Ishwa helper Reged: 03/03/02 Posts: 553

Re: caste system does not have religious sanction [Re: krishna115] #13438 - 03/14/02 07:25 PM Edit Reply Quote

The very word 'caste' comes from the Portuguese language. With this word you can put people in almirah, also a word that came through the Portuguese in India. In the oldest Vedic times, there wasn't anything like a caste, not even a Varna. From the later YajurVedic period Varnas came up. But especially in the Brahmana Period Varnas came in vogue, because the society was more complex. Varna comes from vr=to choose and is etymologically as the root vl in Vala the base for the later word will in English. It is the same root as we have in the words vara=choice in svayam-vara or vara=boon. You can see glimpses of that meaning also in the Hindi word Banna=to become (ban=varn). So Caste is not Vedic at all, not even post-Vedic. Not known as such in the arthaShastra of Mauryan and post-Mauryan times. It is a system of somewhere in the middle ages. Maybe related to invasions.