Caste and Meritocracy in Ancient India

In one of my earlier posts, I had put forth my theory on the evolution of the caste system as it is in modern India.

My Theory on the Evolution of the Caste System

This is my theory on how the caste system came into existence in the first place. A few days ago, I came to notice that its not only the Brahmins who wear the sacred thread but even Kshatriyas and Vaishyas do so. Then I heard someone tell me that they are ranked in the order Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Kshudra as per the descending order of intellectual aptitude. For some time that had been bugging me for I knew that there had to be more to it. To my scientific mind, the idea that intellectual aptitude was restricted to certain lineages seemed grossly ridiculous.

Then I remembered something that I overheard as my father was conversing with the priest who performed my thread ceremony. The priest said that the thread ceremony should be performed either at the age of seven or at the age of eleven, failing these two times, the thread ceremony could be performed just before marriage. I also heard somewhere that the thread ceremony marked the entry of a person into the life of a student.

All these facts seemed disconnected till I finally stumbled upon the significance of the ages of seven and eleven. This I gleaned from my memories of one of ma all time favorite television serials – Chanakya. In ancient India (I mean really ancient, that is before the time of Christ). It was a custom among the people of India that a child when born would remain with his/her parents till the age of seven or eight. Then the child would be sent to the Gurukula, which is basically a large group of teachers (gurus) living in an ashram mostly in a forest or densely vegetated area of some sort. There they would have to undergo a test of some sort. Those who passed through the test were made to undergo a thread ceremony as a kind of admission ceremony. And the thread ceremony marked the person’s entry into the Gurukula. Those who didn’t pass the “entrance test” did not go through the thread ceremony and hence did not wear a sacred thread. It is my assumption that these people were the ones who came to be known as the Kshudras.

As is common in all institutions of education, the students could be classified broadly into three categories. The first category, and also what I assume to be a small minority among the students were those who had intellectual and philosophical inclinations. These students I assume were classified under the category name “Brahmana”. The literal meaning of the term “Brahmana” in Sanskrit is “the one who can realize the Brahman” where the Brahman is another word for “supreme spirit”, in other words, Brahmins were highly spiritual and philosophical people who became the future ministers, priests, and accountants and the crème de la crème of this group became scientists, philosophers, future teachers (gurus) and spiritual leaders.

The second category, and what I assume to be another minority among the student body of the Gurukula (I make no attempt to compare the sizes of these two minorities) were those who showed distinctive leadership qualities. The students in this group may or may not have had higher intellectual abilities or an inclination towards physically demanding activities. This category would have been labeled “Kshatriya”. They were leaders capable of leading common folk in times of peace as well as at times of strife. They commonly joined the armies of various kingdoms as commanders or commanding officers and the crème de la crème among them became monarchs.

The majority of the student populations of the Gurukulas were those who neither had the higher intellectual inclinations of the Brahmins nor the leadership qualities of the Kshatriyas. But they were reasonably good students. They made up the general society. They became artisans, craftsmen and traders. They were the people who enabled their respective kingdoms to function as economically independent social units. This category of people was labeled the “Vaishyas”.

If I am right in my assumptions, I believe it would be safe to say that ancient India was a true meritocracy where merit of each and every individual in their respective fields was given paramount importance.

If you would notice, I have tried to leave out gender specific pronouns in this text of mine. For, it is my belief that Gurukulas used to cater to students of both sexes. Maybe this can be passed of as an author’s idealization of the past, but I do have the beginnings of a deduction to back my assumption. The Aryans were a nomadic tribe of people who invaded the Indian subcontinent. The Indian subcontinent was inhabited by Dravidians. It is my belief that the Gurukula system is a remnant of the Dravidian system of education which was copied by the Aryans and thus passed down to the Vedic peoples. Dravidians followed a religion which now forms a part of modern Hinduism, some call this religion tantra, and call its system of philosophy yoga. And one look at the tantric pantheon is enough to convince any person of reasonable intelligence that theirs was a matriarchal society. An examination of any matriarchal society, for example the pagan/wiccan society described by Marion Zimmer Bradley in her book “The Mists of Avalon” shows that although importance was given to the woman, men were not as subjugated as women are in our modern patriarchal society. Therefore I feel it is safe to draw a conclusion that Gurukulas catered to students of both genders.

