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Mahabharata too emphasizes good conduct alone as a
cause of Brahmanatva:
न जातिर्न कुलम तात न स्वाध्याय:श्रुतं न च|
कारणानि द्विजत्वस्य वृत्तमेतस्य कारणम्||३९||
Yudhishthira tells Nahusha king: Caste, clan, study,
errecitation, none of these is a causative factor of Dvijatva,
but good conduct alone is. The same sentiment, that deeds and
not birth make a man what he is, one finds in the heterodox
faiths of Jainism and Buddhism, which protested against the
Vedic ritualism in Hinduism
Mahavira and Buddha
Mahavira declared in a trenchant saying in Uttaradhyayana
Sutra: “Nobody becomes a Sramana by shaving his head, nor does
a man become a Brahmana by reciting Om. One is not hailed as
muni by residing in the forest or becomes an ascetic by
wearing grassclothes. One becomes a Sramana by a sense of
equality, a Brahmin by chastity a muni by knowledge and an
ascetic by penance. Man becomes a Brahmin, Ksatriya or Sudra
by his deeds only.”
And Buddha said: “Not by birth one becomes an outcaste, not by
birth does one become a Brahmin, by deeds alone one becomes an
outcaste, by deeds one becomes a Brahmin.” Again “If any man,
whether he be learned or not, considers himself so great, as
to despise other men, he is like a blind man holding a candle-
blind himself he illuminates others” (Dhammapada).
The Hindu scriptural sayings on what constitutes a Brahmin are
so clear, rational, logical and sensible in character and the
denigratory injunctions are so decidedly uncouth, crude and
inhuman in tone that one cannot doubt that these latter must
have been interpolations and perhaps do not belong to the
genuine text. But even then the casteist havoc wrought by
these sayings has been incalculable, the debilitating effects
of which have still tethered our society to slavish orthodoxy
like prisoners in the Platonic dungeon. And Shahu’s
achievement was truly a heroic feat of enlightenment because
it shook off this chain of centuries of casteim.
The controversy about Shahu’s royal geneology being Ksatriya
or Shudra was also a matter considered when his illustrious
ancestor Shivaji’s coronation was held. As the story is told
in Dr. Ambedkar’s original thesis: who Were the Shudras?
Shivaji too had to face opposition from his Brahmin minister’s
principal among whom was his Prime Minister Moropant Pingle,
who along with other Sardars considered Shivaji to be Shudra.
However, Gaga Bhatt, a renowned Brahmin from Benares solved
all difficulties and the coronation was performed.
Ksatriya Royalty: Pre-Aryan Culture
As regards the royalty being Ksatriya there is another
convincing interpretation which comes from a Soviet
Ethnologist , Mme. Dr. N. Guseva, Candidate of Historical
Sciences, Senior Scientific Worker of the Institute of
Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences USSR and Jawaharlal
Nehru Prize Winner, as propounded in her book Jainism. In this
ethnographic study of Jainism Dr. Guseva has given a leaned
account of the genesis of Ksatriyas in ancient India and how
the class-caste distinctions developed.
Her main points are that before the advent of the Aryans in
India, the pre-Aryan population knew iron, knew the handicraft
of melting iron by hand, making iron tools, that they were the
decendants of the Indus Valley and Harappa peoples, and that
they were constantly referred to by the Aryans as their
enemies, asuras in Vedic literature. Therefore, Dr. Guseva
says, “it is possible to subscribe with certainty to the view
of almost al the contemporary scholars that the culture of the
pre-Aryan population was, in a significant degree, higher than
the culture of the Aryan.”
... Continued
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