Dharmic Schism Fallacies: Ascendant Heterodoxies vs Divisions
The schism-seeker’s nonfactual fallacies have been disproven for some time now
As elaborated in Part 2 of this series, “Crypto-Buddhist Myths vs Historical Truths”, the “Advaita” school of philosophy and the Shaiva tradition were instrumental in deconstructing the allure of Indian Buddhism when the former finally moved to address the latter’s philosophy at a scholastic level.
On the populist level, the worship of Indic Gods had always been an ever-present feature in Dharma which, while never censured on the scholastic level, had schism-seeker contend as being distinct from the millennia-spanning scholastic discourse by various schools and therefore not a true representation of the people’s faith. Contemporary research holds as this being untrue.
Of the Peoples, For the Peoples
Vedic texts dating back to the early years of the 1st millennium BCE idealized Lord Vishnu as an aspect of the metaphysical universal reality “Brahman” just as Lord Shiva was in the Shaiva tradition. Given the general requirement of extensive inquiry and epistemological reasoning that could span generations prior to consolidation into a text, it could be reasoned that active worship of Lord Vishnu and his avatars - agglutinatively referred to as Vaishnava tradition (वैष्णवसम्प्रदायः, “Vaishnava Sampradayah”) - dates back at least a few centuries before that. Thus, the timelines suggest that both Lords were manifest prominently and concurrently among the teeming masses of Indic Dharma.
Regardless of intense scholarship giving the indication (at least in colonial-era Western “intellectuals”) that scholastic contemplation was the only impetus for Dharma, devotion wasn’t discarded as even being of secondary importance. The “Shvetashvatara Upanishad” (श्वेताश्वतरोपनिषद्), which was compiled a little before the time of the Buddha’s life began in the mortal plane and a foundational text in the Shaiva tradition, among others, arguably acknowledges devotion being present in spirituality. The “Bhagavad Gita” (श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता), the linguistic structure of which has been considered to have it being passed down in the oral tradition from roughly the same time period, equivocally deems devotion to be one possible path for spirituality and liberation. Once again, given the time needed for inquiry and reasoning, this implies devotional worship was both recognized within and accepted into Dharma.
Now, contemporary research lends some support to the theory that the decline of the Gupta Empire, whose emperors were adherents of the Vaishnava tradition, might have had a hand in the decline in the royal recognition of Lord Vishnu, at least in terms of scholarship. Subsequent regional claimants were adherents of the Shaiva tradition and an imputed “ideology of power” owing to the recognition accorded to Lord Shiva as the Destroyer (as opposed to Lord Vishnu’s position as the Protector). Nonetheless, this couldn’t be seen as an implication that popular worship of Lord Vishnu and his avatars ended.
While Adi Shankaracharya (who, as Part 3 highlighted, is a notable bete noire for schism-seekers for refuting Buddhist philosophy like many of his peers before and after his time) deemed the performing of rituals is unnecessary, given that the Self (“Atman”) is non-different from “Brahman”, later hagiography declare - particularly in the Smarta tradition - that a “Shanmata” (षण्मत) system of worship as being suitable. In this system, five Gods - namely Shiva, Vishnu, “Shakti” or “Devi” (which could represent either of the Shakti, Shaiva or Vaishava traditions or all at once), Ganesha (गणेश) and Surya (सूर्य, Sun) - would be placed in a quincunx pattern like thus:
followed by Skanda (स्कन्द) or a “personal God” (इष्टदेवता) being present “north” of this arrangement. Smarta tradition, estimated to be a result of continuous evolution of a variety of extensively-reasoned and well-established deities in the Sanatan pantheon, holds the essential oneness of all deities to “Brahman”.
