I assume it must be possible -- to voluntarily move up or down. Is there a website with some detail?

Michael

If they lead a good life they come back in a higher caste. This is the traditional view.
Politically, the caste system is being done away with. The president of the country, I believe, is from a low caste. The lines of demarkation are pretty well imbedded in the culture though, even here in the United States. Generally your Indian Doctor will be a Brahmin and your Indian gas station or Hotel owner a member of a lower caste.
The Brahmin caste is the highest one and the only one people really talk about much anymore. But they know who they are. Some I have met seem a little embarassed by it, but I see it having a big influence on them still especially in marriage, when parents are choosing a mate for their son or daughter.

Actually there had been some movements up and down, though the downward movement had not been voluntary (you were demoted for breaking some taboo, unknowingly or forcefully). In the case of upward movement if you had become rich and powerful enough and had not violated too great taboos then you could twist the Brahmins' arms to give you higher status.

Actually today it is even easier though sillier. Since surnames identify one's caste many simply change their surnames by deed poll. If they move out of their native locality then no one would know he does not belong by birth to that caste.

Hinduwoman:
Actually there had been some movements up and down, though the downward movement had not been voluntary (you were demoted for breaking some taboo, unknowingly or forcefully). In the case of upward movement if you had become rich and powerful enough and had not violated too great taboos then you could twist the Brahmins' arms to give you higher status.

LP:
So one could get demoted if one liked to eat beef or seduced an upper-caste woman or lower-caste man or something like that?

HW:
Actually today it is even easier though sillier. Since surnames identify one's caste many simply change their surnames by deed poll. If they move out of their native locality then no one would know he does not belong by birth to that caste.

LP:
How does one tell caste from last names? My guess would be that an occupation last name (like English "Baker" "Taylor" "Farmer", "Smith", etc.) would indicate one's likely caste.

And as to the origin of Hindu castes, IMO, the "conquering Aryan" hypothesis is the most reasonable one; in fact, three of the castes correspond quite well to the Indo-European three functions reconstructed from other early Indo-European cultural evidence (J.P. Mallory's _In Search of the Indo-Europeans_, for example):

Brahamans (priests): Command function
Kshatriyas (warriors): Action function
Vaisyas (farmers): Nourishment function
Shudras (laborers): The original population of India; placed where one would expect conquerors to place them

The three functions (command, action, and nourishment) can be found among among other early Indo-European speakers; one of my favorite literary example of it is the Judgment of Paris in Greek mythology. Three goddesses asked this gentleman who was the most beautiful of them all, and they offered certain inducements for him to decide in their favor:

Hera: sovereignty over much of the known world (Command)
Athena: superior military prowess (Force)
Aphrodite: the love of the most beautiful woman in the world (Nourishment)

Each of these functions had their own characteristic deities, though their names were very variable; the only reconstructible big deity name is "Father Sky" (Zeus Pater, Jupiter, Tiu/Tyr, Dyaus Pitar, etc.).

Command: gods of the clear sky -- often two: a guardian of law and contract and a more cosmic one associated with sorcery

Action: god of the thundering sky and of war -- who wields an ax and fights a giant snake monster, perhaps an allegory for thunderstorms ending hot droughts

Nourishment: gods (and goddesses) of the Earth

These three functions would extend to medicines:

Command: spells for mysterious illnesses
Action: the knife for wounds
Nourishment: herbs for wasting diseases

And even to punishments, such as these old Germanic modes of execution:

Command: treason: hanging
Action: murder: beheading
Nourishment: theft: drowning

Some URL's:

http://members.aol.com/Gwydionash/ietrip.html
http://www.his.com/~anderrj/indotri1.html

Ipe

Vaishyas => Merchants, Artisans too...

And regarding the origin...here is what britannica has to offer...

The following articles are also interesting for whoever is interested in the aryan invasion part...

The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India

Aryan Invasion


Edited to fix the first URL

[ July 12, 2001: Message edited by: phaedrus ]

hinduwoman

Yes, eating beef or intercaste liasons could make you lose caste.

Surnames like 'Gandhi' indicates grocer caste, 'Trivedi' indicate Brahmin etc.

Why is 'conquering Aryan hypothesis most reasonable? Why do you think it simply could not have evolved by its own through functional divisions in society?

lpetrich

That's certainly a legitimate possibility; that's one of the criticisms of Dumezil's Three Functions ideology -- that it represents some natural division of society. And the caste system had been taken much farther than its antecedents would suggest, indicating that it was largely a made-in-India system; most other early Indo-European speakers had not created any similar caste system, even when they were conquerors. So one might imagine:

Big drought about 1500 BCE that devastates the Harappans and makes life easier for some wandering Indo-Aryan-speaking cattle herders, who can more easily tolerate a drier climate.

They decide to distinguish themselves from the local population, whom they deride as "noseless", as evidenced from some of the hymns in the Vedas. They make themselves and their conquered population separate social groups; intermarriage becomes a no-no.

They get carried away with it, turning their three functions into three castes, turning the conquered population into a lower caste, and dividing these castes into lots of subcastes.

phaedrus

Hyuk !! Hyuk !!

Jack the Bodiless

To what extent is the caste system inherent in Hinduism anyhow? It seems to make about as much sense as the medieval Christian doctrine of the "divine right of kings": both rest on the assumption that human social structures are ordained and maintained by deities.

Just as Christianity wasn't actually dependent on that concept, can the same be said of Hinduism?

Boro Nut

Tell them their daughter is shagging a West Indian. It's amazing how pale they can get.