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Varnashrama dharma

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krish • October 30, 1995 


The only justification as I see it in the discussions fo rpro-caste
is that many of the group must be brahmins. The society has progressed
compared to the ancient times of Manu to Ramanuja. The concepts
of equal rights, rights of women, and children etc. are modern ones,
to a large extent what we owe to the Western civilization.
It is very nice to proclaim about division of labor, if one does not
have to come down. It is the same a Repubican concepts of free socity.
When Goldwater was presidial candidate there was a cartoon about
"why can't you inherit your own department stor?".
What shocks me is the attidue that some how all the ancient books
are answers. Devotion is like a walking stick. You need it if you
can't manage your life otherwise. There is nothing wrong about it.
All of us have handicaps and try to live the best way we can. The
problem arises when some how trires to argue that his own stick is
the most comfortable of all.
Caste as practiced was shameful, so was and to some extent the status
of women in India. Many of our ancestors among the women were child
brides. But then, people felt it was natural.
Krish