Schism-seekers would tout this as being a contradiction: given Adi Shankarcharya’s utterance, there is no need for an arrangement of vigrahas (singular: विग्रह, “form”) or murtis (singular: मूर्ति, “idol or physical image”). To that assertion, Adi Shankaracharya’s utterance is accepted to mean that rituals perfunctorily made is of no meaning without knowledge. In other words, worship without knowledge is ritual while ritual with knowledge is worship. Smarta tradition holds that all of these well-reasoned deities are “Saguna Brahman” (सगुण ब्रह्मन्), i.e. the ultimate reality with form (and with each form being one of a potentially infinite number). This idea of a god solidified and furthered the scholastic consideration of the spiritual opposite - “dualism” - and worship already being followed by the masses.
However, it bears noting that the evolution of “dualism” wasn’t necessarily precipitated by Smarta tradition, which began sometime after the passing of Adi Shankaracharya. The earliest iteration of the “Yoga” school of philosophy, which was developed in the first millennium BCE, echoes elements of the “Saamkya” (सांख्य) school of thought from roughly the same period to draw out the idea of “dualism” in the form of “consciousness” and “Self” as two different realities. By no means was this a novel concept: dualism was represented even in the Rigveda which predates the “Saamkya” school by at least a millennium (if not more). The “Saamkya” school is particularly interesting in that 11th-century Buddhist scholar Jnanasribhadra remarked that unlike the seminal “Lankavatara Sutra” - a foundational work in Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese Buddhism and an important sutra in Chan Buddhism and Japanese Zen - which states that the consciousness creates the world, “Saamkyans” believe that distinction exists between the soul and the world - thus making them atheists. (See? Interesting.)
While Vedic speculation tends to be conclusive, “Saamkya” philosophy isn’t. Despite that, contemporary research states that considering the “Saamkya” to be non-Vedic or non-Brahminical has no tangible evidentiary backing; Sanatan scholarship have frequently performed inconclusive speculation as logical exercises. The gap between these “logical exercises” and the “Advaita” school of non-dualism was the “Yoga” school’s contention of a “personal, yet essentially inactive, deity” or “personal god” (Ishvara).
However, the arrangement of deities of different (but increasingly less disparate) traditions wasn’t necessarily set into practice as Shankaracharya’s hagiographists state. Since the beginning of the 1st millennium CE, temples all over the Indian Subcontinent displayed this architecture style very commonly. This was apparent even in the Kushan Empire (कुषाण वंश), which was headed by the Yuezhi people (月氏) from present-day Gansu in China who later became the Kushanas (貴霜) by subsuming neighbouring tribes and peoples in Bactria and went on to become an Empire stretching from southeastern Uzbekistan to the Gangetic plain by the 3rd century CE. Records indicate the founder of the Empire to be Kujula Kasa (Kujula Kadphises or 丘就卻) who followed Greek religious ideas and iconography while also following Shaiva tradition while Kanishka (कनिष्क), who was a Mahayana Buddhist who also followed Zoroastrian practices, brought the Empire to its zenith after which the Empire began to fade away. A Kushan temple of around 3rd century CE vintage housing Shiva, Vishnu, Surya, Brahma and one deity of unclear provenance in the “Panchayatana” style has been identified near the Indian city of Ajmer.
Incidentally, the Kushanas seemed to be particularly fond of Lord Shiva and issued several types of coinage with his image:
The Kushanas referred to the Lord as “Oesho” which, intuitively, sounds like “Om” and “Ishvara” conjugated and then contracted. It has been determined by contemporary research that Kushana-dominated regions (and beyond) were indeed familiar with the closely-argued definition of “Ishvara”.
Permanence and Impermanence
It bears noting that “Shankaracharya” was not the venerable scholar’s name at birth. “Shankara” (an alternative name for Lord Shiva) was the name he assumed as he ascended into scholarship and left behind family ties while “acharya” (meaning “a teacher of skills”) was a suffix assigned to him either in the latter course of his life or immediately after his passing. While contemporary research doesn't indicate him to be a single significant factor for “Advaita”, his scholarship isn't considered to be wanting. Thus - since records don’t indicate that he was a solitary scholar - he likely had many students and disciples1, given his rising seniority. It's also not entirely necessary for a scholar to deny oneself a family life. Furthermore, a student or disciple assuming a teacher's name with modifications via a prefix or suffix isn't unusual.
