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My Article..

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Hi, I thought I'll start by posting one of my articles (Which was never circulated outside my small circle). I tried to counter a few misconceptions being spread about india, hindus & brahmins.. Please post your comments..

The (hi)story of a society:


by Rajesh T Srinivasan


This starts a long time ago, after land emerged from the ocean into five islands, and life evolved from oceanic creatures to amphibians to various stages of primates into Homo Sapiens. People all over the world started interacting socially and started living in societies.


One society in the largest island became much more advanced than the others. That simply was because the founders of the society realized one important fact. "As long as men lived in caves, for oneself, it was individual might that allowed him to survive. But to form a society, We need specalists that would excel in spcific tasks, working colloboratively". With that realization, They formed the society into classes and formed rules regarding their duties. The life style of each class were formed depending on their work and the role they would play in the society. The major classes were "Scholars", "Warriors/Administrators", "Merchants" and "Farmers". There was a "fifth class" that included others that were not covered by the four major classes.


First were the "Scholars". Their job was to seek knowledge and maintain it, and distribute it as per necessity. Neither were they rulers, nor were they rich. As their role as the "Knowledge Centres", they had no need for physical strength, and their food habits and lifestyle were geared more towards intellectual development. They were allowed only plant food and milk. Their daily routines were also centred towards excelling in their role. They seeked knowledge both external and internal, everything from medical to celestials, entertainment to sex, the seen and unseen..


Then there were the "Warriors" who were also the "Managers/Rulers". They were to oversee the society, maintain law & order, and to protect the society from internal and external adversaries. As their job was both physical and mental, their food habits included White meat along with plant food, and they had "advisors" from the scholar class. They exceled in warfare and administration.


The "Merchants" were responsible to keep the society going.. by acting as bridges between different people.. enabling them to trade what they have with what the need. Earlier, it was a "Thing for a thing", but later, they formed Universal "thing" called money, based on things that were deemed valuable at that time.. like the gold.


The "Farmers" were responsible for producing food for the society, that not only involved plant cultivation, but also animal based food like livestocks, fish etc. Due to the intense physical nature of their work, they were allowed to eat Red meat, White meat and plant food.


These classes followed their duties and lifestyles for generations. As the life styles of all the classes were different, and as a man is defined by his lifestyle, it was so evident that just by looking at a person, it was possible to determine what class he was from. For example, the vegetarian class were not physically well built, had less body hair, and were lighter in colour due to the absence of physical works, and visibly fragile compared to the other physically active class. But these same traits enabled them to be more active mentally.


As man had the tendency to look up on the "unknown power" they started forming "Religions" with designated deities. This specific society had an open policy on deities.. Each could chose the way he can visialize his deity. Be it Nothing, self, natural elements, animals, human or superhuman.. But the general idea of deities were "Mother", "Father", "Teacher" and "Any other Deities" in that order. There was no concept of "False God" or "Non Believer". The religion had no name except 'All-Encompassing Belief". Knowledge was transferred from generation to generation by a unique system of teaching, where students lived at the teacher's place for years together and did nothing but learning.


The scholars acted as the brain of the society. The Warriors acted as it's hands, the merchants as it's stomach and the farmers as it's feet. Each did their job, formed subclasses and sub-rules and excelled in their job. They lived together with harmony, as one entity, and the society progressed much more than any other in the world. It was so advanced that other societies from far across the world seeked out easier routes to either interact with this society or to conquer it.


Time and again this society was invaded by other societies, endured but prevailed. But within the last couple of millenia, as new religions formed, who believed in "My way or Highway", who considered everyone else "Wrong". And they believed in spreading their belief by sword or every other means. The last of those people who seeked out for business with the flourishinig society, looking at it's richness, desired to "conquer" and "Dominate" it. They also had the purpose of spreading their religion amongst the "Non Believers". One knight, called "Lord Macaulay", gave the following speech at his queen's parliament..


"I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the indians think that all that is foreign and english is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture, and they will become what we want them, a truely dominated nation"


To do this, they decided that they will have to break the harmony of this society. They went on doing it systematicaly. They decided to create disharmony among the classes by pitting one against the other. The first thing they had to target was the brain of the society. The scholars, though were neither wealthy nor mighty, were greatly respected in the society. So, the invaders managed to convince the farmers and the "Fifth Class" that they did not get equal respect as the scholars, and that they were "suppressed" by the scholars. At the same time, they also got to discredit the ancient religion by preaching that this inequality is dictated by their religion. Having thus sown the seeds of disharmony, they proceeded to destroy any documented knowledge of the society and started bringing in their own knowledge, which actually was inferior to the ages of knowledge and wisdom gathered by the scholars of the society.


