industriously devoted to the duties of their office, spent most of their care on the division of their subjects into different classes and orders, which they tried to preserve from intermixture and disorder. Therefore they forbade people of different classes to have intercourse with each other, and laid upon each class a particular kind of work or art and handicraft. They did not allow any body to transgress the limits of his class.”