This could explain hagiographists’ assertions that the venerable scholar traversed the entire vastness of the Subcontinent: it’s very possible that, in addition to Adi Shankaracharya himself debating Buddhist scholars and refuting their philosophy, potentially hundreds with the same name (his students and disciples as well as their students and disciples) traversed the Subcontinent (and perhaps beyond) to debate Buddhist scholars over the next few centuries. Hagiographers might have considered all of these instances to be the work of the original scholar - an act of attribution that students and disciples frequently did in Sanatan scholarship. This might also explain the animus towards the scholar in many Buddhist texts, commentaries and historical retelling: the name “Shankara” might have repeated itself over and over again in their accounts and became a cause for institutional angst. Add the same phenomenon with the names “Kumarilla” and “Mandana” and this angst increases at least three-fold.
Adi Shankaracharya’s stance on “non-dualism” (and indeed that of “Advaita” itself) however didn’t go unchallenged within Sanatana. The Nimbaarka tradition (निम्बार्क सम्प्रदाय) was a Vaishnava tradition that propounded the “Bhedabheda” (भेदाभेद) sub-school of philosophy under “Vedanta” which held forth the notion of “Dvaitadvaita” (द्वैताद्वैत) or “dualistic non-dualism”. This tradition’s founder, Nimbarkacharya (निम्बार्काचार्य), has been established to be either a contemporary of or came into prominence just after the passing of Shankaracharya. Under this notion, existence is categorized into “Ishvara”, “chita” (or “jiva”, the individual soul) and “achita” (lifeless matter). While the latter two have abilities and capacities distinct from the former, they cannot exist independently of him. Nimbarkacharya also established Lord Krishna and his consort Radha, attended by thousands of gopis (cowherdesses) of celestial Vrindavan, as the highest deity of worship with “prapatti” (प्रपत्ति; “self-surrender”) taking the form of devotion.
Now, a key cornerstone in Sanatan scholasticism includes the penning of commentary defending a scholar’s philosophy against that of other schools. While Nimbarkacharya did write a number of treatises and commentaries on foundational texts during his time, there is precious little commentary (at least in the present day) indicating a defence. In itself, the Nimbarka tradition didn’t have all the scholastic features requisite to be the epistemological foundation of the “Bhakti” tradition that was steadily surging among the Indic masses.
The roots of the “Bhakti” tradition has its roots in the works of the Shaiva Nayanmar (Tamil: நாயன்மார்) and the Vaishnava Alvar (ஆழ்வார்) saint-poets in the southern reaches of the Subcontinent, which contemporary research pins as having begun at almost the same time as the “Nimbarka” movement. The difference with the latter lay in language; the poet-saints eschewed penning their poems in Sanskrit, the extant language of Sanatan scholarship, in favour of the Tamil language. One Alvar saint-poet, Nammalvar, is credited with translating from Sanskrit to Tamil the “Rigveda” as “Tiruviruttam”, the “Yajurveda” as “Thiruvarshiyam”, and the “Samaveda” as “Tiruvaymoli” in poem/hymn form. The Nayanmar saint-poets penned the “Tirumurai”, a compilation of hymns in praise of Lord Shiva. The net effect of this movement, which rapidly gained momentum across the Subcontinent, essentially reinvigorated the Indic masses by transforming their millennia-spanning favour toward their ancient Gods as benefactors to devotion of Gods they love. Love, as it turned out, was more persuasive than logical reasoning and more resilient to the pain of iniquities wrought by invaders nearly a millennium after the “Bhakti” tradition’s estimated roots.
In other words, love with knowledge becomes worship.
