Caste and Race in India c7.130

c7.130

In the Bhagavadgītā the Creator is said to have apportioned the duties and functions of the four castes according to the inherent qualities and capacities of individuals.⁴ Of course, this theory fails to explain how the individuals at the very beginning of creation came to be possessed of peculiar qualities and capacities. This theory of origin, though it slurs over the above difficulty, tries to provide a rational sanction for the manifestly arbitrary divisions. God separated the people into four varṇas, not merely because they were created from different limbs of his body nor again out of his will, but because he found them endowed with different qualities and capacities. In so far as a justification is sought to be given for a social phenomenon, which was hitherto taken for granted, the Bhagavadgītā records a remarkable change in attitude. In conformity with this, the life-philosophy preached in the book furnishes us with the other philosophy of caste referred to above. The whole episode which is made the occasion for the enunciation of the new philosophy, the philosophy of duty, ends with the burden that an individual must do the duty proper to his varṇa. Arjuna, the hero, is dismayed and refuses to fight. Krishna, the preacher, ultimately persuades him to fight, and thus to do the duty proper to his Kshatriya varna. The work is a supreme effort to drive home the truth that man must perform the duties proper to his social state faithfully and truthfully and then salvation shall be his without doubt. No work is bad, impure, or sinful. It is only the way in which work is done that determines its worth. The peculiar way in which all work must be done is the way of dedicating it to God. The philosophy is beautifully illustrated in two episodes of the Mahābhārata: the one about Jājali, the trader, and the other about Vyādha, the butcher. We may compare a similar phenomenon from the social history of Mediaeval Europe. Mr. R. H. Tawney observes: "The facts of class status and inequality were rationalized in the Middle Ages by a functional theory of society." ¹