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The class system or castas was very much part of Europe. The monopoly of the church on God and crown was precisely why it was imported into India by the Britis

The class system or castas was very much part of Europe. The monopoly of the church on God and crown was precisely why it was imported into India by the British to consolidate their power. "Caste" is often used to white wash the Islamic and Christian colonization of India that lasted for a 1000 years, that reduced the richest nation to one of the poorest. This poverty creation machine that the British colonization is not merely an effect of exploitation or greed, it was very much driven by the same racist and Christian supremacy that drove the nazis. The "dalits" are very much the biggest victims of colonization.

zozbot234 5y ago
> that reduced the richest nation to one of the poorest. Very good point, BTW. You're not going to find a rigid social stratification system in a rich society. Stratification takes over as an outcome of societal collapse, as people are reduced to fighting over scraps of their former wealth and will cling to any form of seeming stability, however damaging in the long term. This is exactly what occurred in the West of late antiquity and the dark ages, culminating in the early middle ages.
hnedeotes 5y ago
This seems to not have any resemblance to the historical decline of the "Vedic Culture" way before any "colonising" by the "west". If the guys writing the history didn't mess it up, wasn't buddha himself against the caste system? That seems way before there was even a Church in the West to begin with.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  The Mongolic ("Islamic") invasions from Central Asia starting in the late middle ages were quite comparable in their violence. And they still count as "west" from an Indian POV since Central Asia is directly west of the Indian subcontinent. (Note that these Mongolic invaders were, by and large, merely converts to Islam, and that a very comparable dynamic also caused the end of the Golden Age of Islam, around that same time.) Gautama Buddha was against any rigid interpretation of the varnas, but he was not unusual in that - this was close to Hindu orthodoxy even at the time.
- naruvimama 5y ago
  A lot of myths have been built around Buddha or Ashoka, in the recent years to fit politics. Buddha considered himself very much a Hindu.
  - tln750 5y ago
    What an absolutely shocking misrepresentation of the Buddha ! The Buddha rejected the authority of the Vedas entirely and this infuriated the Brahmins of that time. He had both philosophical and pragmatic objections to the theistic stance of Brahminical groups, along with a total rejection of their focus on mass animal slaughter in the name of rituals. From the original Pali canon, this discourse captures the Buddha's position: https://suttacentral.net/an3.61/en/sujato https://suttacentral.net/an3.61/en/sujato And, Adi Sankara wrote an entire polemic trashing the Buddha as an insignificant man who should be shunned by everybody. Here is a passage straight from the Vedanta Sutras written by Sankara: Moreover, Buddha by propounding the three mutually contradictory systems, teaching respectively the reality of the external world, the reality of ideas only, and general nothingness, has himself made it clear either that he was a man given to make incoherent assertions, or else that hatred of all beings induced him to propound absurd doctrines by accepting which they would become thoroughly confused.--So that--and this the Sutra means to indicate--Buddha's doctrine has to be entirely disregarded by all those who have a regard for their own happiness. Source: https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe34/sbe34208.htm https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe34/sbe34208.htm
    - naruvimama 5y ago
      You clearly do not understand what Hinduism is. Brahmins are a small subset, who at different regions and times might have been corrupt. Just like the church. But unlike the church, Hinduism is experiential and no one has a monopoly, which is precisely why Buddhism is one of many 1000s of movements. There is no singular holy book and no need even in communities where it existed.
      - tln750 5y ago
        This obsession with trying to somehow make the Buddha and his teaching as a branch of Hinduism falls flat on its face when you look at his teaching even cursorily. The central tenet of the Buddha's position was his exposition of anatta (not-self), which is directly opposed to all Hindu doctrines which preach that finding one's 'true self' is the goal of existence. Instead, the Buddha taught that the search for a 'true self' (including God, Brahman etc.) is futile and pointless. This is an irreconcilable cleavage between Buddhism and Hinduism. You really need to look into the Buddha's teaching properly before trying to appropriate it to fit your agenda.

zozbot234 5y ago

> that reduced the richest nation to one of the poorest. Very good point, BTW. You're not going to find a rigid social stratification system in a rich society. Stratification takes over as an outcome of societal collapse, as people are reduced to fighting over scraps of their former wealth and will cling to any form of seeming stability, however damaging in the long term. This is exactly what occurred in the West of late antiquity and the dark ages, culminating in the early middle ages.

hnedeotes 5y ago

This seems to not have any resemblance to the historical decline of the "Vedic Culture" way before any "colonising" by the "west". If the guys writing the history didn't mess it up, wasn't buddha himself against the caste system? That seems way before there was even a Church in the West to begin with.

zozbot234 5y ago
The Mongolic ("Islamic") invasions from Central Asia starting in the late middle ages were quite comparable in their violence. And they still count as "west" from an Indian POV since Central Asia is directly west of the Indian subcontinent. (Note that these Mongolic invaders were, by and large, merely converts to Islam, and that a very comparable dynamic also caused the end of the Golden Age of Islam, around that same time.) Gautama Buddha was against any rigid interpretation of the varnas, but he was not unusual in that - this was close to Hindu orthodoxy even at the time.
naruvimama 5y ago
A lot of myths have been built around Buddha or Ashoka, in the recent years to fit politics. Buddha considered himself very much a Hindu.
- tln750 5y ago
  What an absolutely shocking misrepresentation of the Buddha ! The Buddha rejected the authority of the Vedas entirely and this infuriated the Brahmins of that time. He had both philosophical and pragmatic objections to the theistic stance of Brahminical groups, along with a total rejection of their focus on mass animal slaughter in the name of rituals. From the original Pali canon, this discourse captures the Buddha's position: https://suttacentral.net/an3.61/en/sujato https://suttacentral.net/an3.61/en/sujato And, Adi Sankara wrote an entire polemic trashing the Buddha as an insignificant man who should be shunned by everybody. Here is a passage straight from the Vedanta Sutras written by Sankara: Moreover, Buddha by propounding the three mutually contradictory systems, teaching respectively the reality of the external world, the reality of ideas only, and general nothingness, has himself made it clear either that he was a man given to make incoherent assertions, or else that hatred of all beings induced him to propound absurd doctrines by accepting which they would become thoroughly confused.--So that--and this the Sutra means to indicate--Buddha's doctrine has to be entirely disregarded by all those who have a regard for their own happiness. Source: https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe34/sbe34208.htm https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe34/sbe34208.htm
  - naruvimama 5y ago
    You clearly do not understand what Hinduism is. Brahmins are a small subset, who at different regions and times might have been corrupt. Just like the church. But unlike the church, Hinduism is experiential and no one has a monopoly, which is precisely why Buddhism is one of many 1000s of movements. There is no singular holy book and no need even in communities where it existed.
    - tln750 5y ago
      This obsession with trying to somehow make the Buddha and his teaching as a branch of Hinduism falls flat on its face when you look at his teaching even cursorily. The central tenet of the Buddha's position was his exposition of anatta (not-self), which is directly opposed to all Hindu doctrines which preach that finding one's 'true self' is the goal of existence. Instead, the Buddha taught that the search for a 'true self' (including God, Brahman etc.) is futile and pointless. This is an irreconcilable cleavage between Buddhism and Hinduism. You really need to look into the Buddha's teaching properly before trying to appropriate it to fit your agenda.