Nearly 3-4 centuries after the estimated origin of these three movements, Ramanujacharya established the “Vishishtadvaita” (विशिष्टाद्वैत, “Advaita with uniqueness; qualifications”) subschool of philosophy in the Vaishnava tradition. Traditional accounts depict him as turning away from his “Advaita” teachers and joining the Alvar-originated “Bhakti” movement for scholastic pursuits. As a scholar, his commentary on Sanatan canon included numerous criticisms of Shankaracharya’s inferences. Ramanujacharya also termed the scholar a “Prachanna Bauddha” (a crypto-Buddhist) as a polemical argument regarding his inferences and the “Advaita” school’s opposition to the “Bhakti” movement. In his seminal “Sri Bhashya”, Ramanujacharya charged other schools of selectively interpreting passages from the “Upanishads” that supported their monistic inclinations while ignoring those supporting pluralism. Unlike the pluralism of the present day, his arguments were about the forms of approach with regard to the Divine: one could worship as a scholar dedicating his life to the metaphysical (सन्यासी; “Sanyasi”), a lay scholar with the knowledge of recitations, or a “grihasth”(गृहस्थ; “householder”; someone who has started a family and employed).
While Shankaracharya stated that the weight of any part of the Sanatan Canon in one’s research is dependent on the researcher’s goal, Ramanujacharya stated that any Sanatan scripture must be considered as a whole since it expresses a consistent doctrine. Ramanujacharya became a highly influential figure in Sanatana by giving “Bhakti” an intellectual basis through his works that inspired generations of the movement’s saint-poets.
Another highly influential figure for the “Bhakti” movement was Sri Madhvacharya, who contemporary research indicate was on this mortal plane almost immediately after Ramanujacharya’s passing. Perhaps on account of being born among the Tuluvas - who are generally considered to be a hardy people - traditional accounts describe him (unlike in the banner above) as being a pugnacious scholar of great physical strength as well as intellect. Subsequent poems and songs by “Bhakti” saint-poets accord him numerous feats of physical strength and spiritual miracles. One of Madhvacharya’s commentaries on Sanatan Canon had him claiming additional authority on account of a personal encounter with Lord Vishnu. A prolific writer, he also penned many poems, stotras (recitational devices) and texts on devotion towards Vishnu and his avatars.
He is the chief proponent and theologian of the “Dvaita” school of philosophy which held “dualism” at its core: a fundamental difference exists between “Atman” (self) and the “Brahman” (ultimate reality) with the former dependent on the latter but never identical. Liberation was only attainable through divine grace and not knowledge. Man has free will but is influenced by his innate nature, inclinations and past karma. However, each man has the right to choose between right and wrong and bears responsibility for his choices. God cannot change the mechanics of the tripartite mechanism that drives the soul to root out evil since that would mean changing the soul itself. Thus, moral laws and ethics exist and are necessary.
In the requisite critique needed to scholastically defend the “Dvaita” school - unlike Ramanujacharya’s more measured polemics - Madhvacharya’s polemical arguments against the “Advaita” were extremely fierce: he described Shankaracharya and the scholars of his school as “deceitful demons” teaching Buddhism under the cover of Vedanta. Four major texts were written solely to critique “Advaita”, which he regarded as having become a version of the “nihilistic” Mahayana Buddhism. Altogether, arguments were written up against 21 different ancient schools of philosophy (and Jainism) for their focus on monism instead of the “self-evident” pluralism. While united in criticism of “Advaita”, his philosophy differed from that of Ramanujacharya: while the latter held that there is a universal sameness in the quality and degree of bliss possible for human souls with every soul potentially able to reach the bliss state of God, the former posited that some souls enjoy spreading chaos and being eternally doomed.