Once they managed to discredit the ancient culture and knowledge of that society, Once they managed to disconnect the brain to a large extent, conrolling the rest of the body was easy. And they happily continued to plunder the wealth of the society, anything of value, and within a few centuries, the society was reduced to almost nothing. Until they decided that they had nothing more to gain from the society, and decided to leave. But also wanted to make sure that the disharmony remains, and any history of their glorious past is destroyed, and that they never rise to their formar glory again. They made all arrangements to divide the country based on religions, the seeds for which was sown much earlier than the actual departure. And that the social disharmony stays alive for ages to come.


With this story, we shall start giving some names.
The founders of the society were called "manu" There were a few of them who kept refining the rules as per evolving society.
Their rule book for all classes was called "Manu Smrithi" or "Manu Dharma".
The "Scholars" were called "Brahmans".
The "Warriors" were called "Kshatriyas".
The "Merchants" were called "Vaishyas".
The "Farmers" were called "Shudras". Incidentally, Shudra also meant "The Core" or "Secret".
The "Fifth Class" were called "Panchamas".
Their all-encompassing religion was called "Sanathan Dharm"
The Country which was generally refered to "Bharat Varsha", named after one of the earlier kings, was the biggest country in the island called "Jambu dweep", was names as "India" by the arabs, meaning the "Land where the river hind (sindhu) flows"


With these definitions, let's fast forward to current day. The society is averaged out. Anyone can do anything. There are no "Specialists". If their abilities are not suited to what they want to do, they can shut down other able people by repeatedly saying that they were suppressed class, even though they don't know for sure, but just wanted to believe it.
Even today, a Scholar, a professor or a teacher earns more social respect than a farmer or a butcher. Not only in this country, but all over the world. A common man cannot sit equally with a "privileged class", The only difference is that the "privileged class" is not brahmans, but the ones who are able to earn more money, by hook or crook. The scholars, who were denied any place in the society, started offering their services elsewhere, helping other societies to grow. The New class of "Politicians", who had learnt the effectiveness of the "Divide and rule" policy from the foreign occupants, continue to use it to the fullest, to their advantage. Now, forget about getting the old glory.. the country called India is struggling to even match up with civilizations which were once much inferior to it, With it's self-dependence gone, looking up to other countries for everything, with no hope in the forseeable future.
 
Sir,
As a historical explanation of Caste, your article may be believable.

What is practiced as Caste today in Job Reservation is birth based, and even our resident Gene-based "experts" still believe in birth-based superiority.
So I do not understand the purpose of your article.
We have multiple threads on this topic on this site.
 
Sir,

Ref#2 above.

Our "other experts" here with "borrowed knowledge" have convinced themselves long long back that any one who says anything based on scientific research is just a fool.

Expertise based castes have over a period of time become birth based because " the traits of a human being is not just determined by genes alone. The genes are profoundly impacted by the environment too to a large extent and hence there is significant changes undergone by the genes". This is the finding of a research and is based on unimpeachable facts. I have quoted extensively from this research paper in other threads. For your ready reference please Google Robert Boyd and read his research paper titled "Not by genes alone".

So expertise based castes have over centuries become birth based/genes based because of the environment to which these castes were exposed. The conclusion reached by the Anthropologist Robert Boyd is based on scientific research. So brahmins exposed to a certain environment are brahmins and others exposed to various other environments are "others".

I am yet to get a cogent acceptable argument from our "other experts" of the forum disproving Robert Boyd.

I look forward to it and am waiting. They can freely copy paste and convince me from any acceptable science journals.
 
I wanted to reply to this post.. But i could just repeat the other post by "vaagmi". I agree with it completely.
Environment and habit defines a man's character. When that persists for ages and generations, it becomes genetic. Someone can't become an intellect because he wants to.. Or i can't become a brutal warrior if i want to. In spiite of my being a martial artist for the past 20 years, I am still a fragile brahman by birth. Maybe If i start eating meat and live in a brutal environment, maybe a few generations down the line, my descendant can. So yes, i am still superior by birth..

My purpose..? Sharing with the community i belong to, whatever i had shared with my personal circle.

But If you expect that i only post something new, whatever has never been discussed, then i am out of posts.
 

