Word Finder - caste

definition

Any of the hereditary social classes and subclasses of South Asian societies.

definition

A separate and fixed order or class of persons in society who chiefly associate with each other.

definition

A class of polymorphous eusocial insects of a particular size and function within a colony.

The object of this ceremony is to abolish caste distinctions.

Sivaji and his fighting officers were Mahrattas of humble caste, but his ministers were Brahmans.

They had their own kings, lived as a close caste, and even imitated the Hindus in caste regulations of food and avoidance of pollution.

The chief, whose title is Pant Pratinidhi, is a Brahman by caste.

For a long time caste was subsumed under the category of labor.

They were a social caste, which strove to keep, and which largely succeeded in keeping, all high offices and political power in its own hands.

Amar Das preached the doctrine abrogation of caste distinctions, and his precepts were implicitly followed by his successors.

Caste, in its later sense, is unknown.

We had fought with our parents to be together forever , who were opposed to inter caste marriage.

The tyrants general policy was to favor the multitude at the expense of his own caste.

In origin, Krishna, like Rama, was undoubtedly a deified hero of the Kshatriya caste.

The clergy, fortified by royal privileges, had also risen to influence; but celibacy and independence of the civil courts tended to make them more and more of a separate caste.

The ruling caste of the Fula differs widely in character from the herdsmen of the western Sudan.

Thus a man wishing to marry his son or daughter had to look for a suitable match outside his sept, but within his caste.

Whatever national unity the Hindu peoples possessed came from the persistent and penetrating influence of the Brahman caste.

But after a time Delbriick, suspected of inspiring his charge with a dislike of the Prussian military caste and even of belonging to a political secret society, was dismissed, his place being taken by the pastor and historian Friedrich Ancillon, while a military governor was also appointed.

Starting from the unity of God, Nanak and his successors rejected the idols and incarnations of the Hindus, and on the ground of the equality of all men rejected also the system of caste.

The latter were indubitably the Ugrian nomads of the steppe, akin to the Tatar invaders of Europe, who filled the armies and convoyed the caravans of the ruling caste.

So a Hindu paints his caste emblem on his forehead, and a fugitive slave in ancient Egypt, once marked with sacred stigmata in a temple, could not be reclaimed by the master.

But it is not unreasonable to think that they were no mere conquering caste, and that they were of the same race as the Celtic-speaking peoples of the western continent.

Although Becket was a man of narrow sympathies and by no means of liberal views, he had died for the liberties of his caste, and the aureole that surrounded him enhanced the prestige and ascendancy of the papacy.

And in their indifference to the distinctions of race and nationality they merely accommodated themselves to the spirit which had become characteristic of chivalry itself, already recognized, like the church, as a universal institution which knit together the whole warrior caste of Christendom into one great fraternity irrespective alike of feudal subordination and territorial boundaries.

Orthodox Hindus, especially those whose social status and very livelihood are imperilled by the revolution, have shown their alarm either by open opposition, subjecting converts to every sort of caste coercion, or by methods of defence, e.g.

The mining has always been carried on by natives of low caste, and by primitive methods which do not differ much from those described by the French merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier (1605-1689), who paid a prolonged visit to most of the mines between 1638 and 1665 as a dealer in precious stones.

At the beginning of the 19th century the Hausa territories were conquered by another dominant Mahommedan race, the Fula (q.v.), who form a separate caste of cattle-rearers.

At no .period did the priests form a caste that was quite distinctly separated from the laity.

Yet violations of these rules are jealously watched by the other members of the sept, and are liable - in accordance with the general custom in which communal matters are regulated in India - to be brought before a special council (panchayat), originally consisting of five (pancha), but now no longer limited to that number, since it is chiefly the greater or less strictness in the observance of caste rules and the orthodox ceremonial generally that determine the status of the sept in the social scale of the caste.

In India this is still largely upper caste in its composition.

In later times, the strict adherence to caste duties would naturally receive considerable support from the belief in the transmigration of souls, already prevalent before Buddha's time, and from the very general acceptance of the doctrine of karma (" deed "), or retribution, according to which a man's present station and manner of life are the result of the sum-total of his actions and thoughts in his former existence; as his actions here will again, by the same automatic process of retribution, determine his status and condition in his next existence.

