Aryans and the Indian Caste System

Many admire the rich Indian culture, dedication to family, and their respect for tradition and customs. Indians go to great lengths to find a mate for life within their culture and hire matchmakers to ensure that the prospective bride and groom are well suited for each other, their union a successful and happy one. Indians marry within their professional circles, the modern replacement of castes. An astrologer is often consulted about their celestial signs.

The social stratification called “caste” is a hierarchy at least two-thousand-year-old, outlawed in 1950, but imposed on people at birth, marking their place in society, the types of jobs they can seek, and who they can marry.

The Hindu caste system has four varnas (classes) based on occupation:

-          Brahmins are knowledge oriented, the highest caste.

-          Kshatriyas are warriors and aristocracy, second caste.

-          Vaishyas are businesspeople, third caste.

-          Sudras are laborers, the fourth caste.

https://www.asiahighlights.com/india/caste-system

The social stratification and the caste system is believed to have originated with the conquest of the Harappan people in the Indus valley by Sanskrit-speaking Aryans who colonized the northern portion of the continent before 1000 B.C.

India was an advanced civilization at the time, home to several cultures, but the illiterate and nomadic, light-skinned Aryans who defeated in battle the darker skinned tribes, believed themselves superior due to their military ability.

The Harappan people had planned cities, irrigated their fields, had a script, arts, crafts, but were no match militarily for the destructive invaders, the Aryans, who enslaved them. Some historians believe that this multi-racial India gave rise to the complex caste social structure.

Mohandas Gandhi mentioned “the children of God,” the pariahs called the Untouchables, who do the most menial tasks in society.

A census report of 1911 mentioned that “They are so degraded that a twice-born Hindu considers it necessary to bathe if he is touched by one of them… They are not allowed to draw water from the village tank, the village barber will not shave them, the village-washer woman will not wash their clothes.”

At the time of the conquest, the Sanskrit-speaking Aryan communities were divided into three castes: the Brahman (comprised of priests and scholars), the Kshatriya (kings, warriors, and nobleman), and the Vaisya (merchants and workers). The pre-Aryan Indians made up a fourth caste, the Sudra (farmers and ordinary laborers).

The original Aryan castes were entitled to be “twice born,” the highest state, in which physical birth is followed by the symbolic birth, the initiation into the upper caste.

It is believed that the caste system may have been based on skin color since the Sanskrit word for caste, “varna,” means “color.”

Aryan, the word means “kinsmen” in Sanskrit, was actually the proper name of a group of people, who spoke one of the Indo-European family of languages. The name Aryan was used more focused on a group of people, land-hungry migratory population, who had domesticated a wild horse from their homeland in southern Russia. They used these horses to move, fight, and occupy anybody who stood in their way. They took their language with them and mixed it with the languages of the peoples they conquered along the way.

A racist myth from the 19^th century suggested that a white “master race” was responsible for all progress of humanity which is certainly not true. Adolph Hitler and his Nazis promoted this myth in the 20^th century. The truth was that the Aryans triumphed because of their fast horses, the use of chariots in battles, and the element of surprise during their massive invasions.

The historical information of the early Aryan society comes from the Rig-Veda, sacred hymns compiled around 1000 B.C., handed down orally through many generations of Brahmans until the 14^th century when it was written down.

The Vedic hymns detail the life of the Aryan tribesmen, their gambling, drinking, charioteering, skill in battle, and how they adopted gods from the Sudras, eventually settling down to farming. Their nomadic traditions of cattle rearing, however, became the romanticized “golden age.” Thus, the worship of the sacred cow in modern Hinduism was born during the Vedic times.

A thousand years after the original Rig-Veda, the distinction of caste based on skin color became impossible to make due to mixed marriages, so a new distinction emerged based on occupation.

Sub-castes called jati emerged from mixed marriages, and a person’s employment became more important than a person’s caste (varna).

When new immigrants arrived and rejected the caste system, they became part of a separate new caste or sub-caste of their own making.

The underprivileged adopted Islam when it arrived in India in the early 13^th century because it seemed to them that it was a casteless religion. In practice, however, most Muslims followed caste restrictions. Jews and Christians also formed their own groups like castes.

Industrialization, with its new professions, gave rise to new castes. Politics, social and political roles also formed their own castes. The democracy in India took advantage of the caste system in order to influence politics and the interests of their particular members in parliament. The Brahmans are still at the top of the social ladder and the Untouchables at the bottom.