The majority of anthropologists today consider race to be a sociopolitical phenomenon rather than a biological one,
a view supported by considerable genetics research. The current mainstream view in the social sciences and biology is that race is a social construction based on folk ideologies that construct groups based on social disparities and superficial physical characteristics.Sternberg, Grigorenko & Kidd (2005) state, "Race is a socially constructed concept, not a biological one. It derives from people's desire to classify." The concept of human "races" as natural and separate divisions within the human species has also been rejected by the American Anthropological Association. The official position of the AAA, adopted in 1998, is that advances in scientific knowledge have made it "clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups" and that "any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations [is] both arbitrary and subjective." However within population genetics there is ongoing debate about whether the social category of "race" can and should be used as a proxy for individual genetic ancestry. With current methods of genetic analysis it is possible to determine the composition of genetic ancestry of an individual with significant precision. This is because different genes occur with different frequencies in different geographically defined populations, and by correlating a large amount of genes through cluster analysis it is probable to determine with high likelihood the geographic origins of an individual through DNA. This suggests to some that the classical socially defined genetic categories really have a biological basis, in the sense that racial categorization is a visual estimate of a person's continental ancestry based on their phenotype—which correlates with genotypical ancestry as determined by DNA tests.

The study of human intelligence is one of the most controversial topics in psychology. It remains unclear whether group differences in intelligence test scores are caused by heritable factors or by "other correlated demographic variables such as
socioeconomic status, education level, and motivation." Hunt and Carlson outlined four contemporary positions on differences in IQ based on race or ethnicity. The first is that these reflect real differences in average group intelligence, which is caused by a combination of environmental factors and heritable differences in brain function. A second position is that differences in average cognitive ability between races are caused entirely by social and/or environmental factors. A third position holds that differences in average cognitive ability between races do not exist, and that the differences in average test scores are the result of inappropriate use of the tests themselves. Finally, a fourth position is that either or both of the concepts of race and general intelligence are poorly constructed and therefore any comparisons between races are meaningless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence
 
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For the past century raw scores on IQ tests have been rising; this score increase is known as the "Flynn effect," named after James R. Flynn. In the United States, the increase was continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to about 1998 when the gains stopped and some tests even showed decreasing test scores. For example, in the United States the average scores of blacks on some IQ tests in 1995 were the same as the scores of whites in 1945. As one pair of academics phrased it, "the typical African American today probably has a slightly higher IQ than the grandparents of today's average white American."

Flynn has argued that given that these changes take place between one generation and the next it is highly unlikely that genetic factors could account for the increasing scores, which must then be caused by environmental factors. The Flynn Effect has often been used as an argument that the racial gap in IQ test scores must be environmental too, but this is not generally agreed – others have asserted that the two may have entirely different causes. A meta-analysis by Te Nijenhuis and van der Flier (2013) concluded that the Flynn effect and group differences in intelligence were likely to have different causes. They stated that the Flynn effect is caused primarily by environmental factors and that it's unlikely these same environmental factors play an important role in explaining group differences in IQ. The importance of the Flynn effect in the debate over the causes for the IQ gap lies in demonstrating that environmental factors may cause changes in test scores on the scale of 1 SD. This had previously been doubted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence
 
I dont get it...the learned class was so respected and honored..Ok.agreed..then suddenly an invador comes and tells the other castes " hey guys..all animals are equal but some are more equal but you guys are at the bottom of the food chain..the learned class has subjugated you"

Ok...now story gets better...if the learned class was so learned and respected to start with why did the the other castes believe the invadors word...why couldnt the learned caste convince the other caste.." abhey yaar..that invador is lying..you know well na I am not a Khilji..do I castrate your dignity?"

Ok now lets get back to present day scenario..just say a guy from Uttar Pradesh comes to Tamil Nadu and tells a Rajini fan.." Oye Madrasi..your Rajini is a ×@#$"...would the Rajini fan believe him?

Nope the UP guy would be dead!

So why didnt the so called lower Varnas stand up for the learned class and say" how dare you try to poison our minds against the learned class who have even come out with a gene theory on lactose intolerance....his genes are so pure that even the color white is a 50 shades of grey next to his genes...Ya Haraami! How dare you?"

Nope that did not happen.
Why?

Becos Dalitam was not Madhuram.
The society.was divided to start with and the invador knew its easy to break one stick at a time.


