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Between
2000 and 1000 BC settlers from Central Asia arrived in the Punjab and upper Ganges valley. They were lighter-skinned
than the local Dravidian people, who originated in the south of India, and became known as Aryans from
the Sanscrit word meaning 'noble ones'. The Aryans
brought with them an early form of the Hindu religion, and it was probably at
this stage that they devised the rudiments of the caste system to maintain
their superiority over the Dravidians. From a fairly flexible set of
distinctions the caste system has developed in 3000 years into the most
complex class system of any society in the world.
Four main castes were formed. They were: the
Brahmans, the priest class; the Kshatriyas, who
were warriors and rulers; the Vaisyas, who were
originally herdsmen and later merchants and farmers: and the Sudras, who served the other three castes and carried out
menial tasks. In Hindu teaching, these four classes are said to have been
formed from the head (Brahmans), arms (Kshatriyas),
trunk (Vaisyas) and feet (Sudras)
of the god-creator Brahma.
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Castes
within Castes
Over centuries, marriages between the four main
castes led to the formation of subdivisions, and these were further
subdivided by occupations. By the time India became independent in 1947, there
were an estimated 2000 castes within the general framework of the four main
classes. The lowest of all was the group known as the Untouchables, or Harijans. They were confined to occupations which were
shunned by the higher castes as pulluting, such as
clearing excrement or handling the dead.
In each caste there were rules of eating, washing and
religious conduct, and well-defined laws of contact with other castes. Women,
for example, could marry into a caste above that into which they were born,
but not below. Today, the government of India is committed to abolishing the
caste system. The constitution lays down as a principle of law the equality
of all Indians, regardless of caste. And Untouchability
has been outlawed altogether.
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Indian
civilisation goes back to 2500 BC or even earlier.
But although some rulers - particularly the Buddhist Ashoka
(about 273 to 232 BC)- came close to dominationg the entire subcontinent, it was not until the
Middle Ages that all India became a single political unit.
The dynasty that established India-wide rule was the Mughal
empire - from whose name the English word mogul, for a powerful ruler, is
derived. It was founded by Baber, a Muslim
descendent of the Central Asian Tartar conqueror Tamerlane
(1336 - 1405), and lasted until India became formally a British colony
in 1857. India became independent from British
rule in 1947 and has been a republic since 1950.
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