4. Varnadharma (duties relative to one’s varna)

The Gita believes in the varnadharma. Man is a social animal. From very ancient times man has lived in some form of society. In every society we find social gradation. The varna dharma as depicted in the Gita helped the society in maintaining such an organization in social life.

Varnadharma means the duties relative to one’s varna or specific castes in spiritual discipline. Persons are divided into four castes according to their qualities. It is based upon ones temperament and capacity. In order to give a divine sanction to the division of mankind into caste in the society. The Gita asserts that God himself is the initiator of the varna in society.

caturvarnyam maya srstam gunakarmavibhagasah
tasya kartaram api mam viddhy akartaram avyayam (4,13)

“After the division of gunas and work by Me the four-fold order was created”. It means that the caste differences are due to the inner potentialities and temperament, which is caused by the inherent gunas”.

Krishna is portrayed as telling that the mankind is divided into four varna based upon his or her karma.

brahmanksatriyavisam sudranam ca paramtapa
karmani pravibhaktani svabhavaprabhavair gunaih (xviii,,41 )

“Of brahmins, of ksatriyas, and vaisya as also of sudras, O Conqueror of the foe (Arjuna), the activities are distinguished, in accordance with the qualities born of their nature”.

Therefore a review of the Gita’s basic teaching on varna (i,41 and 43; IV.13, xviii,41) can be summarized as follows: varna is a social classification based upon heredity, and involving a system of duties and obligations incumbent upon its several strata. Its purity and function are maintained by the observance of endogamy and the proper performance of duties in the families and castes of each varna, or caste. Arjuna reasons that when kuladharma (family duties) are violated by a fratricidal war, the family destroyed (i, 40). And when lawlessness prevails, the women of the family become corrupted and when women are corrupted, confusion of castes arises (i, 41). And to hell does this confusion bring the family itself as well as those who have destroyed it. For the spirits of their ancestors fall, deprived of their offerings of rice and water (i, 42). The varna system of four classes was created by Krishna. Within each class its members have common inherent natures (svabhava), the qualities (guna) of which determine the actions and duties of members of that class as distinct from the others. Since the Gita holds that actions performed in a previous life determine subsequent birth (vi,37-45), it follows that one’s karmic accumulations influence one’s inherent nature, one’s guna content, social class and incumbent duties.

The difference of caste and duty is due to the inherent dominance of gunas. We find an elaborate description of this in Gita. ‘Sattva’ abounds in the brahmanas, while ‘rajas’ dominates sattva in ksatriya, in the case of vaisyas, the ‘rajas’ over powers ‘tamas’ and the reverse is the case with the sudra.

Answering to this four types of caste there are four kinds of social living.

sama damas tapah saucam ksantir arjavam eva ca,
jnanam vijnanam astikyam drahmakarma svabhavajam (xviii, 42 )

“So the natural activities of Brahman are self-control, suppression of senses, purity both internal and external,to accept pain for duty, and to be forgiving and acquiring simplicity in mind, senses, and body, theistic reasons, knowledge of scriptures and experience of the spiritual essence”.

sauryam tejo dhrtir daksyam yuddhe ca'py apalayanam
danamisvarabhavas ca ksatram karma svabhavajam (xviii,43)

“Heroism, vigour, steadiness, resourcefulness, not fleeing even in a battle, generosity, and leadership, these are the duties of ksatriya born of his nature”.

Radhakrishnan interprets that though the ksatriyas cannot claim to be spiritual leaders, they have the qualities which enable them adapt spiritual truths to the requirement of action.^[1]

krsigauraksyavanijyam vaisyakarma svabhavajam
paricaryatmakam karma sudrasya’ pi svabhavajam (xviii, 44)

“Agriculture, tending cattle and trade are the duties of a vaisya born of his nature; work of the character of service is the duty of a sudra born of his nature”.

Radhakrishnan interpreted that it is not a question of identical opportunities for all men to rise to the highest station in social life, for men differ in their powers, but a question of giving equal opportunities for all so that they may bring their respective gifts to fruition. Each one should have the opportunity of achieving his human fullness, the fruits of wisdom and virtue, according to his effort and condition. It makes little difference whether we dig the earth or do business or govern a state or meditate in a cell. The varna rules recognize that different men contribute to the general good in different ways, by supplying directly urgent wants of which all are conscious and by being in their lives and work witnesses to truth and beauty. Society is a functional organization and all functions which are essential for the health of society are to be regarded as socially equal. Individuals of varying capacities are bound together in a living organic social system. All men are not equal in their capacities but all men are equally necessary for society, and their contributions from their different stations are of equal value.^[2]

Varna is neither a group nor a collectivity in the current sociological senses of the terms but is a category of those identifiable as manifesting a guna in their psychical make-up and the karma–resulting there from. Going against guna and karma would be going against nature, which brings neither happiness nor welfare to the individual and society. The innateness of guna in a person is due to the accumulative effect of action determines the course of the jiva in the process of transmigration and the attainment of moksa. One’s present birth as conditioned by one’s previous karmas approximate one’s heredity. The attainment of human life is already an achievement of past karmas and an opportunity for further refinement of guna and srama on the way to moksa. Conceptually the term varna-vyavastha stands for a fourfold categorization of social members based on the classification of guna and karma placed on the idealistic scale of the precedence (brahmin, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra). The social duties of these four categories, scripturally ordained, are idealistically assumed to be flowing from what their respective natures in society require for their highest fulfillment and for the integrated functioning of society.

Krishna declared in clear term as follows:

yah satre-vidhim utsrjya vartate kama-karatah
na sa sidhim avapnoti na sukham na param gatim (xvi,23)
tasmacchastram pramanam te karyakaryavyavasthitau
jnatva satravidhan’ oktam karma kartum iha’rhasi (xvi,24)

“Therefore, who forsakes the injunctions of the sastras and lives according to his own desires does not obtain liberation, Finds no happiness. (The sastras determine your work, what is right and what is wrong. You must know the way shown by the sastras and pursue the work-vocation-according to them”.

Krishna establishes that an individual owes his caste to his birth. There should not be slightest doubt about it.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Radhakrishnan,S: The Bhagavad Gita, p-366.

[2]:

Radhakrishnan,S: The Bhagavad Gita, p-367.