BTW..physical frame of learned class being not well built I guess not many have seen Ganesh Venkatraman!i
 
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Have you heard " கரைப்பார் கரைத்தால் கல்லும் கரையும்" and "அடி மேல் ஆதி வைத்தால் அம்மியும் நகரும்". ?
When someone floats the theory of "Hinduism teaches terrorism", there are a whole bunch of people who believe it without questions. In our society any self-proclaimed leader has lakhs of followers even if he is a convict.
Today or any day if you pay someone a million rupees to kill his neighbor, there may be millions who would refuse, but there would be thousands if not millions that would go for it. The number will be directly proportional to the perceived advantages.

Just because there were people who bought the theory doesn't mean it was true. You know very well that brahmins were not rulers . But still you want to spread the theory of "Hinduism means casteism" because it suits you. Sure i know your type..
 
Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 4 - Verse 13

Jnana Yoga | The Yoga of Knowledge
cåtur-var√yaµ mayå s®ß†aµ gu√a-karma-vibhågaça˙
tasya kartåram api måµ viddhy-akartåram avyayam


TRANSLATION:​
I have created the four social divisions that are determined by the influence of the modes of material nature and their parallel activities. Although I have created this arrangement, know that in reality I am the non-doer and that I am unchangeable.


Sir,
Your article is a rehash of that stanza from Gita.
I used to believe it, and still have faith in that.
But the implementation in our practice does not support that.
Your contention in post#4 proves my point. You do not believe in it either.
So you do not practice what you preach. How can you convince others?

If Vishwamitra can become a Brahma Rishi, then Caste is not birth based.
Swami Chinmayananda was not a Brahmin, but he had a better understanding of Gita.

By birth I was Brahmin, by education and Profession as Engineer I was a Shudra. Now that I am in Business I am a vaisya.
So birth based Caste has no place.


 
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Madwacharya Says:

The four orders descending in purity
from sattva guna to rajas guna to
tama guna have been described here. Those in sattva guna are the Vaisnava devotees of the supreme Lord Krishna possessing tranquillity and self- control. All others as their sattvadecreases are in tama guna in descending order. Thus sattva guna is determined by one's ability and capacity to be a devotee of Lord Krishna and the further away one is from this the deeper one is covered by tama guna . Thus this is the difference between them and occurs naturally due to their character and disposition. The differences and conditions acquired due to birth should be understood to be merely a designation as devotion to the Supreme Lord Krishna has been seen to arise and manifest in all four orders of existence. Amongst some it is more potent and in others less so and even these differences happen naturally according to an individuals inherent attributes. Although the resplendent Supreme Lord reveals He is kartaram or the origin of all creation He also reveals He is akartaram or not originated from any source. He is independent in Himself and not created from anything. The adjective api used here is to show this special at tribute that there is no creator for Him.

http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-04-13.html
 
Sir, you are trying to force words into my mouth. I said that caste was genetic because of the socio-habits that were followed thru generations, and that genes might change if we strictly follow a different set of lifestyles for a few more generations. Can you refuse that? If you have started physical labour instead of intellectual work, and had started eating non-veg and alcohol and other lifestyle changes, definitely your descendent's will not remain a brahmin anymore. What is ambiguous in what I wrote?
 
And how , do you suggest that brahmins were suppressing others?. That is a lie repeated so often without any explanation.

While they were neither rulers nor wealthy nor physically stronger than anyone else.. In what way? Did they steal / snatch others wealth? Were they injuring or torturing others? Now if you resort to the nonsense of "Mental torture", how ? By having their own food habits and lifestyles? By not eating at others places? By not marrying outside their community? Why should others care? Even today i don't eat at a non-vegetarian restaurant. I don't go thru the street with a butcher shop. I will politely refuse to eat at a non-vegetarian friend's house. (And they don't insist either). Does that.make me a casteist ?
People who just want to get undue advantage are the only ones who keep repeating the so-called atrocities of the brahmins without ever knowing or experiencing it..
 
Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 4 - Verse 13

Jnana Yoga | The Yoga of Knowledge
cåtur-var√yaµ mayå s®ß†aµ gu√a-karma-vibhågaça˙
tasya kartåram api måµ viddhy-akartåram avyayam


TRANSLATION:​
I have created the four social divisions that are determined by the influence of the modes of material nature and their parallel activities. Although I have created this arrangement, know that in reality I am the non-doer and that I am unchangeable.


Sir,
Your article is a rehash of that stanza from Gita.
I used to believe it, and still have faith in that.
But the implementation in our practice does not support that.
Your contention in post#4 proves my point. You do not believe in it either.
So you do not practice what you preach. How can you convince others?

