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I'm just listening to my voicemails, and I found one here that might interest you.
“Hello, Dr. Miano. Myself Siddharth from India. My question is regarding the varna
system in ancient Vedic India. Now, the word varna in Sanskrit literally means color.
Now, from what I know, the pre-Aryan peoples of the Indian subcontinent, which is to say the
inhabitants of the Harappan civilization, as well as other inhabitants, were dark-skinned, whereas
the migrating Aryans had a lighter skin tone. Now, from the Aryan migration theory, we know that the
migrating Aryans had got mixed up with the local populations of the Indian subcontinent. Now if
this is so, why would the system of hierarchy be based on color? Was it actually based on color,
or is it a simple misunderstanding? Could you please throw some light into this? Thank you.”
Was the varna system during the Vedic period based on skin color,
or was it a misunderstanding? An interesting question. Thank you for sending it.
Before we get into the possible racial aspect of the varna system, let me explain what varna is
to my viewers who don’t know. It refers to group identities in society, commonly called castes in
English. Varna is perhaps better understood as ritual status. A hierarchy of status exists in
Indian society, with Brahmins (priests) considered the highest and purest, then Kshatriyas (warrior
aristocrats), then Vaishyas (cultivators and traders), and then Shudras (laborers).
Being at the top of the hierarchy, the Brahmins not only have control over ritual,
but also are considered the most ritually pure. According to the Brahmins themselves,
the varna system was created in primeval times and has remained virtually unchanged ever since.
Historians, on the other hand, are of the opinion that the varna system developed over time.
In order for a society to develop with divisions like this, there need to be three preconditions:
First, the society must have social disparities. Most societies do. Second,
there has to be an unequal distribution of economic resources in that society. And third,
the inequality needs to be legitimized by those in power and made irreversible,
and a common way to do this is by virtue of supernatural authority.
All of this usually happens gradually, becoming more solidified and more complex over time.
The Vedas are our oldest corpus of texts for South Asia. So what did varna mean during the Vedic age?
We find the term varna, which does as you say literally mean “color,”
mentioned in the Rigveda, the oldest of the Vedas, a total of 22 times. 17 of
the references are with respect to the devas, or deities, such as Agni, Usha,
etc. Varna in the context of devas could mean complexion, luster, or features.
For example, in hymn 34 of book III of the Rigveda:
It says the goddess Dawn, or Usha’s, “shukla varna” (original Sanskrit meaning fair
complexion) widely spread or increases. This could have a double meaning. It could mean
Indra made Usha shine brighter thus increasing the whiteness, or it could refer to the bard’s white
complexion. Regardless of the interpretation, the description is of an otherworldly event,
hence we should be cautious in interpreting the meaning of varna as one referring to skin
pigmentation. Only five times the term varna was used in Rigveda with reference to humans.
In Rigveda book IX, hymn 71 :
In this hymn, the poet talks about the “hue” of the Asuras, which could refer to a form.
Asuras are seen as possessing magical qualities and could change their color,
shift shapes, and take multiple forms, hence varna in this context could refer to form.
But as you can see, the usage of the word is open to interpretation.
Significantly, and there is consensus among scholars about this, the word varna in the
Vedas isn’t used in reference to the four varnas as we understand them today. We find
the earliest known mention of the four groups of the varna system in the 10th Mandala (or book)
of the Rigveda, known as the Purusha Sukta, but it doesn’t use the word varna. The hymn says:
According to the hymn, from the body parts of the Purusha, or the divine cosmic being,
the Brahmanas, Kshatriyas (termed Rajanya in this case), Vaishyas, and Shudras were
created. This is the only time the terms Vaishya and Shudra are used in the Rigveda.
There are doubts that the Purusha Sukta was a part of the original Rigveda,
some considering it a later medieval addition, as the Sanskrit of the hymn
was more refined and “modern” than the Sanskrit of the rest of the Rigveda.
