Ok well I'm interested in actual history not pointless intellectual masturbation. Arguing just to show off how learned you are wastes everyone's time. I don't talk to people who just want to 'have fun' or 'play devil's advocate'.
Seems you do, since you keep replying to me here jfl.
Ok. I don't care what the definition of "race" was in the sixteenth century because you're obviously using it to mean what a person in the 21st century means when they say "race", as evidenced by your strained comparisons with Hindu norms to Jim Crow laws and emphasis on how the Aryans just "looked different".
It’s not just how it was used in the 16th century. The wiki article says people try to use less loaded terms in the scientific community like ethnicity, population, people(s), etc instead of race. All these terms are closer to the relatedness/origination definition of race. Morphology is just a consequence of that, although groups like the Andaman islands might morphologically look black but are probably the most diverged from them, so there are exceptions.
The overwhelming majority of social classes and positions in this time period are hereditary. When it comes to ancient India you interpret everything as "racial" but for any other system in the world it's "just a social convention" to you?
No, only the ruling classes (unless they got conquered). As I said, it was i only as far as it was a good idea to learn skills from your parents rather than go out and get some other skill for from some other people. Although in a little more advanced societies they did have teachers that specialized in crafts rather than just learning from parents, but idk exactly when that developed.
"Definitely"? Did you read the Rigveda personally or are you just harping based on what you heard someone else say? Because the only time this word is used is in a ritual or confessional context.
Based on what scholars say, don’t need to read rigvedas at all. It just seems like you are trying to trying to escape from the uniqueness of this system in world history.
Northern India wasn't even called "Aryavarta" during the time the early Rigvedic Sanskrit was spoken. In fact only Northwestern India was populated by the Indo-Aryans, and it was referred to as "Sapta Sindhu" not "Aryavarta". All your information on the caste system come from non-Vedic medieval texts like the Dharmaśāstra which were composed thousands of years after the migration of the Indo-Aryans into South Asia and well after the Indian population took its current ethnic form, not before. This is the equivalent of using the U.S. constitution to prove how the Anglo-Saxons governed England.
I never said it did, and neither did it need to be. The 10th mandala of the rig veda that has the purusha sukta was added much later after the rig vedic period, so it was not a hard coded system early on. I don’t even think the Aryan people could farm, and why the original caste system is hypothesized to have been 3-fold, with priest, warriors, free man (aryas). This matches with how almost all other Indo-European societies were broken down, and the fourth one was added by including the non-aryans of India (non-arya). Basing it off this idea that many scholars agree with, although it is not universally accepted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifunctional_hypothesis
The earliest reference I can find for the name aryavarta is from Baudhayana sūtras, which is dated to around the 8th century to 6th century BC. I can’t find a dating for the 10th mandala of the rig veda, but maybe you can. Since the bulk of the rig veda was finished by 1000BC and we know the caste system was on full effect by the time of the Buddha, it dates somewhere in that time.
And you are right that arya is mostly used as a cultural-linguistic thing in the Vedas, as they mostly refer to their own culture as noble. But there is racial undertones even in the Buddha’s time.
“
Master Gotama, the brahmins say, ‘Brahmins are the superior caste; any other caste is inferior. Only brahmins are the fair caste; any other caste is dark. Only brahmins are pure, not non-brahmins. Only brahmins are the sons and offspring of Brahma: born of his mouth, born of Brahma, created by Brahma, heirs of Brahma.’ What does Master Gotama have to say with regard to that?”
-Assalayana Sutta
Him calling the other castes dark and his as fair is an obvious racial undertone to it. Some have argued that these people atay inside all day, but that’s just no true as many Brahmins were forest ascetics at this time who would be outside. And many tradesmen might be inside all day as well.
You are honestly making stuff up now... I notice you do this often.
How?
It can mean like twenty different things depending on the context. Classical Sanskrit is a metaphorical language. There aren't even four different types of skin colors or four races that correspond to each one of those varnas.
“The word appears in the
Rigveda, where it means "colour, outward appearance, exterior, form, figure or shape".
[5] The word means "color, tint, dye or pigment" in the
Mahabharata.
[5] Varna contextually means "colour, race, tribe, species, kind, sort, nature, character, quality, property" of an object or people in some Vedic and medieval texts.
[5]”
Clearly based on this almost all contexts can be seen as racism.
No they aren't. If that's the case you have to explain why Brahmin "jatis" are the ones that consistently correspond with a particular varna (the Brahmins) while the rest of Indian society doesn't. The vast majority of jatis are NOT found in the historical record prior to a few hundred years ago, and their origin prior to this is just speculation. FYI, there are non-elite peasants in India with more Indo-European ancestry than Brahmins.
Because there were many later migrants from Central Asia and such who wouldn’t become Brahmins, but rather the other 2 castes. And the reason brahmin jati ans varna are the same while others are not is because as indian society became more complex, the divisions of each varna became more numerous and complex.
You couldn't marry within your own gotra either even if you were of the same caste.
To prevent inbreeding
There are tons of different Hindu norms and prohibitions and there are specific justifications for why they exist. I'm telling you why some lower caste groups are untouchable and that's because their work is considered ritually polluting, not because of an ancient practice of "racial segregation". If an upper caste person does them as well then he will also be considered untouchable.
Ritual purity is a later interpretation, as you can clearly see in the Buddhist texts of the Pali canon that predate the Law of Manu and others that talk about ritual purity related to caste.
Name me each one of these scholars, particularly ones within the last 50 years. If you are speaking sincerely then this should be of no problem to you. There are ethnic differences between social classes in EVERY SOCIETY do to the historical circumstances of their arrival. That doesn't make them "racial hierarchies", any more than the Norman ruling class elite in England was a "racial hierarchy".
There are too many scholars to list, how am I going to list every single one of them jfl? And I have you one of the examples above in the trifurcational hypothesis that is widely accepted by many. Others include Sheldon Pollock, Ram Sharan Sharma, and many more. Those are just some I can think of from the top of my head.
