‘Dharma kshetra kurukshetra’
‘The natural law decides what your battleground is’, Bhagwad Gita.
Caste system: Another tragedy of misinterpretation
Hinduism’s caste system is a tragedy of Greek proportions, one which is reviled across the world and rightly so. As the modern Hindu, intellectual and layman alike knows it, society was once divided into five castes: the Brahmins (priests), the Kshatriyas (kings), Vaishyas (businessmen), Shudras (labourers), and the Malecchas (Untouchables). Birth, family and heredity determined your caste and hence your position or status in society. This rigid societal division was a harmful tool to discriminate, exclude and eliminate. It is of significance even in our twenty-first century India, where if many pernicious aspects have gone away, some still remain. Hardliners and loyalists of this tool for discrimination still frown upon Inter-caste marriages, among other such things. In a strange redemption, the supposed lower castes today demand and hold such special reservation in education and employment that the higher castes now feel the burn and revolt.
It is heartbreaking to realise that this vicious structure is a dangerous reduction, a meaning-robbing oversimplification of the original idea. When it was originally conceived, caste was related to Dharma; one’s natural duty. Hence caste was one’s natural place, natural position in society. Let us first understand what Dharma implies.
What is Dharma?
Dharma is a loaded word, with as many meanings as the dictionary will allow. Colloquially, at its most banal, it implies religion. For social morality it means law and duty. Online definitions of dharma describe it as “eternal cosmic law” or “ethical conduct and righteousness”. Dharma has found copious mention in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religions, as a wide variety of principles. From rituals and rites of passage, to virtue and conduct, to duties and also to law and justice. Frankly, the mention of dharma evokes somber, stoic feelings, doesn’t it? You suddenly feel guilty about not being righteous, good and pious enough. You feel you are not doing enough, that you are falling short of some lofty ideal. I could have served my family, my community better, you think. I could have been a better son and father, a better employee and leader, a better human. As with all things related to religion, even remotely, emotional and societal pressures arise at the mere mention of dharma. Do you ever feel you are up to it? Up to the lofty ideal of dharma, whatever that may mean?
As with all things related to religion, the monster of oversimplification has chewed the concept of dharma to bits. It has lost its real meaning, only its shadows float around. Over time, dharma has become strongly dogmatic. Now it is about following the letter of law, for the sake of it. Just because it is. It is about adhering because adherence in itself seems to ensure some moral merit. Does it really? I am not sure at all.
Also, it seems to mean the same law for everyone, alike. That seems logical, but is it?
No. Not at all.
In the book ‘Marriage of heaven and hell’, William Blake says “One law for the lion and the ox is oppression”. The problem is that dharma does not imply law as we understand it, it actually means ‘natural law’. Also, the word ‘law’ hardly means that you follow a set of rules which are etched in stone. That is dogma.
Dharma accurately translates as ‘the organic, intrinsic way of being’. Lions will hunt for prey, queen bees alone will feed on royal jelly, excluding the entire colony. Sterile ants will forage, protect the nest and die without procreating. A female mite will lay eggs without fertilizing them and copulate with its own children. That is the law of nature.
You have a way of being, you will flourish only when you are being exactly who you are supposed to be. More importantly, if you depart from it, you will suffer, sooner or later. Inevitably.
All right that, for different species, but we humans, all of us have the same dharma, don’t we? No, not really.
Dharma is your operating system type. Our pre-installed software.
Nature has divided our specie into five types of sub-species, as the Vedas tell us. Five different categories of individuals, with contra distinct operating systems. Simon Chokoisky defines ‘dharma’ as our individual operating systems in his book “The five dharma types”. He has translated the ill-understood Vedas in an educated, insightful manner. He has read deeply between the lines to give us a fresh, useful, benevolent perspective.
His book is a rightful, well-deserved blow to the misunderstood caste system of today’s Hinduism.
Simon tells us that these five ‘dharma types’ emerge by virtue of birth. You are born as a dharma type, and even though you may choose to take on other roles in your lifetime, you will constitutionally remain your birth type. It is a congenital condition, permanent. The chances of misunderstanding this as genetic heredity or legacy arises here, so we must clear that. Dharma has little connection with heredity and genetic lineage. That is a gross misunderstanding which came from unintelligent people who oversimplified, or maybe from malicious, power- hungry people who wanted to rule.
Genetics does not dictate our dharma types, our individual collection of samskaras does. Remember the bank vault of samskaras we carry, from one birth to another? We exhaust some and add new ones along the way, in each lifetime. This becomes clear when you think deeply about how children differ from both their parents even if there is a resemblance at one level. Of course, nurture plays a role, but please pay attention to the many deviations all around you. A brilliant doctor’s son might not necessarily have the same inclination nor aptitude. You may share some samskaras with your parents, but your individual bank-vault of samskaras is fiercely distinct. It is a collection from lifetimes, it dictates all your every tendencies, desires and actions.
The thing is that it is easy and simple to classify and arrange people based on heredity. Simplification is important for understanding, but oversimplification is a curse. Our modern caste system is exactly that, it has been dangerously oversimplified. It is a liability, a shame to the truth. Dharma has been reduced to a disturbing cultural artifact.
The son of a king need not necessarily become a king, nor the son of a potter a potter. That is not dharma. Dharma, the original type, one which meant inherent operating- system, was an efficient way to organise society in the Vedic civilization. The far wiser Vedic society wanted to foster optimal self- expression so that every individual could reach his potential. They also did it for every one to find their individual purposes and align with it. This way they could contribute to society, to the world to the best of their potentials and also feel fulfilled. You see, following Dharma or natural law is essential for fulfillment. Professional, personal, existential. Whichever.
The five dharma types in Vedic society were of equivalent status, like five limbs of an organism which lifted and supported each other in their ‘natural service’. Service towards the efficient functioning and progress of the community, the society, the nation. Progress towards its highest end- goal, that of collective Yogic evolution. To rise above the human condition, to a post-human, suffering-free state. The inclinations, aptitudes, skills and mind-sets of these dharma types is and should be different. So their roles and purposes should be distinct too.
One was not better than another in any way as modern translations seem to say. If Vedas said they emerged from the body of Brahma, who said his legs were inferior to his forehead? Someone who grossly oversimplified it.
True dharma is non-heritable, non hierarchical, and non -transferable.
To tell you the truth, it is pop-wisdom, just inspirational psycho-babble to think you can be and do anything you might wish to. No. You take birth as a particular dharma type, with your peculiar operating system pre-installed, and it will serve you best to align with it. There are billions in today’s world who work at jobs they should not be doing. Not only are they limiting their potentials, they remain unfulfilled.
The five dharma types are:
a) The Educator
b) The Warrior
c) The Merchant
d) The Labourer
e) The Outsider
Let us explore what each operating system means and how the world misunderstands it.
