Dharma

Actually, I've found that if you look hard enough into historical records, even Indian ones, and their migratory patterns, with corresponding world histories of other tribes, you can pretty much distinguish those with "fake lineages".

perfectbite

As I remember rightly, the caste system was supposed to reflect a naturally occuring stratification of simple agrarian society with warrior defenders of the tribe, shamans (brahmins), skilled folk like farmers and weavers and the workers in the fields and the shepherds etc.

That was the rationale anyway. In essence they were the functional divisions of one tribe. One big extended family.

For the West, embryo Capitalism broke apart that notion of an extended family either tribally or familialy (one only has to look at the disappearance of the commons and the recent US Supreme court ruling that give cities and townships rights to private property.) I am not so sure that a well functioning caste system would allow such seizure.

The members of a caste system had to accommodate each other and although Dharma used the word nepotism, I think that nepotism combined with primogeniture is a part of Western thinking and not of caste thinking. The members of a caste would have to be educated in their own field for the common good and could censure other members of the same caste for failing to uphold the caste's principles.

Siddartha Gautama Buddha kind of rocked the Hindu boat when he declared that Buddhism was casteless, classless and raceless.

premjan

Caste can be interpreted as a professional support group / guild as much as an oppressive genetic system for keeping people out.

perfectbite

Give anything of human nature a millennia or two or three or four or five to work and that seems to be what will happen.

I still think that in general there will be a conscious secular responsibility to the whole of society more comprehensive than anything the West has come up with.

In the West, humanists, those who act on society's behalf, especially on behalf of the downtrodden and those who address the quality of life, are held in very low esteem here.

Wealth rules and holds onto power through those in uniform.

(There is probably a pro-slavery lobby still in existence here. The only difference being, it is colourblind.)

perfectbite

Damn! I wish I could edit. I would add that three hots and a cot are alluring to a particular frame of mind.

hinduwoman

The justification is one of power; the dominating caste gains power and then manufactures a myth to go along with their prestige.

Two points however:
1. Plenty of lower castes insisted on having their own origin myths that contradict the Brahmanical stories. For example, the chamars say their ancestor was a favourite son of Brahma who was tricked by his Brhamin brothers to slaughter a cow and so became degraded.

2. When a lower caste gains power and money they immediately manufacture an impressive geneology; the local pundits are bribed into agreeing that this is true. as for their earlier low status, that was because, they had either forgotten their origns or had been cursed.
My own mother's family after they became zamindars announced they were really kshatriyas; they could make it stick because they had power.

And yes lowborn royal families that had newly usurped the thorne or conquered one did it all the time though because everyone knew exactly from which caste they came; even foreign royal conquerors joined in the game.

I am not trying to convert you, only explain what lies behind the genralizations.

Nearly so. An established caste is a kind of mini-nation with its own history, traditions and gods; so when times shift it just shifts with it.
When British came along, the castes responded by forming Secular Caste Associations and now they are votebanks in a democracy.