Therefore, when the Aryans invaded India, it is likely that they copied the Gurukula system from the Dravidians but made one minor change – they excluded the girls. One major drawback I find in the Gurukula system is that, all control was left in the hands of the Brahmins. It is always unsafe to leave all the controls in the hands of one person or one particular elitist group. The result of that small folly is the modern hereditary caste system which provides advantages to nobody except power hungry and uncouth politicians.

Back then, the caste of a person was a measure of his abilities and aptitudes. But this modern abomination of the once useful and beautiful system is absolutely meaningless. In this day and age attempting to use the caste of a person to judge his/her aptitude would be akin to using the cubit (distance between tip of thumb and tip of little finger) as a scientific unit of measurement.

The only way in which we can abolish this system is by promoting quality education and providing it to even the poorest of the poor. Unless that is done, India can never become a truly developed nation.

DISCLAIMER:
I, THE AUTHOR OF THIS POST, DO NOT IN ANY WAY SUPPORT THE CASTE SYSTEM. I DIDN’T WRITE THIS TO OFFEND ANYONE, I WROTE IT WITH THE SOLE PURPOSE OF SHARING MY VIEWS ON ONE OF THE GRAVEST SOCIAL EVILS PLAGUING OUR COUNTRY.

Glorious India.

The hour was midnight, on the fifteenth of August, 1947. It was a great day for the people of India. It was the hour of victory for the people who lead the freedom struggle. It was the day that their efforts bore fruit. From that day on, India would be a free country. We still celebrate that day, every single year. But looking back from now, I see that day more as the day we began our fall; a day that marked the entry of our people into our own version of the dark ages. That was the day the Indian people began to descend and turn into the corrupt, mediocre, sentimental, narrow-minded, selfish, arrogant, pathetic and ridiculous people that we are.

Shocked? Well then, name one thing that was either invented or discovered in India ever since 1947. Alright if you don’t consider that criterion for a nation’s greatness, name one Indian who has contributed so much to his own field that he has improved the quality of life of those around him. If that too doesn’t satisfy you, and you still think that the Indian people are the greatest in the world, then I guess you can take pride in the fact that over three million Indian children do not have enough to eat and lead a life of malnourishment. Or maybe it may be a matter of great prestige for you to know that even though your country has the largest university campus in the world (Shantiniketan in west Bengal started by Rabindranath Tagore) and the oldest university in the world (University of Takshashila, 7th century BC to 460 AD), none of our universities is among the top 100 universities in the world. Or you could take pride in the fact that the people who once were the original discoverers of the speed of light (by Sayana 1315-1387 A.D) and the inventors of the number zero (by Brahmagupta in 628 AD) are now nowhere near the cutting edge of development in science and technology. And we have no respect what-so-ever for merit and neither do we truly know what merit is (most applicable to the Telugu people).

I have dedicated my previous post to ranting about how “The System” is to blame for our pathetic status. This post is all about us, the ordinary people of India or, “India ka aam janta” as they say in Hindi.

We have sunk so deep into the quagmire of mediocrity that we have become mediocre in almost every field, including cricket. We insist on retaining players just because they once were good even though we keep going through defeat after crushing defeat. And I needn’t go as far as the Indian cricket team. I wonder how many Indian citizens still are proud to be Indian. Because I know a lot of people from a wide variety of social/regional backgrounds who would happily sell their souls if that would enable them to buy the citizenship of another country (mostly the United States of America).