While Shankaracharya epitomized an increasing shift in Sanatan Dharma from the masses’ realism towards a “scholastic idealism”, Ramanujacharya and Madhvacharya epitomized a shift from idealism towards a “scholastic realism”. Madhvacharya and his students churned out numerous works in critical reasoning for furthering “Dvaita” principles. In keeping with Sanatan scholastic tradition, they were written in Sanskrit which limited their reach to the masses. To this end, an entire order of students who were well-versed in philosophy and the Sanskrit language but weren’t scholars arose from every walk of Sanatan life to translate these works into local languages to propagate their teachings. Known as the “Haridasa Bhakti Sahitya Sampradaya” (Haridasa = lit. servants of Lord Hari (i.e. Vishnu); Bhakti Sahitya = lit. devotional literature; Sampradaya = lit. tradition), they were instrumental in delivering the marvels of “Madhva Siddhantha” (Siddhantha = lit. principles) to the masses by way of songs and other literary devices in the local vernacular. Within a generation, these ardent followers were labeled the “Dasa Kuta” (“Kuta” = lit. group or military formation such as a regiment) while the scholars engaged in producing critical thought and literature and the temple priesthood were referred to as the “Vyasa Kuta” within the Madhva sub-tradition of Vaishnava. The Madhva school fiercely maintained equality in learning, training and approach to philosophy between the two “regiments”. While the “Vyasas” focused on developing knowledge through the traditional Sanatan epistemological methods, the “Dasas” simplified this knowledge for the “Bhakti” movement.
Madhvacharya established the Tulu Ashta Mathas of Udupi (Kannada: ಉಡುಪಿಯ ತುಳು ಅಷ್ಟ ಮಠಗಳು), a group of eight mathas as the base of Dvaita theology. The resulting tradition - variously referred to “Sadh Vaishnavism” or “Madhwa Sampradaya” (माध्व सम्प्रदाय) - holds that “doing karma” (i.e. walking a righteous path) can also be considered a form of worship. After debating and prevailing over the spiritual leaders of many Sanatan Orders and schools of philosophy, he established 24 institutions that catered to the masses in modern-day Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Bihar with “Madhwa Siddhanta”. He also had a profound impact elsewhere: for instance, the Vaishnava traditions in modern-day Gujarat are estimated to have originated from “Madhwa Siddhanta”.
Nearly 300 years after the passing of this ferocious scholar, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu - who traditional accounts state took instructions from his guru Isvara Puri whose guru’s guru’s guru was the Madhva scholar Vyasathirtha - and established the “Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya” Sampradaya or simply the “Gaudiya” tradition within Vaishnava. From this movement came the ISKCON movement in 1960s, that grew in strength to become the “Gaudiya” tradition’s most successful offspring. ISKCON devotees, many of whom aren’t of Indian heritage, are typically called “Hare Krishnas” in the West.
The Madhva tradition’s success in connecting masses with the divine was a new and effective path that many scholars struggled with: connecting the masses with the divine. As a result, Shaiva Orders that weren’t already connected with the Nayanmar movement evolved into the “Dvaita” tradition as well. Over time, nearly every God and deity in the Sanatan pantheon had at least a nominal “Bhakti” tradition.
Some modern historians say that while Madhvacharya’s work has been salutary, it hasn’t been extensive. Madhvacharya would snort with derision.
The Fallacy of the Caste System
The Rigveda states, “No one is superior, none inferior. All are brothers marching forward to prosperity”2. In fact, one contributor to the Rigveda was born in a “low caste”3 and the text itself has a number of figures of complex family histories that indicate that the caste wasn't inherited at birth. After multi-generational review and inquiry in that time period, these were left standing. Only two of the Rigveda’s 10,600 verses set in a question-and-answer style (as opposed to the narrative style in the rest of document) refers to “varnas” as limbs on a body. Even then, it could be interpreted to mean society as an organic whole with no grounds for discrimination by birth. Raikva, a principal composer of the “Chandogya Upanishad” (छान्दोग्योपनिषद्; estimated to have been composed a millennium later, i.e. 1,000 to 800 BCE), as of low birth as well. The “Mahabharata”, estimated to have been composed around 400 BCE after several centuries of oral tradition, has Prince Arjuna asking his friend Lord Krishna how is caste determined. He replies, “Birth is not the cause, my friend; it is virtues, which are the cause of ascendance. Even a man of low birth observing the vow is considered a Brahmin by the Gods.”4 An entire Upanishad, the “Vajrasuchika” which is estimated to have been written around the time of Shankaracharya, is devoted to dismissing the idea of caste by birth.
