History Of Caste

[acharya]

Sarah Claerhout, Doctoral Student – Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent
University (Ghent, Belgium)
Hinduism, Caste and the Steps of Christian Conversion
The question whether or not there is a link between Hinduism and the caste system is a constant in
the literature on the Indian culture and society. Still, it is unclear how it is to be settled. The fact that
Hindu beliefs and texts have been invoked to sanction (or to condemn) caste discrimination does not
establish a link (or its absence). Otherwise we would also have to say that there is an intrinsic
connection (or opposition) between Christianity and slavery. One could point out that the Hindu law
books, the Manu dharmashastra in particular, prescribe the caste hierarchy. But it is unclear today what
role, if any, these books have played in determining the social structures of India. Given such
difficulties, how did the question about the link between Hinduism and the caste system appear a
sensible one in the first place?
My paper will argue that the issue emerged in the European descriptions of India, because it was
essential to western Christendom to establish a deep link between the religion of India and the
immorality in its society. This was to show how ‘false religion’ did not only prevent one from
attaining salvation in the next life, but also condemned one to be either the victim or the perpetrator
of injustice in the present life.
To understand this, we need to look at the historical developments in the European culture. After
the Reformation, the concern of many Christians for following and spreading the ‘true religion of
God’ had taken a new form. The struggle against all human interference in religion became pivotal.
One attributed the degeneration and corruption of religion to this interference, especially in the form
of the priestly hierarchy. The remedy was to be the introduction of a new process of conversion.
Each individual believer had to live according to the will of God and turn to God when called. All
human additions—that is, all that is absent in the Scriptures—had to be eradicated.
By describing the Indian traditions as ‘false religion’ and by locating the unity of this ‘false religion’ in
the caste system and the Brahmin priests, western Christians had identified the enemy to be defeated
in India. Educating the Indians was seen as the first step in this process: one had to teach them how
the brahmanical Hinduism and the caste hierarchy were intertwined and how this corrupted the heart
of Indian society. This was a major concern in the British educational efforts of the 19th century. This
is where the question about the link between Hinduism and the caste system comes from.
Esther Bloch, Doctoral Student – Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent
University (Ghent, Belgium)<b>
A central idea of Indology is that Indian history has gone through a religious evolution during which
the Vedic religion degenerated into Brahmanism, which later found its popular translation in what is
now considered to be India’s main religion, Hinduism. Closely linked to this is another supposedly
central aspect of the Indian culture, namely the social structure of the caste system. Looking at the
juncture between the descriptions of a degenerated religion and the conceptualisation of the caste
system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, I will try to show that these descriptions are
descriptions of the Western cultural experience of India rather than of the Indian culture itself.
The consensus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries took the following form: the
Indian religion went through a movement of degeneration from Vedism over Brahmanism into
Hinduism. The Brahmin priests are supposed to have corrupted the Vedic religion. Traditions such
as Buddhism, Jainism, the Bhakti movement, etc., are regarded as catalysts in this development,
because they are thought to have threatened the survival of Brahmanical religion. Furthermore, it is
presumed that, because of the degeneration, Hinduism is characterised by the absence of a church
authority and a common creed. Therefore, it also seems to lack any source of excommunication and
means of conversion. This leads to a fundamental puzzle about the existence of the Hindu religion:
Can a religion (any religion) exist and be transmitted, if these characteristics are lacking? The
literature notices the difficulty, but translates the puzzle into the following question: ‘if the absence of
these characteristics jeopardises the existence, survival and propagation of the Hindu religion, what
else made its stubborn persistence possible?’ The textbook answer to this question revolves around
the Brahman priests and their caste system: it is said that the Brahmans recognised this challenge to
their priestly hegemony and to the survival of their religion and cunningly developed the caste system
as a means to sustain their religious authority.
In order to understand why the puzzle is not taken seriously and dissolves into another question, we
need to understand the background of the culture that has produced these accounts. My paper will
briefly show how the central ideas in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century accounts about
idolatry and false religion, about different traditions as rival and competing religions, about the
corrupting influence of the priesthood and its oppression of the masses, had their roots in the
Christian theological debates of Europe. Finally, I will indicate how these theological views have
spread in a de-Christianised form.

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