My last post was on exploring “Dalit’s” in Hinduism. I got some very good feedback for that post, rather than replying them as a comment I decided to write a reply post. I think this is a very important issue, because if we meekly dismiss this right now and accept the status quo, I can’t imagine how the Hinduism will look like in the next century. There are some really bad practices of Hinduism, it’s up to us to find out if that was for real or some human created propaganda. My effort now is on exploring the existence of ‘Varna’s’.

I feel a little ashamed as we (Hindu) being a follower of the most ancient religion don’t know many things about it. We were never taught our religion in a practical manner, it was always enforced. It’s very true that within in each 50km there might be a completely different practices of Hinduism, despite having same principle origin.

According to four ‘Varna’s’ defined by Hinduism (Brahmin’s, Kshetriya, Vaisya, and Shudra) there is no mention of Dalit (as far I could find). If they are Hindu then they can’t be Dalit, and if they are Dalit then they can’t be Hindu. So no one has the right to treat the Dalit’s the way they are being treated in the name of religion.

Bhagwat Geeta

I think the ‘four Vedas’ in Hinduism are like ‘Bible’ to Christianity, and Bhagwat Geeta is the abstract of all four Vedas. I haven’t completely read any of those, and I am not proud of it. It’s not that I rue not reading those because I am a Hindu, but I rue because I have been following something simply because my parent’s did so. That’s where I believe something called Dalit’s were harvested and continued. That doesn’t however mean that I hate Hinduism, there has to be something about this religion that makes it still practicable around the world, despite being the most ancient. My point is, rather than listening to someone interpret it for you (the one that has been passed down from generations), find the source document and interpret it yourself. Don’t let someone feed you, but find the food yourself when hungry. Of course, not everybody understands Sanskrit nowadays.

I think in case of Nepal King Jayasthiti Malla divided the caste according to working culture (correct me if I’m wrong). Some other King/leader must have initiated that in other Hindu parts of the World. However, our religion couldn’t have had similar classification to the classification of King Malla to start with (that’s my belief, again correct me if I’m wrong).

My problem now, as question about Dalit has been cleared to some degree, is about four Varna classification by Hinduism. Again, lack of my first hand knowledge comes into account. I still believe that in god’s book everyone should be equal, then why is there Brahmin, Kshetriya, Vaisya, and Shudra? How can I be Brahmin, even if I was born to Brahmin parents, but don’t follow any principles of Brahmanism? Why can’t someone born to Shudra family, if undergoes teaching of Veda’s and live a life of a Brahmin?

Only interpretation I could think of is, no one is born as Brahmin, Kshetriya, Vaisya, and Shudra. Based on how a person leads his/her life he/she will eventually fall in one of those four categories. Perhaps due to lack of opportunities as well as social suppression, people in each Varna continued to follow their life/work in the same Varna generation after generation. And thus, Varna might have been classified as birth right. I think this malpractice already existed even in the times of Mahabharata. Although Karna was born Kshetriya, also proved Kshetriya in battlefields, but was adopted by a Shudra family so was called Shudra despite his heroics. Simply because everyone thought his foster parents were his biological parents too, only Parsuram was wise enough to find out that he was a Kshetriya: seeing his endurance and courage.

I would like to reiterate again, these are all my interpretation based on my limited knowledge. I would gradually like to get to the roots of these, going through the source literatures. Meanwhile, any input and feedback from you guys are highly welcomed. Please, let’s not dismiss these issues as duality of mind.