The Caste Divisions

In an interesting conversation I had with a friend yesterday, we were talking about the Vedas and the implication on humanity. We stumbled upon the subject of the Caste system on which India is so thoroughly rooted. The Vedas explain that there are 

• Brahmins (scholars, teachers, etc.,) 
• Vaishyas (agriculturists, traders, bankers etc.,) 
• Kshatriyas (kings, warriors, law enforcers, administrators),
• Shudras (artisans, craftsmen, service providers), and 
• "untouchables" (people who dealt with cremating bodies, foreigners, nomads and tribespeople)

These were monks with amazing knowledge of the universe and humanity, if not of more things. They could control their mind, and they could stop the moment with their breath, and they could go through amazing physical pain. and the vedic knowledge was fit for them.

This is where the interesting part came. The Vedas were then brought into the hands of regular folks. These regular folks couldn't do and think on the same level as the monks could, and neither did they have the proper initiation to be able to take on such knowledge as provided by the Vedas. 

Perhaps they took it all literally. 

Perhaps, what the Vedas were trying to tell us was that each individual falls into any of these categories. The regular folks tried to be rigid and do as the Veda told, and divided man. Now each person, born into a family of a certain "caste" ended up being labeled as that caste. 

If the Vedas said that each individual had his individual capacity to become any of these, then the regular folks did not comprehend it. 

The Vedas, thus became the book to live by. Not the book that aids living.

Such is also the tragedy of many other religions, but regardless, I believe that the "Caste system" wasn't quite meant to be the way we see it, or have seen it in history.