The state of affairs in India is pathetic, and matters have deteriorated so far that Indians aspire to become millionaires even though they do nothing. We expect people to give us things for no reason, we believe it is our right to avail free stuff, and sometimes we even demand it. In that sphere we have lost our sense of dignity and self esteem. We have deteriorated so far that some kid goes on national television and says that “cricket is our religion”, some other blighters say that the Indian cricket team has “betrayed” us. They talk as if they own the Indian cricket team. I wonder if any of those people who rail against the underperformance of the Indian cricket team have ever done anything in their lives with any degree of dedication; that is something I seriously doubt. One newspaper (national) has this to say about the Indian cricket fan:

“The cricket fan is a lazy, pampered know-nothing who thinks he owns the cricket teams that he supports…”
They then go on to say thus about the Indian cricket fan while comparing them with England's barmy army:

“They are different from our couch potatoes who never leave their rooms, never exert themselves except to find their remote controls and yet treat every Indian defeat as a conspiracy.”

This above quote can be paraphrased to apply to all the Indian people, and I am not going to do that. We Indians go about bitching that this is not right , or that is not proper, this politician didn’t deliver on his promises, or that person is corrupt, etc. Why the devil are these people thriving? It is because of our not-so-benign negligence. “I will not bother about it unless it directly affects me.” That is the attitude of the general public, if not that, it is, “leave it all to the government, they will take care.” We have to kick ourselves out of this lethargy and into action. Otherwise we will end up a land of zombies who are exploited by the smart few.

The only inference I can draw is that this trend is because almost every Indian aspires to become a millionaire without putting any effort into it. And that leads to corruption. And when a person indulges in this dastardly act, despite knowing that it is a dastardly act, it kills his soul. And when a person’s soul dies, this is exactly how he acts. Therefore if you have any humanity left in you, learn to work for what you wish to achieve.

I will not end this tirade with a screaming “jai hind” like a pontificating politician. Because no matter what I say, India will always remain a great country, for this land has given rise to many great souls like Mahatma Gandhi, Gautam Buddha, Akbar (the Mughal Emperor), Chanakya, etc. as I said, India will always be great, it is we Indians who have to live up to that name.

Swastika

History of the Swastika
The swastika is an extremely powerful symbol. The Nazis used it to identify themselves as Aryans and to unite Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria under the German banner and instill a sense of national pride, but for centuries it had positive meanings. What is the history of the swastika? Does it now represent good or evil?

The Oldest Known Symbol

The swastika is an ancient symbol that has been used for over 3,000 years. (That even predates the ancient Egyptian symbol, the Ankh!) Artifacts such as pottery and coins from ancient Troy show that the swastika was a commonly used symbol as far back as 1000 BCE.

During the following thousand years, the image of the swastika was used by many cultures around the world, including in China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. By the Middle Ages, the swastika was a well known, if not commonly used, symbol but was called by many different names:

* China - wan
* England - fylfot
* Germany - Hakenkreuz
* Greece - tetraskelion and gammadion
* India - swastika

Though it is not known for exactly how long, Native Americans also have long used the symbol of the swastika.

The Original Meaning

The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.

Until the Nazis used this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.Even in the early twentieth century, the swastika was still a symbol with positive connotations. For instance, the swastika was a common decoration that often adorned cigarette cases, postcards, coins, and buildings. During World War I, the swastika could even be found on the shoulder patches of the American 45th Division and on the Finnish air force until after World War II.

A Change in Meaning

In the 1800s, countries around Germany were growing much larger, forming empires; yet Germany was not a unified country until 1871. To counter the feeling of vulnerability and the stigma of youth, German nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century began to use the swastika, because it had ancient Aryan/Indian origins, to represent a long Germanic/Aryan history.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be found on nationalist German volkisch periodicals and was the official emblem of the German Gymnasts' League.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism and could be found in a multitude of places such as the emblem for the Wandervogel, a German youth movement; on Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels' antisemitic periodical Ostara; on various Freikorps units; and as an emblem of the Thule Society.

The Origin of the Swastika

The ubiquity of the swastika symbol is easily explained by it being a very simple symbol that will arise independently in any basketweaving society. The swastika is a repeating design, created by the edges of the reeds in a square basket-weave. Other theories attempt to establish a connection via cultural diffusion or an explanation along the lines of Carl Jung's collective unconscious.

While the existence of the swastika symbol in the Americas may be explained by the basket-weave theory, its American presence weakens the cultural diffusion theory. While some have proposed that the swastika was secretly transferred to North America by an early seafaring civilization on Eurasia, a separate but parallel development is considered the most likely explanation.

