There are some misconceptions on the relationship between Brahmins Caste Vedas and Hinduism.
Vedas
The canards have been set by the British and later expanded and propagated vigorously by the Dravidian parties to such an extent that many do not know th facts.
1.The Brahmins wrote the Vedas.
The Vedas are called Sruthi , heard and transmitted and there is no authorship.
‘If you find a Snake and a Brahmin, kill the Brahmin First”-EVR
“Recalling his earlier Erode days my media friend said EVR used to address public meetings at Erode’s Karaivaikkal maidan. Power connection for loudspeakers came from an electricity line drawn from an Iyer lawyer’s place close to the maidan. At one such meeting the Dravidian Kazhagam supremo, in an anti-Brahmin rant, called on his followers to go for Brahmins with scissors and have their sacred-thread snapped. As lawyer Dhandapani Iyer heard EVR holding forth on cutting off Brahmins’ sacred thread he cut off power to the public maidan, leaving the mike system dead .
Realising his tactical mistake EVR swiftly made amends by raising his voice, loudly enough for him to be heard by the advocate Iyer, that his followers must ensure sure that nice Brahmins such as Dhandapani Iyer were spared. Power connection got restored and EVR carried on his speech, avoiding references that could hurt the man who powered his public address system.”
This actually happened.
An unruly crowd went around in Srirangam, cutting the tufts of Brahmins, Their Sacred Thread.
They went around chanting,
‘Paapan Ozhiga”
Down with Brahmins’ the term used to denote was derogatory, Paapan, in their opinion.
These jokers did not even know Tamil.
The term Paarpan was the term first used by Thirumoolar in his Thirumandiram, a Yoga Sastra Book in Tamil.
The term means ‘one who Has Realized, who has seen the Real Self’
EVR called Brahmins as interlopers into Tamil Nadu, conveniently forgetting the fact he is a Kanndiga.
He administered a Ganapati Temple, which was in his Family control.
He justified it by saying that he was just doing his family duty!
If you believe in some thing honestly, you should be at least honest about it.
His ilk later justified this act as a sign of his magnanimity.
I had attended some of his meetings.
In one meeting in Chennai he said, to the crowd, when there was a commotion,
‘We are apprehensive because we think aff All Brahmins”….
“Not all Brahmins are bad.
There are honest, dedicated and patriotic Brahmins.
We should remember they are influential’!
Note he gives away why he changed track in the last sentence.
‘We should not oppose Brahmins’-Navasakthi 28/2/1925
It is a mistake to imagine that only Brahimns are arrogant and are obsessed by Caste.
It is with the other communities-Kudi Arasu 2/8/1925.
The man who publicly spewed venom against the Brahmins had a news item published in his newspaper meant to attack Brahmins thus.
“EVR performed the last rites according to Vaishnava Rites,of his elder brother E.V.Krishnaswamy’s wife Nagammal by non Brahmins’
Kusi Arasu 10/2/1927.
Brahmins were attacked because their cultural and religious roots,but you perform the same rites through the others.
What a Joker!
The quotes are from the Book by Sri.Suppu ‘Dravida Mayayai’ Dravdianism .an Illusion
Links.
Periyar’s self-respect movement was founded on a principle of intense anti-Brahmanist racism, while nominally claiming to be a movement espousing “rationalism” and “athieism”.Tamil Brahmins (Iyers and Iyengars) were frequently held responsible by followers of Periyar for direct or indirect oppression of lower-caste people on the canard of “Brahmin oppression” and resulted in innumerable hate attacks on Brahmins and which amoung other reasons started a wave of forced mass-migration of the Brahmin population. Periyar is alleged to have called for “Brahmin killing”s and burning down Brahmin homes. Later, in regards to a DK member’s attempt to assassinate Rajagopalachari, he “expressed his abhorrence of violence as a means of settling political differences”. The canard of “Brahmin oppression” rationalized conspiracy theories and pointed to Brahmins as enemies against whom the radical movements pitted themselves. The legacy of the anti-Brahmanism of the self-respect movement was taken over by the later Dravidan parties. Growing anti-Brahmanism in Chennai provided a rationale for polarization of the lower castes in the DMK movement. Eventually, the virulent anti-Brahmanism subsided somewhat with the replacement of the DMK party by the AIADMK. EVR’s followers have broken temple icons, cut sacred threads and tufts from Brahmin priests, and have often portrayed Brahmins in the most derogatory manner in their meetings and magazines.