Then how did the idea of the “caste” system, which ostensibly assigns value by birth, come about? The answer might lie within certain texts. Just as with the hierarchy of teachers for the laity and the hierarchy of gurus for scholars, there is a broad hierarchy for Sanatan texts:
The Shrutis (श्रुति, “that which is heard”), which comprises of the four Vedas plus their four types of embedded texts— the “Samhitas”, the “Upanishads”, the “Brahmanas” and the “Aranyakas”. The Vedas themselves are the most authoritative.
The Smritis (स्मृति, “that which is remembered”), treatises on law and conduct that are particularly favoured if derived from the Vedas. The “Manusmriti” is included here.
The Itihasas (इतिहास, “traditional accounts of past events”) from epics “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”, which could be considered Smritis as well.
The Puranas ( पुराण, “ancient, old”) which is a vast collection of tales and symbolic lore of varying levels of complexity, collectively considered to be encyclopedic to Sanatana. One of the most esteemed is, of course, the “Bhagavata Purana”, which is estimated to have been composed in the 1st century BCE. Some or all of these Puranas could be considered Itihasas as well.
The hierarchy is thus: if an interpretation of a Shruti clashes with that of the Smriti, the former prevails. This is true if the latter is an Itihasa or a Purana. Similarly, if Smriti clashes with Itihasa, the former prevails and so forth.
Among the Smritis are the Dharmasutras, which are estimated to have been written between 600-100 BCE and are varied treatises on law, governance and conduct ostensibly as per the Shrutis. These are not authorless (unlike the Vedas) and the authors make references to numerous sources that are now lost in time. However, it’s not clear if these authors were individuals or institutions. These texts are written in a terse style known as “sutra” (which later went on to be how Buddhist scholars termed their works), which scholars circa 200 BCE were finding to be archaic and open to varied interpretations. At around this time, Sanskrit underwent significant structural reform to make such problems less frequent. Four Dharmasutras exist till the the current day: the Apastamba, Gautama (no relation to the Buddha), Baudhayana (also no relation) and Vasishtha. Historians disagree whether Apastamba or the Gautama is the oldest but are somewhat unanimous in declaring the Vasishtha as being the youngest at around 300-100 BCE. Only the Apastamba has been considered to have had the least number of alterations in latter-day eras.
What’s interesting is the incongruit, despite all of them ostensibly referencing the Vedas. For example, on the issue of intermarriage, the Apastamba says it’s absolutely forbidden, the Gautama has a number of arrangements for mixed-caste marriage, with some desirable and some abhorrent. In even the acceptable cases, the resulting progeny and succeeding generations of progeny would have to marry into the father’s caste X number of times (depending on the father’s caste) before the Xth generation progeny can be considered as returning to the original caste. At the same time, there were far more than the original 4 castes (“varnas”) described in the Vedas, thus necessitating a new term “jati”. “Varna” and “jati” together effectively became the “caste” system, with several dozens of “jatis” already listed between the Dharmasutras and more than a thousand in the present day.
Given the Buddha’s protestations over the iniquities of assigning social value by birth, surely Buddhism didn’t recognize this commingled “jati/varna” caste system. Not by a long shot: the Pali Canon, the foundational canon for all Buddhist Orders, prescribes a ranking system across jatis, varnas, kulas (families) and kammas (occupations): for example, floor-sweepers, menial workers, cemetery workers, refuse cleaners, hunter-gatherers, bamboo workers, weavers, leather-makers, basket-makers, potters, barbers and chariot-makers are “low” (hina jati) while those engaged in agriculture (kasi), trade (vanijja) and animal husbandry (gorakka) are “high” (ukkatha jati). So did Jain texts, which rate (for example) menial workers, cemetery workers, refuse cleaners, hunters and fishermen as “low”.
