Articoli correlati a The Sikhs

Singh, Patwant The Sikhs ISBN 13: 9780375407284

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9780375407284: The Sikhs
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A comprehensive history of the Sikh people and religion traces the origins of the sect five centuries ago in India and discusses its current, sometimes violent, role in Indian politics.

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L'autore:
Patwant Singh's books and articles on India, international affairs, the environment, and the arts have been published in India, Europe, and North America. He has broadcast frequently on television and radio in many countries, and has travelled and lectured all over the world, often as the guest of governments. From 1957 to 1988, he was editor and publisher of the international magazine Design. He lives in New Delhi.
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Prologue

India's internal divisions and conflicts make sense only if you know something of her caste system. A unique tour de force with deep philosophical and spiritual underpinnings, it took its present form at about the beginning of the Christian era, even though the groundwork was established with the Aryan migrations into northern India around 1500 BC. On the physical side, the Aryans included a taller, larger-boned type distinguished by strong hair growth, especially beard, who settled mainly in the north, principally in the area that became known as Punjab. This type became the core of the military castes of the region, as also of the people who are the subject of this book.

"The coming of the Aryans," it has been said, "was a backward step, since the Harappan culture had been far more advanced than that of the Aryans who were as yet pre-urban." Robust and virile, with heroic appetites -- which included beef eating and great intakes of an amazingly potent liquor called Soma -- the light-skinned Aryans brought three distinct social groupings with them: Kshatriyas, the warrior rulers; Brahmins, the priestly class; and Vaishyas, who eventually evolved into traders and entrepreneurs.

After destroying the sophisticated urban North Indian civilization of the Dasyus, who peopled the Indus Valley where the Harappan culture flourished, the Aryans set about making India their home. And as with all those who have invaded India over the millennia, the Aryans too experienced a slow but steady assimilation with the existing beliefs and customs of India. Neither side, in fact, was left untouched by the assimilative experience, the attitudes and outlook of both being affected by the merging of distinctly different cultural streams. As the metamorphosis progressed over the centuries, the open society of the Aryans was gradually reshaped in the closed and distinctive mould of the subcontinent's rituals and beliefs. What emerged was unrecognizable from its Aryan origins.

From hard-drinking, beef-eating beginnings, the Aryans came to consider alcohol internally polluting and taboo, whilst the cow, seen as more sacred than all other animals, was to be venerated not eaten. Based on concepts of purity and pollution, an elaborate system was established in which forms of behaviour, rituals and much else were clearly set down. For instance, death was considered polluting, so the widow's remarriage was banned since she had dealt with death.

The most significant change for the assimilated Aryan social order had to do with institutionalizing a hierarchy of upper and lower classes in the almost inviolate system of social engineering known as "the caste system," which is still active today. The Brahmins emerged at the top of the caste hierarchy whilst the Kshatriyas -- who had led the Aryans into India -- found themselves in second place. The Vaishyas continued to occupy the third position, with a new category, the Shudras, added to bring the total to four. The Shudras, or cultivators and the like, were denied the initiation rite which gave the other three castes the privilege of being called the "twice-born." The Shudra also had to forego the opportunity of becoming rich, "for a Shudra who makes money is distressing to the Brahmins." Yet another classification, even lower than the Shudras, was also added: the Chandalas or untouchables. They were outside the caste system and considered the lowliest of the low, whose vocations had to do with "polluting elements," like cobblers, sweepers and cleaners, washermen, barbers, butchers and those who cremated dead bodies.

A hymn in the Rig Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, or Hindu scriptures laid down by the Brahmins, describes the origin of the four Varnas, or caste groups, through the symbolic sacrifice of Purusha, the Primeval Man, from whose head rose the Brahmins, from his arms the Kshatriyas, from his thighs the Vaishyas and from his feet the Shudras.

