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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian

Interesting question. Deserves a more complete answer than your're going to get right now! But a short answer is that the caste system is a degradation of the system described in the Bhagavad Gita, which is society being ordered according to character and qualities, not birth. Originally, there were 4 orders of life (student, householder, retired, and renunciant) and 4 castes or divisions (servant or laborer, farmer and merchant, warrior or administrator, and teacher). Everyone went through the first four, and personal qualities and character placed one in the second.

Then there is the deeper understanding of the self as eternal soul, with the body and its social standing as a temporary vehicle only. Some "cradle Hindus" would accept me as a bona vide Hindu or Vaishnava, some who have more of a superficial or deviated understanding would see me as an outcaste due to my birth in a non-Hindu family. But most I have met were the former, not the latter.


45 posted on 07/05/2004 6:55:18 AM PDT by little jeremiah (http://www.mikegabbard.com - a REAL conservative running for Congress!)
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To: little jeremiah

Thanks for sharing your insights into the Hindu religion and culture. Several years ago I had access to several issues of "Hinduism Today", a monthly publication, and was struck by the news of that the cultural battles Hindu's face are identical or similar to what conservative Christians and Muslims face.


49 posted on 07/05/2004 9:49:48 AM PDT by St.Chuck
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