And most Indians today, no matter where they may reside in the world, hire successful matchmakers and astrologers to find their perfect bride or groom for a marriage steeped in tradition and family within one’s professional class.

Gold and Silver Coins Stored as Bullion in India During Roman Times

Gold and silver have a tremendous store of value and portability and it can increase value over time; a small amount can purchase anything during any period. Paper currency, on the other hand, can fall victim to corrupt governments, the lack of faith in them, and the disastrous monetary policy governments engage in such as printing money continuously, causing runaway inflation.

Gold and silver prices have fluctuated in the upward direction lately, responding to the economic uncertainty, the out-of-control printing of money to defray the economic losses due to the unnecessary and panicked COVID-19 -19 lockdowns around the world, and the political instability and violence in the U.S. ginned up by the radical left for the last four years.

In 1775 Roman gold and silver coins were found buried in southern India. Since Indians could not spend these monies in their respective economies, it was assumed that the buried cache of coins was derived from trade.  But what would the Indians do with such Roman coins since they could not be spent in their economy? Historians assumed that the only possible explanation would be that the Indian merchants were storing the gold coins as bullion.

Alexander the Great (336-323 B.C.) first connected the Mediterranean world with India. The usual land routes used before were prevented by the Parthian Empire of Persia. The merchants started using the sea to avoid the harsher land crossing and those who would stand in the way of their trade, including highway robbers.

Hippalus, a Greek merchant, is alleged to have discovered in the first century B.C. how to use the southwest monsoon to sail to and from India. For forty days in July and August, merchants who knew how the monsoon winds blew, sailed from Arabian ports to the Malabar ports in India’s southwestern coast. In December and January, having completed their trades, merchants returned via the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. According to historians, trade links were made with Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaya, Vietnam, and perhaps China.  https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/A-glimpse-of-rare-Roman-coins-at-Museum/articleshow/7315542.cms

The coins, weighing the same amount regardless of which emperor’s head was depicted on the coin, made it convenient for the Indians to collect the coins as bullion. I am not sure if the practice of shaving coin edges for gold dust was in place during those times. Such a practice, of course, would have made coins weigh differently if the scales were sensitive enough to pick up the slight change in weight.

“The scholar Pliny reported that it was the unvarying quality of Roman coins – which were all the same weight and of the same gold and silver content despite the heads of successive emperors imprinted upon them - which impressed the King of Sri Lanka and inclined him favorably toward the honest traders of Rome.” (The Classical World, p. 153)

Even though Indian merchants did not use Roman coins as a direct exchange, they liked the designs on them and made cheap imitations of terracotta coins which were worn around on a leather chain as jewelry.

When export restrictions were imposed and Nero debased silver coins during his reign, the Indian merchants lost faith in the bullion value of Roman coins and refused to accept any more in trade.

As a substitute, Indian merchants accepted high-quality tableware, glass, linen, coral, lamps, worked gems, and wine. Evidence of pottery fragments was found in 1940 at Arikamedu near Pondicherry, a Roman trading station.

As demonstrated by archeological digs, Arikamedu stored Roman pots and dishes, fine wines, and tableware. Jewels were fashioned in Arikamedu’s workshops which also dyed muslin cloth. Arretine ware (made in today’s Arezzo, Italy) was found, including an intact bowl with molded decorations.

Ships were said to arrive from India with wonders such as a “large river turtle, snakes, and a partridge ‘as big as a vulture.’” Pearls and precious stones were brought into Rome.  “Imports flooded into Rome as 120 monsoon-borne ships sailed each year from Roman-controlled Egypt to India, to pick up their precious cargoes.” A mural found in Ostia, Italy, depicts a Roman trading ship from the second to third century A.D. being loaded with goods.

According to historians, the trading agents for this commerce were the Greeks from Alexandria. They dealt in spices, pepper, muslin cloth, perfumes, ivory, gemstones, and pearls.

During the third century AD, when direct trade with India stopped, reflecting the overall commercial decline in the Roman Empire, Arabs and Persians took over the trade.

Western Europe's "Headache"

Location in India of gypsy tribes based
on genetic research  Photo: Wikipedia

The invasion of Europe by young military-age Muslim men from the Middle East and Africa has pushed one Western European “headache” to the back burner – the Romanian gypsies, with their nomadic lifestyle and “criminality,” petty theft, pickpocketing, and begging around train stations and major tourist attractions; these gypsies have irritated the European Union bureaucrats and the selectively multicultural Europeans.

