Does Bhagavad Gita support caste system?

 

Lord Krishna (Right) blessing to Arjuna (left)

People love to read through various religious doctrines and holy books for the sake of acquiring knowledge related to idealism and perfectness. This act can be correlated with the daily task of purifying yourself or abstaining from all sorts of Dirt (bad qualities). Idealism can’t be achieved in a single day you have to apply those learned qualities in your practical life.

Whenever someone discusses about visionary thoughts the first words that penetrate my mind is “BHAGAVAD GITA”. People say “If you are facing a predicament that you find difficult to deal with then you search for answers in Bhagavad Gita".

This sacred text is considered as a record of God’s (Bhagwan) own words that preaches about idealistic thoughts and give us a precise knowledge regarding Dharma and karma. With generations, this holy book received worldwide praise. People love the ideas it propagates but some of them did criticize it for one basic reason.

Gita updesh in kurukshetra war.

THE FOUR FOLD VARNA SYSTEM OR THE CASTE SYSTEM

Image source : Google | image by: Shrikanth Krishnamachary

Nowadays, in the world of science and rationality, people tend to show their disapproval against various customs and traditions of a religion. A certain group of people is fond of raising questions against the religious practices of a particular community. These people are usually termed as atheists who love to criticize the concept of religion without knowing the base of theology. Hinduism suffers tremendous backlash due to caste discrimination and idol worshipping. But today’s topic is on the caste system and what Gita says about it.

First of all, we should know the difference between the caste system and caste discrimination.

The caste system is a sort of social hierarchy that is prevalent in society, and it didn’t affect the harmony of a civilization until and unless discrimination started to happen among people.

Bhagavad Gita never propagates about Caste discrimination but it had the records of the caste system and how it was misinterpreted by selective religious figures due to which poor people faced discrimination and oppression from the higher sections of the society for a lot of years

“catur – varnyam maya srstam guna karma vibhagasah

Tasya kartaram api mam viddhy akartaram avyayam”

4:13. The system of four-fold Varnas was generated by me according to the division of Gunas (qualities) and karma (deeds). Though I am the generator know me as a non-doer and immutable.

“brahmana ksatriya visam sudranam ca parantapa

Karmani pravibhaktani svabhava prabhavir gunaih”

18:41. The duties of the Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras  O Arjuna is divided according to their innate temperament.

 I had already divulged that caste system is natural in every civilization until and unless people started to discriminate and oppress each other and think of it as there holy duty. Gita has a different approach regarding the four-fold varna system.

Since our childhood days, we have been seeing that the caste or “varna” of a particular person is determined by his/her birth and this perception is the root cause for discrimination prevailing in our society. A community where Dalits are still not allowed to visit temples just because they belong to a lower class, doesn’t it sounds unfair?

lord Krishna meeting Arjuna.

The Bhagavad Gita contradicts the idea and says that “ A person’s caste is determined by his nature of thoughts and karma, not by his heredity or birth” which means a person’s nature of thoughts or temperament will ascertain a person’s caste.

Let's simplify it further.

 There are three different types of “nature of thoughts”:

A)   1) Tamasic

B)   2)  Rajasic

C)    3) Satvic

TAMASIC: People who adhere to the tamasic nature of thoughts are dull, infilled with laziness, and don’t have the intent to work hard for prospering in their life. They underestimate the significance of hard work and struggle, due to which the people who fall in this category never achieve any sort of success in their life.

Those who keep this type of thought fall in the category of “SHUDRA” i.e a person who doesn’t like the idea of getting educated and disagrees with the ideology of hard work and diligence.

RAJASIC: People who adhere to the Rajasic nature of thoughts generally desires for power, money, and fame which shows that they work hard for themselves and think about themselves and their family. People who fall in this category are said to be “KSHATRIYAS” and “VAISHYAS”. Kshatriyas(warriors) strive for power and Vaishyas (businessman) struggle to earn more money. They don’t think much about the problems and the sufferance of society.

SATVIC: People who stick themselves to the Satvic nature of thoughts are more concerned about mankind around them and get themselves busy with the social work. People who fall into this category instill their cerebrum with all sorts of knowledge that can help in the betterment of society. Their deeds are equivalent to the status of a Brahman.

If we take a closer look at this classification we can say that all these thoughts are present in every human being irrespective of color, race, or heredity. As a teen, we never like the idea of working hard we rely on our parents for our necessities and we seldom plan a goal for ourselves, we waste our time by playing video games, scrolling through Facebook newsfeeds and get ourselves involved in innumerable jobs that don’t have any usefulness. At this stage of life, we embrace the Tamasic nature of thoughts and we literally waste our time.

Now a drastic change happened inside us, all of a sudden we get serious about earning a few bucks so that we can fulfill our materialistic desires and this resulted in a change in our perception regarding life. We worked hard and we earned a few bucks and we feel proud of ourselves. This stage of life is falling into the category of the Rajasic nature of thoughts.

After earning loads of money you started to think about learning new things that can be beneficial to you or you think about the betterment of society. Then people like Sonu Sood comes into action. During the initial days ( he still helps people) of the COVID 19 pandemic  Sonu Sood helped a lot of migrant workers by managing transportation services for them so that they can reach there home safely. This type of person falls in the category of the Satvic nature of thoughts.

What can we conclude from this explanation?

image source : Google | image by :Rey HS

We can conclude that a Kshatriya can also, become a shudra if he never takes his life seriously and sticks himself with the tamasic nature of thoughts, on the contrary, a shudra can become a Brahman if he educates himself with all sorts of knowledge so that he can apply his wits for the betterment of society.

In a nutshell this ongoing caste system that more or less turned into caste discrimination is a hoax or made up system by the ancient civilization.

Jai Shree Ram.