Ethics, varna, jati and family

Early Indian thinkers saw ethics (right and wrong) as the foundation of law and life. The Vedas and the epics ask what is real, what is right conduct and how the universe came to be. The Bhagavad Gītā stresses knowledge, faith, action and virtue.

Some key ideas:

• Samatva, the principle of sameness: all bodies are made of the same matter, and all consciousness comes from one supreme consciousness. In the Mahābhārata, people from all varṇas uphold it, and the good person or ruler is one who works for the welfare of all beings.
• Ṛita: the Ṛigveda's cosmic order, the harmony and balance in nature and in society.
• Satya: what is real and true.

Dharma. Watch out: here dharma does not mean 'religion'. It means duty, obligation, righteousness and moral conduct: doing your duty according to your role. In Buddhism the same idea is dhamma (the Pāli word).

"Where does the word come from?" From the Sanskrit root dhri, 'to hold up'. The same root gives dharati, the earth, which holds everything up. In the Mahābhārata, Bhishma says dharma "is that which upholds beings". Even things have a dharma, a nature: "the dharma of iron is to sink, and of wood is to float."

Ethics shaped government too:

• Aśhoka's dhamma stressed moral conduct, respect in the family, non-violence and compassion.
• The Uttaramerur rules wanted candidates with honest earnings and a pure mind.
• Kāmandaka's Nītisāra and Bāṇabhaṭṭa's Kādambarī (called one of the world's first novels) give advice on kingship.

Varṇa. The four varṇas are brāhmaṇas, kṣhatriyas, vaiśhyas and śhūdras. They are first mentioned in the Puruṣhasūkta, a hymn in Book 10 of the Ṛigveda. The book says that early Vedic texts do not show a fixed status by birth. A person's identity came from many things: region, village, gotra, language, and especially occupation.

"How do historians know?" From evidence like Ṛigveda 9.112.3: "I am a poet; my father is a physician; my mother is a grinder of corn." Three different jobs in one family! This suggests occupations were flexible and not fixed by birth.

Over time each varṇa came to be linked with tasks: brāhmaṇas with studying and teaching the Vedas and performing yajñas; kṣhatriyas with warfare, protection and justice; vaiśhyas with farming, herding and trade; śhūdras with assisting the others, though in practice they also farmed, traded and worked in crafts. The book stresses that the division was functional (by work). The Buddhist Sutta Nipāta says: "A brāhmaṇa is such by his deeds", not by birth. But over time this flexibility slowly declined.

Jāti is a different thing. Jātis formed because of intermarriage, migrating communities starting to marry only within their own group (endogamy), and differences between regions. Varṇas were fixed at four; jātis had no limit, and grew as new groups and occupations appeared.

People could move up and across. Evidence from the book:

• Rulers came from many backgrounds: the Nandas, Mauryas, Śhuṅgas, Satavāhanas, Vākāṭakas, Guptas and Puṣhyabhūtis.
• The Mandsaur inscription (473 CE) tells of silk weavers who moved from Lata (Gujarat) to Dashapura (Madhya Pradesh), and were skilled in archery and astrology too.
• The Tamil Tolkappiyam's four-fold division was based on occupation, and the Pattinappalai shows a busy trading society of merchants, salt-makers, fishermen, artisans, farmers and warriors mixing freely.

Family. The smallest unit was the kula (family). Families made a grāma (village); villages made a viśha (under a viśhapati); and above that was the jana, protected by the rājā. A gotra is a family line traced through the father's side to a Vedic sage; it guided marriage.

Life had four āśhramas (stages):

• Brahmacharya: student;
• Gṛihastha: householder;
• Vānaprastha: life in the forest;
• Saṁnyāsa: renunciation.

Each stage had rituals, including the sixteen saṁskāras (rites of passage). And life had four goals (puruṣhārthas): dharma (righteousness), artha (material well-being), kāma (fulfilling desires) and mokṣha (liberation). Wealth is good, says the book, if it is guided by dharma.