In his Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient
India, Dr. Ambedkar states: �The history of India is
nothing but a mortal conflict between Buddhism and
Brahmanism.� This is,in part, his counter to the Marxist
view of history as nothing but a history of class
struggles; it is also a statement about what he saw as
the essential feature of Indian civilization. As
Ambedkar saw it, the crucial conflict was not between
Brahmans and non-Brahmans, nor between Aryans and
non-Aryans (a theory which he rightly rejected), nor was
it a conflict between the Vedas and the rest of Indian
tradition. Rather it was between two world views, both
generated within India itself. This was the basic theme
of my �Open Letter to Bangaru Laxman.�
The problem with the Hindutva position has not been that
it seeks to value and to emphasize the greatness of
ancient Indian culture, but rather that is chooses
exactly the wrong aspects to value. I should first
dispose of the �Aryan theory,� since some have mistaken
my position on this. Whether as presented by Max Muller
and the Europeans, or by Lokmanya Tilak, or by Jotirao
Phule, it fails both empirically and as a satisfying
explanation of Indian history,. As it is usually taken,
the �Aryan theory� is all of a piece in seeing the basic
conflict as between Aryans and non-Aryans, it sees the
Aryans as invaders who destroyed the Indus civilisation
and established the caste system with the conquered
indigenous inhabitants turned into slaves and shudras.
The historical evidence shows that while Indo-European
speakers did come from outside, they came in various
groups and waves. There is no archaeological evidence
that they destroyed the Indus civilization, though there
is a good deal of evidence from the Rig Veda that the
Vedic peoples looked on others as dark-skinned
inferiors, scorned them, and treated them as enemies;
and the idea that the upper castes are descended from
Aryans and the lower castes from the conquered natives
is simply unscientific:
India is a land of fairly complete racial intermixing.
The social fact remains, though, that many people
believe, if not in the �Aryan theory� as such, that they
themselves are the lineal and social descendants of
Aryans - and this is the most damaging aspect.
This also means that the Vedas are important not so much
in themselves as for what they were made to be in the
later development of Brahmanism. For their times, they
were a grand work of literature and speculation. But,
Brahmanism as it later developed during the first
millennium BC, in conflict with the shramana traditions
and especially with Buddhism, took them as something
more than this: reinterpreting their basic themes, and
using the very letter �Purush sukta� as a justification,
it built on them a justification for their own religious
and social superiority and for varnashrama dharma.
It is this, and it is the forbidding of knowledge of the
Vedas to shudras and women, that was the major negative
step. It is no wonder that the Vedas evoked both a
mystique, and later a scorn for them among large
sections of the masses. In the first millennium B.C.,
however, at the time of the developing
agricultural-urban civilization, the rise of surplus, of
cities and trade, the emergence of a truly dynamic and
open society, a major ideological conflict broke out
between the two trends of Buddhism and the developing
Brahmanism.
This conflict was at a philosophical as well as a social
and political level. At a social level it was expressed
as a basic conflict between a world view emphasising
�Being� and one emphasising �Becoming�. This was not, as
one commentator has it, the difference between �Fulness�
and �Void.� The Buddhist stress on impermanence, or
becoming, was not a belief in nothingness; existence was
real, but it was transitory.
Even the later philosopher Nagarjuna, who brought in the
concept of sunyata, was only arguing against the notion
that somehow there were ultimate forces or things which
had a permanent reality of their own or swabhava. He was
not describing sunyata as a void.
Buddhist insistence on becoming and the lack of an
essential being had social implications as well. For the
developing theory of Brahmanism, essence became extended
to the social world, with the dividing up of society
into parts: the Brahman, Ksatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra
had the characteristics of their varna as part of their
essential being, Manu, for instance, writes that the
Brahman �may, however, make a sudra do the work of a
slave, whether he is brought or not bought; for the
self=existent one created him to be the slave of the
priest. Even if he is set free by his master, a servant
(sudra) is not set free from slavery; for since that is
innate in him, who can take it from him?� (The Laws of
Manu, Penguin, p.196).
Even in the Bhagavad Gita, this notion of the essential
nature and Dharma of the different castes is stressed,
for Krishna tells Arjuna both at the beginning and the
end, that it is better to do one�s own duty, however
badly performed, than another�s duty well done. Here the
idea of svadharma is a statement for the duty of the
ksatriya to fight; it implied then that of the sudra to
serve. In contrast to this, the Buddha identified human
beings in terms of what they do. This is stated in the
Sutta-Nipta, �What is a Brahman� (Book 3, Sutta 9), the
Buddha is asked by Vasettha, a Brahman, to settle a
debate between him and a friend about whether it is
�birth� or �Life� that makes a Brahman. The Buddha
replies that whereas grass and trees, insects, snakes,
fish, and birds have diverse species - he used the term
jati - among humans this is not so. �Men alone show not
that nature stamps them as different jatis. They differ
not in hair, head, ears or eyes, in mouth or nostrils,
not in eyebrows, lips, throat, shoulders, belly,
buttocks, back, or chest.� He then goes on to say that
one who lives by keeping cows is a farmer or kassako;
one who lives by handicrafts is a tradesman or sippiko;
one who lives by selling merchandise is a vanijjo, one
who lives by services done for hire is a pessiko or
wage-worker; one who lives by taking things not his is a
robber; one who lives by warfare is a yodhajivao or
soldier; one who lives by sacrificial rites is a yajako
or priest; one who rules is a monarch or raja.
Interestingly, the Buddha does not here use the common
terms for the four varnas, including Sudra or Ksatriya;
rather it is terms that today still survive as roots for
functional occupations.
All the evidence shows that the caste system, or
varnashrama dharma, hardly existed in its realised form
in the time of the Buddha; it was rather a project of
many Brahmans who developed it through the centuries,
supported by philosophical developments and religious
teachings and above all, by the power of kings. The
sutta quoted above shows another important feature of
the times: that �brahmanism� was not to be identified
with all brahmans, that many of them in fact resisted,
it, and many joined as followers and supporters of the
Buddha. Just as there is no �essence� which determines
the moral choices and actions of the different castes,
so many born Brahmans rejected the theory of birth,
essence, and caste and became supporters of different
philosophies- and so the anti-caste movement today has
to be wary of identifying �Brahmanism� with born
Brahmans.
(This article was published in
Indian Reporter in 2001)
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