In an effort to combat any ethnic discrimination, the Romanian government passed H.G. 1194 on December 12, 2001 which established the “attributes, components, organization, and functioning of the National Council to Combat Discrimination. The law established heavy penalties for anyone who attacks someone else on the basis of ethnicity. The main focus of the law was to prevent the proliferation of anti-Semitism and anti-gypsy sentiments. Insulting, humiliating, or disadvantaging any ethnic group is strictly forbidden.”

As Mircea Brenciu explained, “The chosen people of the Old Testament have suffered a genocide unprecedented in the history of humanity; other tragedies were experienced by Armenians in 1915, by the Nepalese and the Cambodians under Pol Pot, Ukrainians under Stalin, just to name a few, and gypsies under all countries.” The memory of such heinous acts must be kept alive to prevent the historical repetition of such tragedies.

A “semantic confusion” was deliberately created by the Romanian government under Petre Roman (1990-1991), a “semantic confusion” even promoted and accepted by the Romanian Academy.  The government decided that the word “gypsy” was really an insult, even though this terminology existed for hundreds of years, reflecting the misconception that these tribes were Egyptian; the word “gypsy” had to be changed to “rom/Romani.” Every other nation continued to call these migratory groups gypsies. The designation of “rom/Romani” was thus consecrated with great fanfare in Romania, using the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an excuse.

Modern gypsy Wagon, U.K. Photo: Wikipedia

 

There are approximately 11 million gypsies worldwide, of which 8-10 million live in various European countries, making them, for now, one of the largest minority. David Comas and his research group conducted a study and published the results in 2012 in Current Biology, under the title, “Reconstructing the Population History of European Romani from Genome-wide Data.” This genetic and linguistic analysis of 13 European gypsy groups found out that their ancestors left north/northwestern India about 1,500 years ago and settled in the Balkans area approximately 900 years ago.  The groups “constitute a mosaic of languages, religions, and lifestyles while sharing a distinct social heritage.” http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2812%2901260-2

The study authors also stated that, the migratory population, “with moderate gene flow from the Near or Middle East,” showed up in the Balkans about 900 years ago. This makes it more interesting why Romanians have decided to rename their gypsies “Romani” or “rom” even though they have nothing to do in origin with the Romans, the Roman Empire, or the Romanians’ ancestors, the Dacians.

Gypsies/Romani are proud of their heritage, their culture, their traditions, and their language, which is unlike the Latin-based Romanian language. But the change of terms from gypsy to “rom” or “Romani” has given rise to an uncomfortable confusion across European nations whose citizens have labeled and lumped all Romanians with any and every gypsy/Romani population across Europe that is “inconveniencing” European non-nomadic society.

According to Mircea Brenciu, Romanian gypsies/Romani give birth to 5-8 babies, while the birth rate for Romanians in general has been 2-3 children per family and less.  It is surprising that such a nomadic population would have a strong political and cultural influence in general in Romanian society after 1989. Brenciu calls it the “Rom-ization” of the Romanian people.

He explained that this “Rom-ization” (“manelizare” in Romanian language) has the following consequences:

-          No patriotism (gypsies have never been tied to any lands unless by force)

-          There is no spirit of solidarity (gypsies express such feelings of solidarity only in cases that serve their interests of the moment)

-          There is no punctuality and a sense of order (gypsies are Bohemian, indifferent to history, they are perennial pilgrims)

-          There is no respect for the law (in gypsy society the law is made by the “stabor” and the “bulibasha,” similar to Muslim tribes and their Sharia Law)

-          Gypsies build a state within a state, supported by the force of the occult.

It is hard to have a civilized discussion about issues of the gypsy/Romani population for fear that the dreaded H.G. 1194 law will somehow be violated in the dialogue process and the ethnic population offended, resulting in heavy penalties for the offending party. It does not take much these days for such an offense to occur, a process not unlike the Political Correctness of liberalism-gone-amuck in this country which stifles freedom of speech. The Europeans, of course, have no such guarantees of freedom of speech in their constitutions.

Brenciu wrote that, during the 18^th century, Empress Maria Theresa is said to have met with other dignitaries to stop the flow of gypsies from Eastern Europe to the West.  This gypsy exodus was inconvenient to western society because they were not subjects of any jurisdiction. They chose the Baragan Fields of Wallachia as settlement and built villages such as Tiganesti, Slobozia, Urziceni, to house by force, with European money, various gypsy groups.

In the meantime, a simple politically correct euphemism, “Rom/Romani,” invented by progressives. is confusing and obfuscating history by design, misrepresenting the roots of an entire minority, the gypsies.