Now, the Pali Canon also rates “Kshatriyas” above “Brahmins” and states gahapatis (landholders or wealthy people) are honourable, regardless of jati, varna, etc. Similarly, Jain texts accord high honour to gahavais, the mercantile class. Furthermore, the vast majority of those joining the Buddhist Orders (sanghas) in the Indian Subcontinent or supporting them from the outside just so happened to be from “high” varna/jatis and wealthy families. Buddhist and Jain scholars throughout the ages have largely remained silent on why the differentiation of individuals’ values was recognized in their “systems of equality”.
One hint why lies in a startling (even cryptic) statement made in the Apastamba: the Vedas come second to that “samayacharika” (customs of practice of an era). Most laws, it goes on, are based on agreement on what is right and what is wrong and that it is difficult to find a divine source that does this5. Laws, therefore, must change with the ages. After the restructuring of the Sanskrit language, a new set of treatises were written based on the Dharmasutras. Referred to as the Dharmashastras, the “Manusmriti” was one of them. This treatise, long held to have supported caste discrimination and estimated to have been composed between 200-300 CE, holds yet another cryptic statement: conduct that causes unhappiness among the people isn’t righteous and should be discarded6.
There’s a very simple and intuitive way to reconcile the utterances made in authored texts versus those in historical authorless texts in a faith where the latter is supposed to prevail: power.
The Longest Rebellion in History?
Rational thinkers would argue that the system wasn’t supposed to work. The Vedas were carried across generations via oral tradition over at least a millennium or two before transferring over to the written form. Juxtaposing the Dharmasutras’ observations on the numerous and populous jatis with the character profiles of many figures listed in the Vedas gives one the intuitive impression that social values were not defined by birth alone in the environment where the Vedas were defined.
However, mortals have always had an affinity towards preserving his keep among his own and one obstacle to that was that the divine texts indicated otherwise. Surely, the process of inter-generational transmission (in either oral and written form) could be suborned to include the notion of social value by birth to keep their interests entrenched. But the system worked; the Vedas remained inviolate. Numerous subordinate texts easily dismissible by the superior position of Vedas within the faith mention the merits of adhering to the notion of value by birth but none dared tamper with the original scripture. There were too many opportunities where it could have gone pear-shaped - just as how the Buddha’s known lamentation over caste was warped by the Pali Canon - but it didn’t.
What sounds more feasible: a stubborn millennia-spanning idealism by most members of the scholarly class over hundreds of generations or, let’s say, divine action?
(It’s a rhetorical question; the answer varies based on who’s answering and there’s nobody to say which answer’s true. Or is there?)
Both Ramanujacharya and Madhvacharya vehemently opposed caste discrimination. In his hagiography “Digvijay Shankara”, even Vidyaranya - the “Advaita” scholar who presented Shankaracharya’s teachings as a summit of all teachings - depicts the venerable scholar lying prostrate before a man of low birth after the latter asked the scholar if his brusque utterance towards him was in his teachings. The scholar calls this man a “guru” for showing him the error in his education. In the purest form of “Advaita”, there is no distinction between the “Atman” of individuals, so technically social value by birth couldn’t exist even in his philosophy. The system worked.
In the years since its independence, the caste imbalance has undergone significant change: a survey by the Pew Research Center executed last year found than less than a fourth surveyed who belonged to the groups historically termed shudras report discrimination. Interestingly, Christians were the most likely to say that discrimination is high against shudras. While the going was certainly slow - as Dr. Ambedkar’s personal experience can attest - the Indian republic’s billion-plus Sanatan masses have become increasingly less insular and intransigent with each other, much to the dismay of certain well-connected political dynasties who played on divisions.
Four years ago, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) - the world’s wealthiest Sanatan Order - announced plans to train 500 non-Brahmin youth into the priesthood such that they can service their communities. Two years later, TTD announced it will build 500 temples for these youth as well. Dharma has always had a view towards the infinite tomorrow; it’s possible that other Orders would join in after a few years, thus giving new wings to the “Bhakti” tradition and further watering down already-diminishing caste animus.
