INTRODUCTION Are you really what you eat? Why are people born with certain.
unique tendencies? Are matter and spirit separate, or the same? Although seemingly.
unrelated, these questions are unified by the subject under consideration in this paper: the.
Hindu caste system. The caste system itself is unified by the concern of ritual purity.
According to the Encyclop?dia Britannica: the caste system has been a dominating aspect.
of social organization for thousands of years. A caste, generally designated by the term jati.
("birth"), refers to a strictly regulated social community into which one is born. In general,.
a person is expected to marry someone within the same jati, follow a particular set of rules.
for proper behavior (in such matters as kinship, occupation, and diet), and interact with.
other jatis according to the group's position in the social hierarchy. ("India") Among.
Hindus, the thousands of jatis are grouped into four large clusters called varnas, which is.
loosely translated as "color". Whether this refers to skin color or to attributes of character.
depends on one's perspective. Kelly Ross, a non-Hindu college philosophy instructor,.
believes that "these sound suspiciously like skin colors; and, indeed, there is an.
expectation in India that higher caste people will have lighter skin." In contrast, a Hindu.
web page asserts that this is not a reference to skin color, but to the fact that colors are.
associated with types of personalities ("The Caste System). For instance, if warriors are.
referred to as "red", this implies their passionate nature, and not their skin color. Each.
varna has a traditional function to fulfill for the good of the whole society. Brahmins, the.
priests, are at the top of the social hierarchy, followed by Kshatriyas, the warriors;.
Vaishyas, originally peasants, but later merchants; and Sudras, the serfs. The particular.
varna in which a jati is ranked depends, in part, on its relative level of "impurity,".