Yet another explanation is suggested by Carl Sagan in his book Comet. Sagan reproduces an ancient Chinese manuscript that shows comet tail varieties: most are variations on simple comet tails, but the last shows the comet nucleus with four bent arms extending from it, recalling a swastika. Sagan suggests that in antiquity a comet could have approached so close to Earth that the jets of gas streaming from it, bent by the comet's rotation, became visible, leading to the adoption of the swastika as a symbol across the world.

Bob Kobres in Comets and the Bronze Age Collapse (1992) contends that the swastika-like comet on the Han Dynasty silk comet atlas was labeled a "long tailed pheasant star" due to its resemblance to a bird's foot., and further suggests that many swastika and swastika-like motifs may have been representations of bird tracks, including many of those found by Schliemann.

Barbara G. Walker, author of The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, claims that the crux dissimulata, an early swastika, represented the four winds. Concerning the short-armed version of this symbol, known as the gammadion because it is made up of four Greek gammas, Walker says this symbol was an emblem of the ancient goddess and probably represented "the solstices and equinoxes, or the four directions, four elements, and four divine guardians of the world."

The Man on the Indian Street

It is with great pride and gusto that we have entered the 21st century. On the fifteenth of august 2007, we will proudly celebrate the 60th year of independent India. Politicians will stand on the podium at the Raj-Path and watch defense personnel march past them. Many people will appear on many television channels and speak highly about the progress of our nation and the glory of our nation. After the party has ended and the high and mighty have gone back into their castles, the man on the street is left standing where he always was, on the street. The hype and the glamour have brought no change to his life, except maybe the confetti that now clutters his street.

The man on the street was there even in 1947, at that fateful midnight hour, when India was declared a free country, a sovereign state. His eyes were full of hope, hope for a better future, but now he is still standing there and the hope is fading from his eyes. He harks back to the past, a broken man he is now, "if only", he thinks, "if only I was an only child, and not one among twelve, if only I had a job, if only..."

Such is the plight of many a youth in our allegedly glorious country. Though employment has improved over the years thanks to the IT industry, the number of unemployed youths has shot up. This is because of our booming, burgeoning population. Yes, I did call ours an "allegedly glorious country". And yes I do believe that the glory is an allegation with little truth in it. How can a country be glorious, if the people who grow the country's food- the farmers commit suicide? How can we be glorious, if on one hand we raise the image of a simple man by the name of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by using superlatives like "Mahatma" and "father of our nation" and on the other hand exhibit an open and blatant disregard for his ideals?

The blame for this lies on two systems, one is our system of administration, the other is our system of education. Fine, both are huge systems, both are shouldering an immensely large burden fairly well and they are producing results. Lets tackle the system of administration first.

Our system of administration is what one would call a "top-down" administration. That is, there is one person at the top, he/she has some people under him/her to assist him/her and these "minions" have other people under them to assist them, and thats how it goes down all the way to the bottom. What does this mean? Well, it means that the man on the street has no real power. Oh yeah, this is a democracy, and that means that people rules themselves, and we have the wonderful lines written in the preamble to our constitution (borrowed from the constitution of the USA) which starts with the words "...for the people, by the people, to the people...". Pardon my insight but that is a fairytale that every Indian is made to believe. A caption that would say "by the politicians, for the politicians, to the politicians" would be more apt for whats happening in our country today.

Is there an alternate system that can be put into place? Oh yeah there is. That would be whats called a "bottom-up" system. Basically that puts all the power in the hands of the people at what Mahatma Gandhi called the grass-root level. There will be a person above his level and he will have control over only those matters that fall under 2 or more grass-root administrators, this system goes on to the top where the head of state has control over generalized things like national security, the economy, foreign affairs and so on. This system puts real power in the hands of the man on the street.

If this system is so good, why isn't it already in place? Well, when India got independace, and Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India, he didn't think it was necessary to change the system of administration that the British had set up, so he let it be. And the British had set up this for one purpose alone, to loot this country. And Nehru's successors, saw that this system was beneficial to their own power hungry and money hungry needs, so they too didn't change it.

