B
Brahmastra
Guest
The common myth of the supression of other castes by brahmins with regards education etc.
Even today how many would go for formal education if it didn’t enjoy the economic benefits? How many would be interested in learning for itself?
So how did such misrepresentation happen?
The colonialists started it with the motive of cultural subversion. The Brahmins were the preservers and propogators of dharma – while the masses practiced it, it was mainly the Brahmins who understood the underlying meaning. So with their learning and fervour for the dharma they were its backbone. So for the colonialists and the troika of M’s (mullah, missionary and marxist) who followed them, they presented the number one block against cultural subversion. So anti-brahmin dialectic worked in various forms – the false aarya invasion theory, alleged suppression etc.
I remember our current finance minister M.Chidambaram once writing in the India today about “Brahmin ruled kingdoms”. Out of the total number of kingdoms in the history of India how many were actually “ruled by the Brahmins”? Other than exceptions here and there, such a concept is totally false. Brahmins were priests not rulers. If anything Chidambaram's family ruled a part of TamilNadu historically and he has always had a priveleged life - from studying in Harvard and being a politician with the Congress - in contrast to the great majority of impoverished brahmins many of whom live below the poverty line even today.
But such false propoganda works in India given the prevalance of anti-dharmic activities and the need of the masses to join the industrialized society. Our political class with the twin motive of divide and rule and dharmic subversion (in cahoots with the three Ms) have gleefully embraced this. It helps them in justifying their caste vote bank politics. The sense of right is a strong instinct in man – even the suicide bomber justifies his carnage by claiming that he’s fighting against something wrong done to him or his community. Likewise in India the non-literate masses need a reason and justification for anti-brahmin discrimination and so …
Modern brahmins having abandoned their traditional way of life and being cut off from their traditions, suffer from an unjustified guilt complex and have swallowed this supression propoganda uncritically. Caught between the greed of the masses, the unscrupulousness of the politicians and the malice of the three Ms, they are persecuted mercilessly in modern India.
The most powerful of the dharma shaastra is the Manusmriti. But Manu was not a Brahmin – he was a king – a kshatriya. Likewise Krishna who teaches the Gita. Historically the society forced the Brahmins to embrace poverty and live a life of dharma just for the prestige of being the highest varna. But why should Brahmins live such a life? Are brahmins not humans? Don't brahmins desire comforts and luxury and wealth for themselves and their near and dear ones, the way all people do? Do they not have the intelligence to get what they want? And post independence, the minute they were able to do something about it the whole society turns and gangs up on them to prevent them from getting what they deserve claiming that brahmins supressed them in the past - as if as miniscule and non-violent a community as the brahmins could have kept these horrors away from wealth and power or anything leading to it.
Brahmins at worst have shunned others in the name of ritual purity, have looked down on lower castes or have restricted access to the scriptures - but this doesn't necessarily translate as supression of other castes. There's little doubt that brahmins historically were able to retain their top varna only because they abandoned wealth and power and took their stand under the shade of dharma - else the other castes would have cut their feet under them. So if anything it is the Hindu society which has suppressed the Brahmins historically and not vice versa.
And this is especially true in modern India which claims to be a democracy where all citizens are supposed to have "rights".
Those who historically murdered and raped and pillaged and destroyed are today forgiven in modern India in the name of forgetting the past. But brahmins who historically more than any single section of the society gave their lives for the sake of dharma and the welfare of the society, are persecuted in modern India for their alleged sins of the past.
And the red rag the (anti)Hindu which protests and clamours for the rights of minorities etc is strangely silent regarding the anti-brahmin discrimination in its home state.
Only goes to prove that in modern India there's neither brahmin nor shudra - just the rich and poor, the powerful and the weak, the oppressors and the oppressed.
- The biggest myth is that lower classes were prevented from education – verses from smrithis like the manu are provided in support of this argument. But it is to be noted that only the Vedas or the shruti were exclusive for dvijas. Other texts like the smrithis, the puraanaas, the ithihaasaas and all other sundry literature were open to the wide public.
- Shankara in his Brahma Sutra Baashya categorically asserts that the Vedaanta should be taught only to dvijas (braahmana, kshatriya, vaishya). But that’s how much it was – only Vedaanta. Vedaanta in Shankara’s terms can be learnt only by sanyaasis and it is only here that he forbids non-dvijas from learning - and not education or secular knowledge. Don’t even the common fruit seller know how to count, even though the numeric system is the Sanskrit numeric system? Other than restricting access to the shruti, whatever knowledge they developed – religious or secular - the Brahmins spread it out for the welfare of the society.
- If education were open only to the dvijas then how do you have Vaalmiki composing Raamaayana or Thiruvalluvar composing Thirukkural? Or the numerous works on bhakti by non-brahmin bhakti saints etc?
- Also Hinduism is not a centralized religion. Various forms of it is practiced in various regions of the country. So what applies in Kerala (the "lunatic asylum" of Vivekananda) needn’t necessarily apply in Gujarat or Kashmir or other parts of the country. Even right next door in TamilNadu the conditions and dynamics were totally different.
- And Hinduism is not the only religion of India. Historically Jainism and Buddhism too were very dominant. And the Buddhist centers of learning like Takshila and Nalanda were renowned for their variety and quality of education. And they were open to all castes.