Ramanujacharya and Madhvacharya would both nod in approval, as would Adishankaracharya (although he would probably add, “get some knowledge in you as well!”)
Perceptions in the media publications dominant in the West frame the caste system in oversimplified or downright false terms. Aiding them are a panoply of entrenched historians subscribed to the notion of “Marxian historiography”. While the historians of India themselves aren’t universally Marxist by political inclination, historical analysis has typically been framed as a class struggle between create those create wealth and those who have ownership or control of the means of production. To phrase this in Ramanujacharya’s rubric, their desired objective limited their analysis to derive what they want to see while the struggle in reality was far deeper and far more meaningful to the soul of the Indic masses.
Indian academia has been evolving into a more “ethnic” form of historiography since the nineties and the “Marxian” old guard is decreasingly extant while the baying schism-seekers who quoted them for validation find little to no audience in India today. Some of these schism-seekers, however, do find an audience among the chatterati in the West and even employment in their institutions.
Now, as in the preceding two Parts of this series as well as the subsequent two, there is an uneven balance of sorts where the citations of Western historians’ work has outnumbered those by Indian historians. Empirically, these Western historians have been far more conciliatory towards “ethnic” methods but aren’t the dominant force in Western scholarship. This means that the “old guard” methods of reinforcing colonial paternalism with a smattering of cocktail lounge compassion (for the donors) remain prevalent and find successors. Whether this implies the trenchant nature of Ivory Tower politics or simply a decline in Western scholarship remains to be seen but it might be too late to consider them a credible force.
Returning to the matter at hand: polemicism has always been an instrument in Dharmic scholasticism. However, given Buddhism’s decline in he Subcontinent in light of the events described till date, the rhetoric was driven to lows that reverberate even to this day. More of that in the next part “Atrocities vs Power”.
A “student” can be considered as a pupil who received instructions exclusively from a teacher with a view to emulate and advance the latter’s scholarship while a “disciple” may be considered as a student who receives instruction in a “classroom setting”. There is often significant overlap between the two.
The “Saubhagya” in the stated phrase “अज्येस्थसो अकनिष्ठसो एते संभ्रातरो वहदुहु सौभाग्य।” has several meanings: fortune, favour, grace, auspiciousness and so forth with each of them having standalone terms in Sanskrit. Given that this text was scripted with economy, it is highly likely this word was chosen to represent all of them to indicate equality for all.
The Vedas are “Apaurusheya”, in that they state no mortal author. This attribution comes from “Aitareya Brahmana” (ऐतरेय ब्राह्मण). A “Brahmana” is a secondary text that serves as a reference book for the relevant Veda. “Aitareya” is estimated to be from at least the 7th century BCE and its contents haven’t been challenged scholastically. Many “Brahmanas” follow Aparusheya as well, but some “Brahmanas” in the latter period have authors listed in indirect forms.
Also, the cited text terms the contributor, Kavasha Ailusha, as the son of a “slave girl”. The term “slavery” isn’t entirely accurate; it’s likely that his mother was a menial worker (“dasi”).
Specifically, this is from the “Uttaragita”, the sixth book of the “Mahabharata”. The term “कल्यान” can be interpreted as “fortune”, “ascendance” and even “liberation”.
“Nor do gods, Gandharvas (celestial demigods) or ancestors declare, “This is righteous and that is unrighteous”.
परित्यजेदर्थकामौ यौ स्यातां धर्मवर्जितौ ।
धर्मं चाप्यसुखोदर्कं लोकसङ्क्रुष्टमेव च ॥ १७६ ॥
“He shall avoid such wealth and pleasures as are opposed to righteousness, as also righteousness if it be conducive to unhappiness, or disapproved by the people.” (176)
Note: “Dharma” (धर्म) here means “code of conduct”.