Now lets tackle our education system. Yes, we think we have the best one in the world. Then why is it that none of our Universities (even the much hyped and overrated IITs) aren't in the top ten or even the top twenty Universities of the world? The reason- they are all seriously overrated. Take a peek into any of the schools in India, in Andhra Pradesh in particular. The first thing that is drilled into the head of the student is "don't use your head, learn whats in the book by heart and write only that". It is this edict that stifles and throttles any creative spark in any child, and snuffs it out. If there is no creative spark, there is no avenue for innovation, and a graduate without any avenue for innovation is a substandard graduate.

Furthermore, the Indian education system in general places emphasis on Mathematics and the Sciences, Social Sciences, especially History take a back seat and are often brushed aside as being useless. The result of this is a batch of students who have no national pride. The historians of our country are partially to blame for this. They write their history books with such high flown language, and in such a boring matter-of-fact manner that all the thrill and excitement is taken out of them. The Arts are another casualty of this system. Languages and fine arts take a serious beating, and English and Hindi and other languages like Sanskrit and so on are learnt "just because they are in the curriculum". And fine arts like painting and music aren't even taken seriously. Why? Because they don't carry marks. The result is a gaudy society with no sense of art or style what-so-ever, ugly buildings that make any international tourist want to puke, and many other things that cant be mentioned for sake of decency.

The result is a society that hankers after wealth and nothing else, their attempts to appear modern, open-minded and cosmopolitan often result in vulgarity and garishness and they have a total disregard for anyone but themselves. They have very shallow ideals, and they are easily swayed by politicians and god-men who are seldom true to their word.

Therefore we think we have to blame the system of Administration and the system of Education for the plight of the man on the street, but ultimately, the blame lies with us, because we have allowed these flawed systems to exist for the past 59 years.

The Speed of Light as in an Ancient Indian Text

The Speed of Light

The speed of light was determined by Roemer in 1675. Recently it has been pointed out that an ancient Sanskrit text of 14th century contains the value of the speed of light that is identical to the modern value. Sayana (1315-1387 A.D.) was a very famous Vedic scholar. He was the prime minister in the court of Emperor Bukka I and his successors of the Vijayanagara Empire. In his commentary on the following verse in the Rigveda he gives the value for the speed of light.

"O Sun! You see all, create brightness and travel very fast. You brighten the whole sky." Rigveda 1.50.4

Sayana comments: "It is remembered that Sun traverses 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesa."

It is to be noted that Bhatta Bhaskara (probably in 10th century) made the same statement in his commentary on Taittiriya Brahmana. He says this to be an old Puranic tradition.

Yojana is an ancient unit of length. Arthasastra defines it as being equal to 8,000 dhanus(a dhanu is approximately equal to 1.81 meters), which is equivalent to 14.481 kilometers. Nimesa is an ancient unit of time. One nimesa is equal to 16/75 seconds. Thus 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesa is equal to 298942.143 kilometers per second after conversion. This is very close to the value of 299792.458 kilometers per second for the speed of light. Why would Sayana call this the speed of the Sun? The speed of the Sun calculated by Indian astronomers was very small compared to this value. It turns out that Sayana was following the ancient Indian tradition of codifying the knowledge. In this code Sun represents light. The discovery of this code is described in the book “Vedic Physics: Scientific Origin of Hinduism”.

This subject has been discussed in detail in a scholarly article ("The Speed of Light and Puranic Cosmology", Subhash Kak, "Computing Science in Ancient India", editors T. R. N. Rao and Subhash Kak, 1998, pp 80-90).

I HAD COPIED THIS INFORMATION LONG AGO FROM A WEBSITE ONTO A PIECE OF PAPER. THEREFORE I HAVE NO WAY OF MENTIONING THE SOURCE OF THIS INFORMATION. ALL NUMERIC DATA IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT WAS EXPRESSED IN TERMS OF THE BRITISH SYSTEM OF UNITS WHICH I CONVERTED INTO THE SI SYSTEM FOR EASE OF READING