Skip to main content

Shadows Rising #3 -From the Cutting Floor - The Caste System

  This is the 3rd  in a series of posts written originally as part of 'Curse of the Yaksha' aka 'Shadows Rising' but that were dropped from the final version. This piece is about the caste system in India.

The Caste system is a social hierarchy that has been prevalent in India since ancient times (2500 -3000 years), according to some sources.

For context, particularly non-Hindu readers, there were four broad categories in the caste system: 

o Brahmans - Scholars /Sages

o Kshatriyas - Warriors

o Vaishyas - Farmers, Traders, Merchants

o Shudras - Manual Labour

Although there are four main castes, thousands of sub-castes further divide India's people. Additionally, there is a separate caste who aren't considered part of the system at all – the Untouchables or Dalits. They are shunned by society and forbidden to live amongst those of high castes. They handle the jobs the rest of the castes refuse to do, such as cleaning latrines, manual scavenging, prostitution, animal slaughter, leather crafting etc.

(The Caste system was officially abolished in India in 1950. Discrimination based on caste is banned by law, but it unoficially still exists in India today.)

During the Pandavas' exile in the forest, they encounter a giant snake that traps Yudhishthir's brothers. The snake is Nahusha, an ancestor of the Pandavas. He was cursed to remain in that form until he got satisfactory answers to his questions.

Here is the most important part of that conversation (as mentioned in the Vana parva in a section called Yaksha Prashna)

Nahusha: ’Who is a brahmin?’

Yudhishthir: ’One who possesses the qualities of truthfulness, charity, forgiveness, good conduct, mercy, and who observes the duties of the brahmins is a brahmin.’

Nahusha: A Shudra, too, can possess these qualities.

Yudhishthir: If these qualities are found in a Shudra, he should be considered a brahmin. The actual possession of these qualities makes a person a brahmin, and the lack of them makes the person a Shudra.

Nahusha: If a person's caste is determined by qualities alone and not by birth, then how can the caste of a child be determined?

Yudhishthir: One does not belong to any caste by birth. Everyone is a Shudra at the time of birth. Only after the appearance of these qualities can the determination be made if a person is a brahmin or not. 'Thus, it is solely by qualities and not birth that one should be considered a brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya or Shudra.

TL DR: Your caste is determined by your actions, not your birth. This is one of the most fundamentally misunderstood ideas today since most people continue to believe that their family line and genealogy determine their caste. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rohan is an amateur photographer, an open water scuba diver, a mountaineer, an obsessive bibliophile, an intrepid traveller and a highly successful mutilator of the Spanish and French languages (often at the same time), a consultant in the fields of market research, client partnerships and Artificial Intelligence, an author, and more recently, a dad. Among other hobbies, he can also lay claim to half-baked cooking attempts (no pun intended), chess, computer gaming, badminton, swimming,board gaming, indoor wall climbing, poker, adventure sports, reading fantasy novels, and a string of other very forgettable endeavours. His first novel Keep Calm and Go Crazy - a true story of how he met his wife, was published by Harper Collins India in 2016. His second published piece was a short horror story The School that featured in the Best Asian Speculative Fiction of 2018 anthology. Curse of the Yaksha is his latest novel which is an Urban Fantasy series set in modern day Mumbai. Roha...

An Article by the Asian Review

 https://asian-reviews.com/2025/03/11/fiction-mirrors-the-truths-emotions-and-complexities-of-the-world-we-inhabit-rohan-monteiro/   Fiction mirrors the truths, emotions, and complexities of the world we inhabit.” Rohan Monteiro By dhanukadickwella on 11 Mar 2025 • ( Leave a comment ) Q: Not everyone writes, nor can everyone write. Tell us what inspired you to pick up a pen and start writing, along with a brief introduction of yourself. A: It was 2014. I had just learned I was going to be a dad. I was at that point a research consultant in Singapore in a job and role that wasn’t going anywhere. I felt I needed to do something with my life that my kid (s) would look up to. Something that felt more meaningful instead of sitting in an office all day. That’s when I decided to write a book. My name is Rohan Monteiro, and my first non-fiction novel, ‘Keep Calm and Go Crazy’, was published in 2015 by HarperCollins. My most recent book was relea...

Fantasy Land and people are dicks!!

 When I was a kid, something happened that I still remember. Maybe kid is the wrong word — I was in 9th grade, so not exactly small and cuddly but not really an adult either. Was just learning how to deal with the idea that the world is full of all sorts of people. Some could be nice, some could be massive dicks. Case in point, we were at Fantasy Land — an amusement park in Mumbai. My first visit there -I was very excited. There were 5 of us — 2 older aunts and me and my two male cousins My two older cousins did not like the idea of babysitting me — they were a year and 2 years older and decided they would ditch me. I remember being afraid — that I would not find my way back. I had no money, no water, I was thirsty and till today I have no sense of direction. I also remember feeling rejected. I wanted the approval of my older cousins, and here they were, running away. I am not built for anger. I knew even then that if I met them again, I would not be angry with them — maybe I shoul...