caste, any of the ranked, hereditary, endogamous social groups, often linked with occupation, that together constitute traditional societies in South Asia, particularly among Hindus in India. Although sometimes used to designate similar groups in other societies, the “caste system” is uniquely developed in Hindu societies.

Use of the term caste to characterize social organization in South Asia, particularly among the Hindus, dates to the middle of the 16th century. Casta (from Latin castus, “chaste”) in the sense of purity of breed was employed by Portuguese observers to describe the division of Hindu society in western and southwestern India into socially ranked occupational categories. In an effort to maintain vertical social distance, these groups practiced mutual exclusion in matters relating to eating and, presumably, marrying. Subsequently, cast, or caste, became established in English and major European languages (notably Dutch and French) in the same specific sense. Caste is generally believed to be an ancient, abiding, and unique Indian institution upheld by a complex cultural ideology.

Varnas

It is essential to distinguish between large-scale and small-scale views of caste society, which may respectively be said to represent theory and practice, or ideology and the existing social reality. On the large scale, contemporary students of Hindu society recall an ancient fourfold arrangement of socioeconomic categories called the varnas, which is traced back to an oral tradition preserved in the Rigveda (dating perhaps from between 1500 and 1200 bce). The Sanskrit word varna has many connotations, including colour, description, selection, and classification.

More From Britannica

India: Caste of India

Indo-European-speaking peoples migrated probably about 1500 bce to northwestern India (the Indus valley and the Punjab Plain). Since the mid-19th century some scholars have identified these migrants as “Aryans”; this term, derived from the Sanskrit word arya (“noble” or “distinguished”), is found in the Rigveda. Some scholars postulated that these alleged Aryans encountered or conquered the indigenous people, whom they called daha (“enemies”) or dasyu (“servants”). The fact that varna may mean “colour” has led some scholars to posit that these so-called Aryans and the dasyus—alleged to have been light-skinned and dark-skinned, respectively—may have been antagonistic ethnic groups divided by physical features as well as by culture and language. Since the mid-20th century, however, some scholars have pointed to textual evidence that the distinction referred to ritual practices and not to skin colour; further, the term arya may have been a term for nobility rather than an ethnic self-identification. In addition, it is also likely that the daha included earlier immigrants from Iran. Therefore, the tendency of some 20th-century writers to reduce the ancient bipolar classification to racial differences on the basis of skin colour is misleading and rightly no longer in vogue.

Whatever the relations between the so-called arya and daha, it is likely that they gradually became integrated into an internally plural social order reflecting a threefold division of society into priests, warriors, and commoners. In an early period, membership in a varna appears to have been based mainly on personal skills rather than birth, status, or wealth. By the end of the Rigvedic period, however, the hereditary principle of social rank had taken root. Thus the hymn of the Rigveda (probably a late addition to the text) in which the creation of humanity in the form of varnas emerges from a self-sacrificial rite of the primeval person (purusha): Brahmans were the mouth of purusha, from his arms were made the Rajanyas (Kshatriyas), from his two thighs, the Vaishyas, and the Shudras were born from his feet. The extent to which the ideology’s hierarchical ordering of the four groups mirrored the social reality is unknown.

The highest-ranked among the varnas, the Brahmans, were priests and the masters and teachers of sacred knowledge (veda). Next in rank but hardly socially inferior was the ruling class of Rajanya (kinsmen of the king), later renamed Kshatriya, those endowed with sovereignty and, as warriors, responsible for the protection of the dominion (kshatra). A complex, mutually reinforcing relationship of sacerdotal authority and temporal power was obviously shaped over a long period of time.

