- मनुः - “सर्वस्यास्य तु सर्गस्य गुप्त्यर्थं स महाद्युतिः । मुखबाहूरुपज्जानां पृथक्कर्माण्यकल्पयत्॥ " (1.31), “सर्वस्यास्य तु सर्गस्य गुप्त्यर्थं स महाद्युतिः । मुखबाहूरुपज्जानां पृथक्कर्माण्यकल्पयत् ॥” (1.87)
Excellence in critical areas
- A memeplex that places emphasis in the following order: scholarship and conservation of Arya values (brAhmaNa-s) » governance and defence (kShatriya-s) » commerce (vaiShya-s) » service (shUdra-s)
- This orients a society to hold sacredness and spirituality above mere material achievements.
brAhmaNa regimentation
- A brAhmaNa varNa fully dedicated to conserving Arya ideals is a great advantage to the memeplex- see vaidika-brAhmaNa-glue part of this.
Skill transmission and self-worth
Via MT:
I posit that they realized a few important things: Handicrafts and specialist knowledge (e.g. sheep-rearing or farming) are hard to transmit. When people stop handicrafts and production they tend to go astray and are prone to janakopa. People who feel no self-worth tend towards counter-religion (probably the Iranian experience had taught them somethings). Crafts and labor provide a sense of self-worth. Higher religion is not for everyone. Thus, their system was one which privileged society over the individual for most part for in their times loss of social stability was literally extinction (Remember there was nothing romantic about predatory hunter-gatherers).
Formalization of a natural phenomenon
Amalgamation of tribes glued together by the Arya brAhmaNa-s.
- Hindu society was an amalgam of many tribes. The varNa system (centered around the ritualist conservative core described here) tried to harmonize them. When new jAti-s were encountered, they could be gracefully integrated into the broader society, while preserving their internal autonomy.
- That this varNa system was an ancient emergent phenomenon - not artificially created - was the opinion of the ancients.
- This is the import of the puruSha-sUkta, where its emergence from the primeval puruSha is placed in the verse that describes the emergence of sun and the moon.
- manu says in the manu-smRti that this division emerged from brahma himself.
- Division of labor and inherited hierarchies are evolutionarily dominant in several species. See animal observations page
Inheritability of social status
See “Persistent elite dominance” secion in the practice-comparison page.
Not to deny exceptions (eg: Narendra Modi), of course, but as a general rule.
Plausibility of competitive edge
It is indeed true that having the whole population fighting provides numerical advantage. It appears in chimps there is no particular soldier caste. … Now certain ‘Kriegstaat’-societies indeed take that route. For example, the Mongols were one such. … Now a society which has alternative structure when under stress will transform into this Kriegstaat pattern. We saw that with Mahārāṇa Pratāpa. We saw it on even larger scales with the Marāthā-s. … But in the long run it is a more diversified economy that allows the effective conduct of war. Thus, it means other castes performing their specialized roles and channeling the fruits of the diversified economy to the war machine, which itself is primarily performed a dedicated caste. At a basic level this might mean farmers who can produce food, a essential to field large armies but it can involve various other specialized sub-groups. When the Marāthā-s transformed into a Kriegstaat, that seems to have drawn people away from these specialized guilds. That is where the English won. They could still maintain a large body of seemingly ‘useless’ knowledge-producers, like a Darwin and a Maxwell, for each of whom there were lesser tinkerers who could ultimately supply key technological innovations to the system that kept edge on the English war-machine. The success of this type of specialization in nature is simply evident in the world conquest of the ants, bees and termites. [MT17]
- “Agent-based simulation results show that in constant environments, unequal access to resources can be demographically destabilizing, resulting in the outward migration and spread of such societies even when population size is relatively small. In variable environments, stratified societies spread more and are also better able to survive resource shortages by sequestering mortality in the lower classes. The predictions of our simulation are provided modest support by a range of existing empirical studies. In short, the fact that stratified societies today vastly outnumber egalitarian societies may not be due to the transformation of egalitarian norms and structures, but may instead reflect the more rapid migration of stratified societies and consequent conquest or displacement of egalitarian societies over time.” [PLOS12]
- The division of power inherent in the jAti/ varNa system enabled India to resist and weather brutal invasions, as posited in the “Politics ..” section.
- The distribution of risks and abilities is not independent of birth - so relying just on estimated personality qualities (= reliance on guNa-dharma) may not suffice.
- A modern example: अमेरिकराष्ट्रपतिर् अत्र जात एव भवितुमर्हतीति नियमः कठोरः। नागरीकोऽप्य् आबाल्यात् राजोचितगुणोपेतोऽपि Henry Kissinger सदृशो जनो नार्हति तम् पदम्।
Specialization
- In the past, groups of people were highly specialized - warfare, trading, teaching/ counselling.
