Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Episode:4. Caste Formation


Episode:4. Caste Formation
The Discovery of India, Bharat ek Khoj (भारत एक खोज)بھارت ایک کھوج
Director: Shyam Benegal
Based on the book by: Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Bharat Ek Khoj - Episode 4 - Caste Formation 1-5


Bharat Ek Khoj - Episode 4 - Caste Formation 2-5


Bharat Ek Khoj - Episode 4 - Caste Formation 3-5


Bharat Ek Khoj - Episode 4 - Caste Formation 4-5


Bharat Ek Khoj - Episode 4 - Caste Formation 5-5


Here Nehru exemplifies how the coming of the Aryans raised the new problems of race and politics. Nehru also tell the story how the word ‘Hindu’ which referred to people living on this side of Indus were called Hindu and later with time the Hindu became a religious metaphor. Though the defeated Dravidians had a long and prestigious cultural and political history the Aryans were no less being the conquerors and there was a wide gulf that separated them and made them immergeable. Out of this conflict and interaction of races gradually arose the caste system, which, in the course of succeeding centuries was to affect the Indian life so profoundly. Probably caste was neither Aryan nor Dravidian. It was an attempt at the social organization of different races, a rationalization of the facts as they existed at the time.
It was in keeping with the spirit of the time and some such grading took place in most of the ancient civilizations, though apparently China was free from it. There was a four-fold division in that other branch of the Aryans, the Iranians, during the Sassanian period, but it didn’t petrify into caste.
Caste began with a hard and fast division between Aryans and non-Aryans and the latter again being divided into the Dravidian races and the aboriginal tribes. The proper division of the society in Brahman, Kshatriya, Vashiya and Shudras happen much later and this tradition was to followed and the top layer being in the status of honor were always the Brahmans. Brahmans were the scholars and religious preachers and gained power over time. Nehru quotes incidents from various locations around the world and shows that caste or any similar system had always been in the world through ages. Plato in his ‘Republic’ refers to a division similar to that of the four principal castes. Medieval Catholicism also knew this division.
With time this caste system acquired rigidity and more stagnant and poisonous. The evils of untouchability, caste domination are still rooted to the Indian society.

please leave your views about it..

3 comments:

Arun Prakash said...

Thanks for the video clip Sir. But i would like to know the source of the story line which describes the caste system. To make it more clear, from which upanishad or part of veda or purana is the story of dhanvathi and chandraprabha are taken from? Please do respond.

Arun Prakash said...

Thanks for the video Sir. Please let me know the source of the story line (the one involving chandraprabha and dhanvati). I would like to know which upanishad or part of veda or purana is portrayed here. Do respond.

Kaka said...

This all is based on old historical concepts available in thise times. Now with new findindings in indological reaserch these details are no more valid and should be updated to match recent findings.