This mellowed down write up and find out how facts are doctored and presented as if EVR had no connection with virulent anti Brahminism
There are forty Samskaras to be performed by a Hindu.
Death is an important Samskara,
I will provide some guidelines with Links.
However, the suggestions of the Purohit is to be taken for consideration as some customs vary for each Caste and even in a Caste for a particular Family/Group.
General.
Those who become Untouchable during the period of Mourning-Theetu
The wearing of Thaali is a later custom developed and it does not find a place in Vedic Marriage,
The removal of Mangal Sutra may be done some one who is widowed already(preferably elder to the one in question) quietly on the morning of the Eleventh Day,;have the bangles removed and have the Mangal Sutra removed and dropped in a vessel containing milk.
One can perform all functions in the Family including Marriage after the Thirteenth Day, Subasweekara,Gruha Yajnam, except in the case of Spouse. Wife and children.
The Gruha Yajna means you are permitted to do Yajna.
Indian tradition states that the intermingling of people from the North and South, separated by the Vindhya Mountains , started taking place during the time when Sage Viswamitra lived.
Sage Viswamitra banished his 56 children to the ‘Dravida‘ ,meaning South of Vindhya Mountains, as they disobeyed him.
They moved to the South, found a culturally rich civilization , married integrated the Veda and Dravidian Customs and formed the Agamas.
Sage Apasthamba compiled the Vedas for those living south of the Vindhyas , comprising the best of both the Cultures and gave the Apasthamba Sutra,.
This is practiced in the South even today.
Recent studies date this period around 4000 years earlier from now.
This roughly corresponds to the beginning of Kali Yuga of Indian calendar.
The characteristics and specific issues are elaborated in the Tholkappiyam Agathiyam, the ancient works in Tamil.
Each area had its own God’s,Profession and social Mores.
Cowherds lived in Mullai,farmers in Marutham, Hunters in Kurinji,Fishermen in Neyadal and Kallars in Palai.
There were injunctions against marrying from different geographical group.
So the Caste system is not because of the mingling from the North.
The Study at best conveys the fact that people from the North started mingling with each other , that’s all.
This does not mean that Caste has been imported to South from the North.
This confusion or deliberate misinformation is because of the Myth of Aryan Invasion of the South.
Please read my posts on Aryan Invasion Myths and On Viswamitra.
The name Viswamitra appears in all the Four Yugas, or the Time Scale of the Hindus,
it is difficult to assign a time for him.
And Viswamitra is a Nom de plume, meaning ‘friend of the Universe ‘.
The name of the Viswamitra as it appears in the Ramayana, which took place in the Treta Yuga, is Kausika.
And the Viswamitra of Dwapara Yuga can not be same as the Yugas are separated by thousands of Years.
Unless people were living for very long period of time, which, in my opinion, is possible.
More important is the concept of Time in Hinduism.
Human Migration.
Read my post on Time.
There is another anomaly in the study.
It says the intermingling of the North and South stopped about 2000 years ago.
Are there not marriages today between the people of the north and the South?
Some more doubts on Viswamitra,
“I had some confusion about Sage Vishwamitra. We hear
about Sage Vishwamitra in many places:
[1] Much before the Lord Rama came down to the earth.
(Vishwamitra was the one who build the heaven for the
ancestor of Lord Rama, Satyavrata, later called as
Trishanku).
[2] Then Vishwamitra went into penance with an enimity
with Sage Vasista. Thats when Gayathri mantra was
given to us.
[3] During the penance Menaka comes down and from them
is born the Bharatha dynasty king – Dushyant. So does
that mean while Lord Rama’s dynasty (SuryaVamsa) were
ruling in Treta Yuga, the seed for the Bharatha’s
dynasty (ChandraVamsa) was sown and set to begin in
Dwapara Yuga? in which Yugas did the Chandra Vamsa and
Surya Vamsa dynasties gain importance?…
I cannot provide you with a religious/spiritual answer, but as far as chronology
is concerned – here is my answer:
If you please refer to my ‘Royal Chronology of India’ at
(http://www.newdharma.org/India_Chron.zip) you’ll see the name Vishvamitra come
up many times (as you will also see with Vasishtha) because these are not one
person. They represent an incredible lineage of Rsis going back thousands of
years. These priests have been mentioned in our scriptures by their family
names (“last names”) and on a few occassions their first names are also
mentioned.