Clearly ranked below the two top categories were the Vaishyas (from vish, “those settled on soils”), comprising agriculturists and merchants. These three varnas together were deemed to be “twice-born” (dvija), as the male members were entitled to go through a rite of initiation during childhood. This second birth entitled them to participate in specified sacraments and gave them access to sacred knowledge. They were also entitled alongside their social superiors to demand and receive menial services from the Shudras, the fourth and lowest-ranked varna. Certain degrading occupations, such as disposal of dead animals, excluded some Shudras from any physical contact with the “twice-born” varnas. Considered untouchable, they were simply dubbed “the fifth” (panchama) category.

Are you a student?

Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Subscribe

In the varna framework, the Brahmans have everything, directly or indirectly: “noble” identity, “twice-born” status, sacerdotal authority, and dominion over the Vaishyas and the Shudras, who accounted for the great majority of the people. This is not surprising, for the ancient Brahmans were the authors of the ideology. The four varnas, together with the notional division of the individual life cycle into four stages, or ashramas (brahmacharya, the years of learning and extreme discipline; garhasthya, householdership; vanaprastha, retirement; and sannyasa, renunciation of all worldly bonds) may at best be considered an archetypical blueprint for the good, moral life. Indeed, the Hindu way of life is traditionally called the varnashrama dharma (duties of the stages of life for one’s varna). The varna order remains relevant to the understanding of the system of jatis, as it provides the ideological setting for the patterns of interaction that are continuously under negotiation.

Jatis

Although the term caste has been used loosely to stand for both varna and jati (broadly, “form of existence fixed by birth”), it is jati—the small-scale perspective represented by local village societies—that most scholars have in mind when they write about the caste system of India. Jatis and relations among them have been accessible to observers from ancient times to the present. (Hereafter jati and caste will be used synonymously.)

Empirically, the caste system is one of regional or local jatis, each with a history of its own, whether this be Kashmir or Tamil Nadu, Bengal or Gujarat. History may differ, but the form of social organization does not. Everywhere castes have traditionally been endogamous. Each jati was associated with one or more hereditary occupations, but certain occupations (for example, agriculture or nontraditional civil service) were caste-neutral, and there were jati-specific restrictions on what and with whom one could eat and drink. Everywhere castes were ranked vertically, with the Brahmans at the top by virtue of their inherent condition of ritual purity and the Shudras at the bottom. Those among the Shudras who disposed of impure substances (body emissions, dead animals, etc.) were the “untouchables.” Between the top and bottom rungs there was considerable fluidity.

It is reasonable to assume that the caste system, contrary to the popular images of its changelessness, has always been characterized by the efforts of various jatis to raise themselves in the social order. Such efforts have been more successful in the case of low but ritually pure castes than in the case of those living below the line of pollution. As for “untouchability,” this was declared unlawful in the Indian constitution framed after independence and adopted in 1949–50.

Two routes have been available to castes seeking upward mobility. The traditional route consists of the adoption of certain critical elements of the way of life of clean (upper) castes, such as the ritual of initiation into the status of a clean jati, wearing of the sacred thread (a loop of thread worn next to the skin over the left shoulder and across the right hip) symbolic of such status, vegetarianism, teetotalism, abstention from work that is considered polluting or demeaning, and prohibition of the remarriage of widows. The process is gradual and not always successful. The critical test of success lies in the willingness, first, of higher castes to accept cooked food from members of the upwardly mobile jati and, second, of equivalent-status castes to provide them services that are deemed demeaning.

Within the framework of traditional values, socially ambitious castes have also been known, when possible, to supplement the criterion of ritual purity by the secular criteria of numerical strength, economic well-being (notably in the form of land ownership), and the ability to mobilize physical force to emerge as the wielders of power in village affairs and in local politics. Such a jati is usually referred to as the “dominant caste.” It is important to distinguish between status and dominance, although in historical practice they usually coincided. An important aspect of social change today is the dissociation of ritual status from secular economic and political power.

Although a great many spheres of life in modern India are little influenced by caste, most marriages are nevertheless arranged within the caste. This is in part because most people live in rural communities and because the arrangement of marriages is a family activity carried out through existing networks of kinship and caste.