Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s4.12

c7.s4.12

The word varṇa, literally colour, is generally accepted as being in Sanskrit the name of the caste. In regard to this I shall have to make reservations. It is at any rate certain that it serves regularly to designate the four theoretic castes. This meaning is not known in the Veda. On the other hand, the word is there employed in two opposing phrases: Ārya varṇa and Dāsa varṇa, the ‘ Āryan race ’ and the ‘ enemy race ’.⁴ They have still more transparent synonyms, such as *black skin*, the *black people*. In more modern literature, the *black race* (*kṛṣṇa varṇa*) continues sometimes to be opposed to the Brahmans.¹ This antithesis is therefore the completely equivalent prototype of that which later came to be expressed by *Ārya* and *Śūdra*, *Ārya varṇa* and *Śaudra varṇa*.²