- Specialization/ training from childhood could inculcate excellence.
- Further, varNa/jAti-pride might have promoted special efforts at excellence.
- The varna/ jAti system might have been a _crude_ approximation of the distribution of skills among hindu human resources. That way, precious resources such as advanced education (eg. the shAstra-s) could have been allotted to the most appropriate jAti-s.
- There is genetic basis for differences in abilities (cognitive and otherwise). That said, it is also true that there are very significant non-genetic factors influencing the development of intelligence (look up the Flynn effect). Further there could be epigenetic factors.
Higher/ looser standards
- The desirability of maintenance of higher standards of behavior (refinement/ samskAra) by more people with more critical social functions.
- dharmashAstra-s concerned themselves with the preservation of standards. जन्मना जायते शूद्रः संस्काराद् द्विज उच्यते। वेदपाठाद्भवेद् विप्रः ब्रह्म जानाति ब्राह्मणः॥ [ supposedly - अत्रिस्मृति १४१] [MT]
- For example, in the case of brAhmaNa-s were more respected for both of the following reasons [AA]
- knowledge of the shAstra-s,
- the following of some severe codes of conduct. It also explores the differences in society that support these/ result from such divergent types of scholarship.
- One without saMskAra-s has lost his dvija-status (and so do his descendents). The codifiers took it seriously (eg: loss of dvija-status in manu smRti), and it was taken seriously in practice (to some extant).
- In the other direction (what if a person, initially without dvija-status, somehow gets all the saMskAra-s), I am not sure that the codifiers took such a possibility seriously. So in practice, one sees acquisition of dvija-status.
- More about jAtyutkarsha and jAtyapakarsha in PV Kane’s book.
- Consider rAmAnuja’s commentary on Chapter 3, Verse 24 (sanskrit, en) of bhagavadgItA, where kRShNa refers to saMkara as a negative, saying: “put your kula before yourself if you are a person of a shiShTa-kula, just as I do – you have a special burden to bear”.
Higher punishment for higher castes in general.
- Almost every king in ancient India followed the dharmashAstra-s in settling disputes and conducting his affairs.
- This continued through to vijayanagara (the great vidyAraNya authored the parAshara smRti commentary, this guided the vijayanagara kings) and marATha confrederacy. Even the british formed their hindu law using translated dharmashAstra digests.
- The dharmashAstra-s have different recommendations (particularly with regards to AchAra, prAyashcitta, daNDa) for people belonging to different varNa-s. Other factors (according to texts like daNDa-viveka) that determined the punishment included sex, wealth etc..
- So, the determination of varNa was essential (jAti providing an essential clue in this determination).
Social stability
Via MT:
For the strands of early Hindu ancestry the, steppe ārya-s and the mysterious Harappan people, social organization and stability was a life and death matter. On the steppes, especially in the warlike early IE age, there was no place for undisciplined tribes. They would simply be destroyed by another and their land taken over. It was the fire where the beginnings of the dharmaśāstra were forged.
Similarly, while we know little of what the Harappans said to each other, we know that they had a complex and hierarchical society needed for the kind of production and material conversion they carried out. This was beginning of the jāti system.
… In a sense, they were practical anthropologists who had at hand a problem of integrating the old Harappans into their own varṇa model. Hence, they were interested in their careful classification and suggesting anthropological theories (even if simplistic and cliched) for the multitude of jāti-s.
Limiting competition
Now, coming back to the second of these, the power-law, we can crudely state that the ‘rich get richer’. Thus, a lineage which is good at one thing tends to amass that trait in themselves. Hence, you are bound see inequality with a relatively small number who are really good at somethings and a large fraction being close to incapable. I can see why this can cause resentment in the have-nots. I think the way our tradition tried to resolve this is by specialization so that every group has something to be good at, thus limiting competition in a single track. When this system broke down under the assault of modernity we are seeing all these resentments bubble back. Hence, if at all we are going to find some means of mitigating it we need understand the force of these natural distributions rather than deny them.
Ritual purity.
- Some occupations were considered unclean and untouchable. Eg: Skinning dead animals, ferrying sewage. This violated popular notions of ritual purity in several paths of hindu self-cultivation.
Self interest
- It was in the interest of powerful jAti-s to maintain their power by denying others a fair chance to compete in their specialized roles. This self interest, though real, finds no theological basis as a valid source of the jAti system.
Some origin stories
- [AS94] refers to puruSha-sUkta and dharmashAstra-s, a shUdra bhaTTa account and a vaishya agarvAla bhaTTa account