”
Analysis of mtDNA Suggests a Proto-Asian Origin ofIndians
MtDNA HVR1 genetic distances between caste populations and Africans, Asians, and Europeans are significantly different from zero (p<0.001) and reveal that, regardless of rank, each caste group is most closely related to Asians and is most dissimilar from Africans (Table (Table1).1). The genetic distances from major continental populations (e.g., Europeans) differ among the three caste groups, and the comparison reveals an intriguing pattern. As one moves from lower to upper castes, the distance from Asians becomes progressively larger. The distance between Europeans and lower castes is larger than the distance between Europeans and upper castes, but the distance between Europeans and middle castes is smaller than the upper caste-European distance. These trends are the same whether the Kshatriya and Vysya are included in the upper castes, the middle castes, or excluded from the analysis. This may be owing, in part, to the small sample size (n=10) of each of these castes. Among the upper castes the genetic distance between Brahmins and Europeans (0.10) is smaller than that between either the Kshatriya and Europeans (0.12) or the Vysya and Europeans (0.16). Assuming that contemporary Europeans reflect West Eurasian affinities, these data indicate that the amount of West Eurasian admixture with Indian populations may have been proportionate to caste rank.”
“India’s caste system, says a new genetic study, began about 2,000 years ago. The study adds that people from different genetic populations — from the North and the South — began to mix with each other about 4,200 years ago but that the mixing stopped about 2,000 years ago.
The study was carried out by Harvard Medical School and the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad. David Reich, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, said that the caste system in India has been around for a long time, but that it had certainly not begun right at the very beginning.
Marriage in India, Hinduism is a bit complex in that Marriages are intertwined with Religion ,Spirituality, Disposition and place in the Society.
As I have mentioned in my earlier posts, the Social Organisation , incorrectly called as ‘Caste’ Marriages were classified into Eight Types, based on the couples disposition and their Social Status.
Brahma Vivaah:Brahma vivah is considered the best marriage. In this the boy and girl belonging to good families and the same varna get married. The boy should have completed his Brahmacharya Ashram (studenthood). There is no dowry involved and the girl enters the boy’s house with two sets of clothes and some ornaments. In this marriage, the boy’s family approaches the girl’s family. “Kanyadaan”, which is the handing of the bride by her father to the groom, is an important ritual of the Brahma Vivah..
Prajapatya Vivaah: This type of marriage is the same as the Brahma vivaah in all respects, except that the bride’s father gives her away as a gift, not to the groom, but to the groom’s father. This type of marriage is resorted to when the groom and bride are both very young. Thus, the protection of the bride or daughter is handed over by her father to the groom’s father during the Panigrahan (hand-receiving) ceremony. The wedding ceremony involving the young bride and groom may take place immediately afterwards, but the wedding may not be consummated for several years, until the bride and groom are old enough.
Daiva Vivaah: In this type of wedding, there are no feasts or celebrations that are specific to the wedding, but the wedding of the daughter of a poor family is held as an act of charity by wealthy people. It was customary for kings, landlords and rich merchants to hold religious ceremonies and sacrifices where many gifts would be given and charities performed for the benefit of learned Brahmins and the poor. During these great events, a poor man would sometimes approach the wealthy host and seek the charity that his daughter’s wedding be performed at this time. This type of marriage may take place if the girl’s parents are unable to locate a suitable groom within a reasonable period (several years) after the girl has attained puberty. Often, the reason for this would be that the parents of the bride cannot afford the expense of their daughter’s marriage. It was considered improper or unsafe to keep a girl unwed past her teens, and anyway the chances of an aging girl getting a good husband were not better than the same girl getting a good husband at a younger age. So the girl would be bedecked with flowers and whatever small ornaments the parents could provide and taken to the venue of the religious ceremony or sacrifice being performed by a rich magnate. She would be offered in marriage to any willing man and generally this would be one of the priests, young or old. The wedding ceremony would be performed in short order and the feasts which were anyway being hosted as part of the festivities would suffice for this extra wedding also. According to the Dharmashastra, Daiva marriage is considered avoidable but is still respectable since poverty is not culpable; lack of virtue is reprehensible but honest poverty is acceptable.