Even so, the socio-political divisions mentioned in this passage are not connected with varna
at this point. Another term often translated as caste is jati. But this is not the same as varna,
although they do overlap. The number of jatis is so many that it is difficult to count them, and
the hierarchical structure of jatis is not uniform nor consistent from region to region. Jatis exist
both within and outside of Hinduism. The term jati derives from the word for “birth,” and it suggests
social divisions based on kinship. Although it is difficult to know for sure, many scholars
think that kinship-based divisions came before varna and may have existed in the Vedic period.
There are forest dwellers in South Asia that have kinship-based divisions, but do not have varna,
and this might be a clue that jati did not derive from varna but had a separate origin.
Socio-political divisions that are believed to be very early include the jana, vish, grama, griha,
and kula. Jana translates to tribe, vish refers to a clan, grama in modern Sanskrit means village
but in the Rigvedic context the reference was to a mobile group of individuals, kula meant a family,
and the head of the family was known as the kulapati. Griha meant abode or home.
Looking at this from a developmental perspective, kinship based groupings,
the elements of jati, would have formed at the time when social disparities emerged.
Varna would have come later, with new attitudes about authority and prescribed rules about access
to resources. This is hypothetical, of course, but based on what we have seen in other cultures.
Megasthenes, a Greek who visited India in the 4th century BCE,
referred to seven broad divisions in their society without indicating that
these divisions were based on the idea of purity. The most respected group,
he says, are the “philosophers,” and in that group he places the brahmins,
but also shramanas (ascetics), who are associated with Jainism and Buddhism, rather than Hinduism.
Some scholars suspect the change in the meaning of the varnas took place after the Vedic age, during
the time the Dharma-shastras were being written, in the early centuries CE. Other scholars are
not certain when this change took place, but overall most historians agree the varna system
didn’t exist in the Vedic age. The varna system was non-existent or in its embryonic stage.
The varna system was elaborated further in the Dharma-shastras, which are treatises on Hindu law,
in which the duties of the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras are discussed. Those who
belonged to the varna system were known as “savarna”, and those who fell outside the
varna system were known as “avarna.” You can say the avarna were the outcastes of the society,
though modern scholarship suggests the outcastes were not the same as untouchables
seen in the later caste system in India. Are there any references in early texts
to the varna system being based on skin color? Not really, no.
We find one shloka from the Mahabharata (12.181.5) that says the brahmins are white,
kshatriyas red, vaishyas yellow, and shudras black. The description is hardly literal. Here
the writer is talking about the four varnas with respect to their qualities or gunas.
Brahmins were said to possess sattvic qualities, which were associated with leading
an austere life, hence the color white was used. Kshatriyas possessed rajasic or regal qualities,
associated with an active lifestyle that desired material wealth and glory, symbolized by red.
Vaishyas were supposed to have a mix of both rajasic and sattvic qualities, hence yellow.
Shudras were associated with tamasic qualities, which involved a poor lifestyle such as living in
areas low in light and eating in the darkness, and hence they were assigned the color black.
Another thing to think about is that, today,
we find a variety of skin tones in the same varna. You can find dark-skinned Brahmins
and fair-skinned shudras. If varna is based on skin color, how can that be?
So how did the idea of varna having racial connotations arise?
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Orientalists, in British India, used battles
described in the Rigveda, between the Aryans and Dasas, Dasyus, and Panis to float the idea that
varna referred to skin tone. The scholars viewed the conflict between the “Aryans” and the “Dasas
and Dasyus” as one between a race of light-skinned Caucasian-looking people who defeated and
subjugated a “dark-skinned” native populace of India. Orientalists described the natives of
India as savages and bereft of any sophisticated culture and civilization. This line of thought
was popular among European intellectual spheres in the 19th century. They believed a mythical
race of “Aryans” ruled the earth and brought civilization to India, Persia, and Europe.
The idea was to justify the British takeover of India as:
Hey look, we are just like your ancestors in your holy texts.