Also even if Brahmins did prevent others from learning Sanskrit, still what about other languages? Praakrit, tamil etc had its own literature. Couldn’t people have studied and learnt from such languages?
- Also nobody came and handed over such traditional learning to the populace and that Brahmins prevented others from learning. The Brahmins developed such literature and learning by themselves. So why didn’t others develop such stuff themselves the way Brahmins had?
- Primarily because in the ages yore, education had no economic potential. You could not do your graduation or some such educational course like today and then go and get a job. Because there was no such concept.
- Traditional industry with economic potential always had its own way of training people in it – jewelers training other jewelers, masons training other masons, accountants training other accountants etc - often heridetary. Brahmins mainly learnt scriptures etc which had little or no economic potential and often paid for it by living a life of poverty (which is an integral part of their worldview).
- And most of the literature in Sanskrit is primarily religious and philosophical. Not industrial.
- The modern concept of industries and institutes catering to such industries primarily rose only after the industrial revolution. And in India such a concept and its related practice took shape with the arrival of the British.
- So it is only in the last 100 years or so that industrial houses and colleges and schools catering to such industries have cropped up.
- The British in their efforts to destablise traditional culture cut off the traditional grants (devasthaanams etc) to Brahmins. So the Brahmins having no other livelihood took to secular professions. Here their traditional learning and scholasticism aided them. The British recognized their intellectual acumen and also their integrity. So many Brahmins were successful and prospered in secular professions during the british rule.
- Post independence, in an already impoverished society the non-literate classes suddenly found themselves disadvantaged in comparison to the Brahmins. So envy and greed resulted in claims like “brahmins suppressed us and prevented us from education” cropped up. In a democracy, numbers are the true power. So it was convenient for the masses to blame the Brahmins, discriminate against them and get away with it.
Even today how many would go for formal education if it didn’t enjoy the economic benefits? How many would be interested in learning for itself?
So how did such misrepresentation happen?
The colonialists started it with the motive of cultural subversion. The Brahmins were the preservers and propogators of dharma – while the masses practiced it, it was mainly the Brahmins who understood the underlying meaning. So with their learning and fervour for the dharma they were its backbone. So for the colonialists and the troika of M’s (mullah, missionary and marxist) who followed them, they presented the number one block against cultural subversion. So anti-brahmin dialectic worked in various forms – the false aarya invasion theory, alleged suppression etc.
I remember our current finance minister M.Chidambaram once writing in the India today about “Brahmin ruled kingdoms”. Out of the total number of kingdoms in the history of India how many were actually “ruled by the Brahmins”? Other than exceptions here and there, such a concept is totally false. Brahmins were priests not rulers. If anything Chidambaram's family ruled a part of TamilNadu historically and he has always had a priveleged life - from studying in Harvard and being a politician with the Congress - in contrast to the great majority of impoverished brahmins many of whom live below the poverty line even today.
But such false propoganda works in India given the prevalance of anti-dharmic activities and the need of the masses to join the industrialized society. Our political class with the twin motive of divide and rule and dharmic subversion (in cahoots with the three Ms) have gleefully embraced this. It helps them in justifying their caste vote bank politics. The sense of right is a strong instinct in man – even the suicide bomber justifies his carnage by claiming that he’s fighting against something wrong done to him or his community. Likewise in India the non-literate masses need a reason and justification for anti-brahmin discrimination and so …
Modern brahmins having abandoned their traditional way of life and being cut off from their traditions, suffer from an unjustified guilt complex and have swallowed this supression propoganda uncritically. Caught between the greed of the masses, the unscrupulousness of the politicians and the malice of the three Ms, they are persecuted mercilessly in modern India.
The most powerful of the dharma shaastra is the Manusmriti. But Manu was not a Brahmin – he was a king – a kshatriya. Likewise Krishna who teaches the Gita. Historically the society forced the Brahmins to embrace poverty and live a life of dharma just for the prestige of being the highest varna. But why should Brahmins live such a life? Are brahmins not humans? Don't brahmins desire comforts and luxury and wealth for themselves and their near and dear ones, the way all people do? Do they not have the intelligence to get what they want? And post independence, the minute they were able to do something about it the whole society turns and gangs up on them to prevent them from getting what they deserve claiming that brahmins supressed them in the past - as if as miniscule and non-violent a community as the brahmins could have kept these horrors away from wealth and power or anything leading to it.
Brahmins at worst have shunned others in the name of ritual purity, have looked down on lower castes or have restricted access to the scriptures - but this doesn't necessarily translate as supression of other castes. There's little doubt that brahmins historically were able to retain their top varna only because they abandoned wealth and power and took their stand under the shade of dharma - else the other castes would have cut their feet under them. So if anything it is the Hindu society which has suppressed the Brahmins historically and not vice versa.
And this is especially true in modern India which claims to be a democracy where all citizens are supposed to have "rights".
Those who historically murdered and raped and pillaged and destroyed are today forgiven in modern India in the name of forgetting the past. But brahmins who historically more than any single section of the society gave their lives for the sake of dharma and the welfare of the society, are persecuted in modern India for their alleged sins of the past.
And the red rag the (anti)Hindu which protests and clamours for the rights of minorities etc is strangely silent regarding the anti-brahmin discrimination in its home state.
Only goes to prove that in modern India there's neither brahmin nor shudra - just the rich and poor, the powerful and the weak, the oppressors and the oppressed.