Arsha Vivaah: In this type of marriage, the family of the groom pays kanya-shulkam or bride-price to the parents of the bride. According to certain texts, the prescribed bride-price is a cow with a calf and a pair of bulls. The sacred texts provide various lists of specific communities where this custom prevailed and imply that it is unfitting in general society. However, several instances are found in the puranas of marriage between a man from mainstream communities and a woman from one of the bride-price seeking communities (Pandu–Madri; Dasharatha–Kaikeyi, etc.). In nearly all cases, the man willingly pays the bride-price and brings his bride home. Also in nearly all these cases, the woman thus obtained comes to dominate her husband and causes havoc and ruin in his family.
Asura Vivaah: In the Asura type of marriage the groom is not at all suitable for the bride. In no way is he a match for the girl but he willingly gives as much wealth as he can afford to the bride’s parents and relatives. In Arsha type cows are given in exchange for the bride but there is no such limitation in the Asura type of marriage. Generally the groom is of lower social rank or caste than the bride. This type of marriage is highly disfavored.
Gandharva Vivaah: When a man and a woman marry for love and without the consent of their families, that marriage is called Gandharva Vivaah or ‘love marriage.’ This type of marriage is considered impious and degrading because it is motivated by lust. In Hinduism, a man is supposed to marry a woman who will aid him in performing his duties towards his parents, clan and society, and to have sons to perpetuate his lineage. Love marriages are seen as taking a man away from all these duties and making him besotted to a beautiful, lustful woman, mindful only of his own selfish pleasures and unmindful of his duties. Hence this form of marriage is reprobated.
Rakshasa Vivaah: This is essentially marriage by abduction. In cases where the girl is willing to marry the boy but her family is against the alliance, the girl may be abducted and married. It is essential that the girl be willing, because otherwise, the puranas and shastras simply treat the incident of abduction as rape, with consequent vengeance and retribution. Instances of such marriages include Krishna–Rukmini and Arjuna–Subhadra, in all of which cases the girl was willing and the results were good.
Paishacha Vivaah: In the case where the bride is intoxicated, possessed or not in a conscious state of mind when being married and thus is married unwillingly, is an example Paishacha vivaah, and which has been outlawed by Manu.(Wiki)
Of these eight, in the first Two Case, Brahmana Vivaha and Prajapati Vivaha, Divorce and Remarriage and Widow Remarriage were not allowed.
This is because of the elevated status these two groups, which perform these types of Marriages belong to.
Normally these were performed by the Brahmana, Kshatriya and Vaisya Communities.
What is important to note is that the ‘Caste’ is determined based on wedlock and Wedlock is not determined by the caste, in the sense that those who marry other than these two types of Marriages no longer belong to the Group and are not constrained by their original groups laws.
An example is the marriage of Asura Guru,Sukra’s daughter’s marriage.( Devyani).
Sukracharya, a Brahmin was the Guru of Asuras .
His duty was to get his daughter married in the style of Brahmana Vivaha.
Since it he did not do it, for no fault of his, he separated himself from his daughter, who later married a King.
In these cases, the Laws of Manu ,proscribing remarriage or Divorce do not apply.
The Laws of Manu forbidding Remarriage and Divorce are related to the two types of marriages and not to other Varnas.
In all the other six cases, laws of Manu do not apply and there is no bar for remarriage.
As has been the vein of Sanatana Dharama, stricter laws are applied to Barhmains, Kshatriyas ans Vaishyas.
Therefore Divorce and Remarriages were allowed except in the case of the Brahmanas ,Kshtriyas and Vishyas,
In case people from these groups decide to marry in a form other than what is prescribed, Namely Brahman Vivaha and Prajapati Vivaha, tey acn, but they are no longer controlled by the laws that were applicable to them earlier.
The which group do they belong to and what rules should they follow?
This will be dealt with separately in another post, where I will be discussing how many so-called caste groups came into being.
Indians
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