The objective of the scholarship was to create a common bond between the Hindu majority and
the British. Prior to the writings of the 19th-century orientalists, the idea that
Aryas were light-skinned people who introduced religion and culture to India did not exist.
The term “Aryan” was derived from the Vedic word “Arya”, which means noble. Arya had nothing to do
with the color of one’s skin, or ethnicity, but with the qualities of an individual.
19th-century orientalists used several physical identifiers
in the Rigveda to conclude that Arya were a different racial group than the
un-Arya (the Sanskrit term for non-Aryans, often equated with the indigenous tribes of India).
The Rigveda describes the Dasas as dark,
but is the term literal? Some scholars argue the term “dark” is figurative, as in dark arts, rather
than literally dark-skinned. Dasas and Dasyus are described as people who lacked the noble practices
of the Arya, such as rituals, leading a virtuous life and taking part in sacrifices. Hence,
from the point of view of the Aryas, the term “dark” would refer to practices they viewed as
unfit for society, rather than the complexion of people. There are some instances where the Dasas
do appear to be described as having literal dark-skin, but those instances are rare.
Another physical characteristic that was used by Max Mueller, a noted 19th-century Orientalist,
is the term “anasa”, to describe the enemy of the Aryas. Mueller interpreted the term from “a-nasa”,
meaning noseless, or flat-nosed compared to the sharp-nosed Aryans.
As many indigenous tribes of India have a differently shaped nose than the sharper
features associated with some Caucasian people, Mueller viewed the descriptions
of Dasas in racial terms. We must keep in mind that during the 19th century, racial science was
a thing where humans were classified based on skin tones, skull shapes, and nasal features.
The theories of racial science have been discarded now, but back then they were a hot topic.
Hence Mueller’s interpretation of “anasa” as flat-nosed indigenous people,
who were being attacked by a sharp-featured Indo-Aryan invader, was a product of the age.
There are alternative meanings for “anasa” proposed by historians. One interpretation is
that it means mouthless or faceless. Now a human will not be faceless, hence scholars suggest it
could mean someone whose speech was not clear. The exact meaning of a-nasa is still debated.
My point is that the term Dasa or Dasyu or Pani does not appear to refer to a race. Now,
I have in past videos made a point of saying, Oh look, some of the Dasas were dark-skinned,
as compared to the Indo-Aryans who came into India. And yes, that will be true in many cases,
but my point is that the term Dasa or Dasyu or Pani does not appear to refer to a race. Okay?
In modern scholarship, there is consensus that
the differences between Arya and Dasas were cultural and linguistic.
Dasas had different rites, speech, and deities and allegedly resorted to magic. They probably
included people of different complexions. They probably included people of different languages.
They possessed great strength and owned a lot of cattle. They differed culturally
from the Aryas. Some scholars suggest they were earlier waves of Indo-Aryan migrants
to the subcontinent who had abandoned their ancestral ways of living and worship. Other
scholars say that the Dasas were proto-Scythian people. Some historians have also proposed that
Dasas were an Indo-Iranian tribe known as the Dahae that lived north of present-day Iran.
To summarize, there is no evidence of a varna system during the Vedic Age. Varna
in the Vedas referred to a variety of things including complexion, luster, brightness,
or form. The descriptions were not always static and often talked about supernatural events. Varnas
as we know them probably started emerging in the second half of the first millennium
BCE. Throughout most of Indian history, varna was probably not associated with skin color.
Racial connotations to varna were assigned in the 19th century by Orientalists who imagined
a dark-skinned indigenous population being subjugated by a white-skinned invading people.
And I admit I placed too much emphasis on this point in a previous video I did,
"Did Civilization Begin in India?" I do think the evidence is clear that the
different tones of skin in India are the result of genetic mixing. There's no doubt about that.
But was it connected with varna? Was it connected with a clear-cut division
between the skin color of Aryans and the skin color of Dasas? No.
I hope that answered your question. And if any of you watching would like to have a question
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