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The Caste system does not demarcate racial division. The Caste system is a social division of people of the same race." [336] Various sociologists, anthropologists and historians have rejected the racial origins and racial emphasis of caste and consider the idea to be one that has purely political and economic undertones. Beteille writes that ...
Ambedkar views that definitions of castes given by Émile Senart [5] John Nesfield, H. H. Risley and Dr Ketkar as incomplete or incorrect by itself and all have missed the central point in the mechanism of the caste system. Senart's "idea of pollution" is a characteristic of caste in so far as caste has a religious flavour.
A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and anthropologists, the Hindu caste system is sometimes used as an analogical basis for the study of caste-like social divisions existing outside Hinduism and India. In colonial Spanish America, mixed-race castas were a category within the Hispanic sector but the social order was otherwise fluid.
Despite being outlawed in 1950, the caste system, which categorizes Hindus at birth and once forced the so-called “untouchables” or Dalits to the margins of society, is still omnipresent in ...
Shudra or Shoodra [1] (Sanskrit: Śūdra [2]) is one of the four varnas of the Hindu class and social system in ancient India. [3] [4] Some sources translate it into English as a caste, [4] or as a social class. Theoretically, Shudras constituted a class like workers. [2] [5] [6]
The caste system as a stratification of classes in India originated about 2,000 years ago, and has been influenced by dynasties and ruling elites, including the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. [31] [32] The Hindu concept of Varna historically incorporated occupation-based communities. [31]
Even among Hindu societies they were sometimes at rivalry with the Brahmins, but they generally acknowledged the superiority of the priestly class. [16] The Kshatriyas also began to question the yajnas of the historical Vedic religion , which led to religious ideas developed in the Upanishads .
The usual four-tier Hindu caste system, involving the varnas of Brahmin (priest), Kshatriya (warrior), Vaishya (business person, involved in trading, entrepreneurship and finance) and Shudra (service person), did not exist. Kshatriyas were rare and the Vaishyas were not present at all. The roles left empty by the absence of these two ritual ...