This idea goes back to the ancient Aryan, pre-Hinduism idea of Rita (order), the belief that the sacrifices made by the priests were a necessary part of the natural order. If such offerings were not made, or if they were not made correctly, nature would go awry ? rain would not fall, epidemics might prevail, and so on (Basham 241). Thus, ?the threat of supernatural punishment constantly reinforces concepts of ritual purity? (Harper 185).
In Hindu belief, all living things have a rank in the hierarchy of purity (Wong). Among these living these are included devates, deities, and devarus, gods. Devates can either help man or harm him, depending on if they are kept ritually pure or if they are polluted. Devates are honored by being given offerings by those who are ritually pure, but if defiled, they retaliate by ?causing injury, usually in the form of illness, to the offender, to his cattle, or to members of his family? (Harper 188). Devarus [gods] are higher than devates on the scale of purity, and need to be protected from sources of impurity. This is done, in part, by secluding them ? by building a temple around them into which lower castes are not allowed.
The elevation and purity of the soul of a being have both spiritual and physical correlates. Contact with impure matter ? even, for some of the purest individuals, with the shadow of impure matter ? defiles or pollutes the pure and necessitates cleansing that takes both physical and spiritual forms. Pure individuals must, therefore, eschew contact with impurity . . . . (Wong)
Hindus believe that man?s major source of control over the malevolent aspects of spirits comes from mantras, ?a syllable, word, or phrase used in meditation and believed to possess spiritual powers? (?Mantra?). But mantras work only when contained within a field of purity. ?If a powerful devate . . . is attempting to harm a Brahmin, the protective mantras that he needs can be made effective only if he is in madi [ritual purity] . . .? (Harper 191). Similarly, temples can be conceived of as fields of purity, into which even a Brahmin cannot enter unless he is in a ritually pure state (Harper 188), which explains why Brahmins have vehemently resisted allowing Untouchables into their temples.
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Because it is of supreme importance for the Brahmins to remain pure, the lower castes plow the fields (which results in the accidental killing of insects), give animal sacrifices to certain blood-demanding deities, sweep the public roads, and dispose of the Brahmin?s dead cattle. ?People who work with corpses, body excretions, or animal skin had an aura of danger and impurity, so they were kept away from mainstream society and from sacred learning and ritual? (Elst). All of these services are necessary to keep the town functioning, but they bring one degree or another of impurity to the performer. A Brahmin would not be able to perform one of these actions and maintain sufficient ritual purity to be able to worship the gods, and catastrophe would soon follow. The lower castes direct the flow of impurity to themselves, which creates the firm and eternal chasm between the ?clean? and ?unclean? castes.
The higher states of purity, then, fundamentally depend upon a division of labor among castes, which are arranged according to a hierarchy of purity. According to anthropology professor Michael Moffat, ?Caste is fundamentally holistic. What you do, and what you are, is defined in relation to the social whole.?
Ritual purity does not come automatically; it must be achieved with great effort, and it cannot be attained solely by one man?s own efforts. For a Brahmin to remain sufficiently ritually pure so that, through his own efforts, he can attain his personal maximum purity potential, he needs the assistance of other castes. Harper summarizes: ?The relationship between castes requires specialization in occupations in order for other castes to be more pure, so that these may attain sufficient purity to purify the gods? (196).
III. CONCLUSION
The evolution of the caste system is difficult to clarify, but it probably originated in India as the Aryans invaded from the northwest. They brought with them their religion, which, in the Rig-Veda, declared that society was divinely divided into four parts. Gradually, as the Aryans moved southwards, the native tribes were incorporated, and barriers between castes hardened. Its main concern was with purity and impurity, which involved food, death, marriage, and the body. This was supported by the belief that morality is the same as matter, and therefore physical matter can make you a nobler or baser person. Every individual was born with a unique physical body that had its own unique morality, and one could make it better or worse by contact with pure or impure matter.
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Therefore, since people, like everything else, were not just physical bodies but spiritual as well, the ?clean? spirits avoided the ?unclean? so that their spirit could accumulate morality, and thus be reborn in the next life in a purer existence. Purity also meant that prayer and sacrifice to the gods required special priests that were purer than the average person. This arranged society so that its main goal was the protection of the priests, at the expense of the commoners.
It is clear, even from the brief descriptons in this paper, that the caste system is very complex. The underlying philosophy turns out to be deeper than what appears on the surface. However, one must not get lost in the labyrinth of ideas.
When dealing with the living social reality, what counts is not the fine metaphysical concepts embodied in great religious works of a people, but the home-spun ideas that have percolated into the consciousness of the masses and become a part of their world view. (Cunningham and Menon 10)
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