Indeed, the paucity of women of the Aryan stock would probably render these mixed unions almost a necessity from the very outset; and the vaunted purity of blood which the caste rules were calculated to perpetuate can scarcely have remained of more than a relative degree even in the case of the Brahman caste.

If the daughter of one of the baker caste married a man not belonging to it, her husband was bound to her father's calling.

But, by this as it may, the institution of caste, when once established, certainly appears to have gone on steadily developing; and not even the long period of Buddhist ascendancy, with its uncompromising resistance to the Brahman's claim to being the sole arbiter in matters of faith, seems to have had any very appreciable retardant effect upon the progress of the movement.

Whilst community of occupation was an important factor in the original formation of non-tribal castes, the practical exigencies of life have led to considerable laxity in this respect - not least so in the case of Brahmans who have often had to take to callings which would seem altogether incompatible with the proper spiritual functions of their caste.

Thus," the prejudice against eating cooked food that has been touched by a man of an inferior caste is so strong that, although the Shastras do not prohibit the eating of food cooked by a Kshatriya or Vaisya, yet the Brahmans, in most parts of the country, would not eat such food.

In this caste, however, as in all others, there are certain kinds of occupation to which a member could not turn for a livelihood without incurring serious defilement.

Further down, where the test of water no longer applies, the status of the caste depends on the nature of its occupation and its habits in respect of diet.

In western and southern India the idea that the social state of a caste depends on whether Brahmans will take water and sweetmeats from its members is unknown, for the higher castes will as a rule take water only from persons of their own caste and sub-caste.

In Madras especially the idea of ceremonial pollution by the proximity of an unclean caste has been developed with much elaboration.

At the same time, in judging the apparently inhuman way in which the Sudras were treated in the caste rules, one has always to bear in mind the fact that the belief in metempsychosis was already universal at the time, and seemed to afford the only rational explanation of the apparent injustice involved in the unequal distribution of the good things in this world; and that, if the Sudra was strictly excluded from the religious rites and beliefs of the superior classes, this exclusion in no way involved the question of his ultimate emancipation and his union with the Infinite Spirit, which were as certain in his case as in that of any other sentient being.

The caste system, always calculated to favour unity of religious practice within its social groups, must naturally have contributed to the advance of sectarianism.

According to the Basava-purana he early in life renounced his caste and went to reside at Kalyana, then the capital of the Chalukya kingdom, and later on at Sangamesvara near Ratnagiri, where he was initiated into the Vira Saiva faith which he subsequently made it his life's work to propagate.

Just as this festival was, and continues to be, attended by people from all parts of India, without distinction of caste or sex, so also were all classes, even Mahommedans, admitted by Chaitanya as members of his sect.

The Sakta cult is, however, known to be especially prevalent - though apparently not in a very extreme form - amongst members of the very respectable Kayastha or writer caste of Bengal, and as these are largely employed as clerks and accountants in Upper India, there is reason to fear that their vicious practices are gradually being disseminated through them.

Terminating as it usually does with the feeding and feeing of a greater or less number of Brahmans and the feasting of members of the performers' own caste, the Sraddha, especially its first performance, is often a matter of very considerable expense; and more than ordinary benefit to the deceased is supposed to accrue from it when it takes place at a spot of recognized sanctity, such as one of the great places of pilgrimage like Prayaga (Allahabad, where the three sacred rivers, Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati, meet), Mathura, and especially Gaya and Kasi (Benares).

He denied that the Vedas warranted the caste system, but wished to retain the four grades as orders of learning to which admission should be won by examination.

You can only be granted special status by someone in a caste far above you.

He expressed the interests of this bureaucratic caste ever more clearly.

The other gave birth to a new privileged caste.

Hinduism has a rigid caste system which often results in pressure on the young to ensure they don't marry into the wrong caste system which often results in pressure on the young to ensure they don't marry into the wrong caste.

On the other, the younger sons of the warrior caste sought pay, booty and estates to maintain themselves.