If Vishwamitra can become a Brahma Rishi, then Caste is not birth based.
Swami Chinmayananda was not a Brahmin, but he had a better understanding of Gita.

By birth I was Brahmin, by education and Profession as Engineer I was a Shudra. Now that I am in Business I am a vaisya.
So birth based Caste has no place.



Better even if there is no classification of any kind attached to anyone in the name of religion.

As you rightly said..Varna as job based keeps changing too....I am.a medic and also.a sanskrit.teacher now..i hold 2 jobs..so.whats my job based varna?

It cant be defined.
Thats why I feel we should just do our alloted duties and live without dividing ourselves into any system..its has no place in a logical system
 
Hi, I thought I'll start by posting one of my articles (Which was never circulated outside my small circle). I tried to counter a few misconceptions being spread about india, hindus & brahmins.. Please post your comments..

The (hi)story of a society:


b

In my opinion....



The origin of caste system lies in one's pride in his ancestors and his keenness to follow their practices/professions and to not lose the precious "secrets" of each profession. In fact, each caste/subcaste, could be considered heir to some great and powerful secret knowledge belonging to that race.Tradition ascribed the origin of this secret knowledge to mythological characters like Vishwakarma, Parashurama, Lord Shiva etc etc, so that the men and women of each subcaste might give due respect and dedication to their professional knowledge and also bolster it through their efforts. The respective castes guarded their secrets from other castes, and many times from their own caste-men. You will find echoes of this in the Vedic Brahmanas and Upanishads. Some kshatriya kings of the Upanishads state that the upanishadic vidya under discussion, has been traditionally kept a secret within the kshatriyas, but is now for the first time being revealed to a brahmin student. (As a result, we are now, several thousands of years later, getting that knowledge). In the Gita, lord Krishna also hints this in the sloka "Evam Parampara praaptam.....sa kaleneha mahataa yogo nashtah parantapah". This secret knowledge that was shared between Kshatriyas Krishna and Arjuna, would have been lost, but for the preserving and transferring skills of Brahmins Vyasa, Vaishampayana et al. Thus each caste had it's precious skillset and men belonging to other castes yearned to gain that extra knowledge by hook or crook. In the course of time, due to intermingling, foreign invasions, and absence of a scientific method of transfering the knowledge through generations, a lot of the the secret knowledge of the non-brahmin castes got lost. While, the Brahmins with their relatively superior method of teaching, documenting and sharing knowledge, managed to retain some of this knowledge (both their own as well as that of other castes, of course with their own embellishments) till the present period. Thus we find that, the knowledge that gets shared with a brahmin student gets incorporated into their body of knowledge and gets transferred through generations, while the knowledge-documenting and sharing skills of the other "owner" castes were not as effective to survive the vicissitudes of time. In the course of time, every other caste/subcaste started feeling that the sciences of their own fathers were better preserved by the Brahmins and hence they needed to be approached to acquire this knowledge. This naturally gave the Brahmins a superior position amongst all castes and the grateful non-brahmin castes had no small part in allowing the Brahmins this superiority. In fact, it came to a pass that all, or most other castes felt that their sciences will continue to be preserved with maximum safety, only in the hands of the Brahmin teachers. Thus the administrative caste started formulating rules accordingly, making the Brahmin the teacher of all professional scientific knowledge, for all castes, while at the same time, restricting the Brahmins from themselves pursuing these other professions.
 
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It is still male-centric. It is purely a patrilinear professional protection of jobs.


That died when the society changed, and people became mobile.

It is like you being a Steam Engine maintenance person, oh by the way that profession does not exist anymore.
 
It is still male-centric. It is purely a patrilinear professional protection of jobs.


That died when the society changed, and people became mobile.

It is like you being a Steam Engine maintenance person, oh by the way that profession does not exist anymore.

It didn't die, but with the invention of machinery, the differences in the capabilities of men and women in doing jobs, aren't as obvious now, as in the past.
 
It didn't die, but with the invention of machinery, the differences in the capabilities of men and women in doing jobs, aren't as obvious now, as in the past.

Well....the world oldest profession is still very much a woman dominant profession..males yet to catch up there!
 
Well....the world oldest profession is still very much a woman dominant profession..males yet to catch up there!

males were still catching up with them using stones...hypocrisy and moral policing is an art in which males have never lost ground
 
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