The operation of the caste system is an "ordering mechanism" which enables the exercise of power through social control and spiritual notions of the sacred and profane, as spelt out by an exclusive class of spiritual interpreters. These are the Brahmins, the great interpreters of tradition, who are to be found in all locations, literally every village, certainly at every point of dispensation of power and patronage. Hence their dominance over both the ruler (Kshatriya) and the merchant (Vaishya), and their "legitimate" control and exploitation of the Shudras (the toiling masses, the landless, the cultivators, bonded labour, women, the lot). Dominance is exercised through rules, rituals and rigmarole.

It is argued in favour of this system that despite the multiplicity of cultures and communities, and the many ideological challenges it has faced, India has "produced a high degree of ideological tolerance and flexibility." Not really. Because institutionally "Indian society has been traditionally very rigid, working out a precise and clearly identifiable hierarchy, formalized rules, and conventions, conformity with which was mandatory and defined by birth, and a system of substantive and symbolic distances which articulated the hierarchy in a definitive and predictable manner." In the end, India was landed with "a kind of tolerance" which is "only another name for intolerance, namely tolerance of injustice and disparities and of humiliation and deprivation by superior individuals and groups." This is what the caste system has been about over the centuries. Only in recent years -- with the upsurge of consciousness among the lower castes and the democratic political process -- has the slowly emerging challenge to the hegemony of the Brahmins and other "twice-born" upper castes led to some loosening of their total grip over society.
From Alexander's invasion of India in 326 BC till the closing years of the twentieth century, Brahmin influence has helped shape the destiny of courts, kingdoms, nations and religious movements in India's long history. Behind the rise and fall of many, if not most, was the hand of Brahmin courtiers, counsellors and priests. Their supremacy was as much due to scholarship, erudition and intellect as to their matchless skills in statecraft and intrigue.

When Alexander turned back from the banks of Punjab's River Beas to return to Macedonia, Vishnugupta Chanakya, or Kautiliya, the astute Brahmin, urged the commander-in-chief of the powerful Magadha Kingdom's army, Chandragupta Maurya, to organize a revolt against the Greek forces left behind. After defeating them, Chandragupta -- again on Kautiliya's advice -- headed back to Pataliputra (present-day Patna, capital of the state of Bihar) from where he had fled after a failed attempt to take over the Magadha Kingdom. More successful this time, Chandragupta slew the ruler and founded the Maurya Dynasty (322-185 BC). To Kautiliya is also attributed the astonishingly comprehensive Artha Sastra or manual of politics.

The increasing inclination of Chandragupta's illustrious grandson Ashoka towards Buddhist teachings, philosophy and practices culminated in his eventual conversion, and led to the ascendance of Buddhism. Buddhism, a philosophical-cum-political movement founded by Gautama Buddha (563-483 BC), represented fundamental dissent against Brahminic political and priestly dominance and promoted alternative theologies, value systems and lifestyles, as did Jainism, founded by Vardhamana (599-527 BC). Ashoka's passionate commitment to Buddhism, and its expanding hold on the state, eventually precipitated a Brahmin revolt, spearheaded by the Shunga family working under the Buddhists. Pushyamitra Shunga, after assassinating the last Mauryan ruler, usurped his throne and founded the Shunga Dynasty (185-73 BC). He persecuted Buddhists and razed their monasteries. During the first millennium AD, however, Buddhism steadily re-established itself in India.

Both Buddhism and Jainism opposed the caste system. "Not by birth does one become an outcast," said Buddha, "not by birth does one become a Brahmin. By deeds one becomes an outcast, by deeds one becomes a Brahmin." Both movements, appealing to the socially downtrodden, in course of time made inroads on the Brahmins' power and privileges. Once more a Brahminical reaction built up, and in the ninth century a South Indian Brahmin religious leader, Aadi Shankara or Shankaracharya, decisively ejected Buddhism from India. He endorsed the law of Manu (framed between 200 BC and 200 AD): "According to Manu, the Brahmins are appointed by the Supreme Being and they should be venerated as god-like creatures. A ten-year-old Brahmin must be respected as if he were the father of a hundred-year-old Kshatriya . . . If a Brahmin finds buried treasure, it belongs to him; if the King finds such, he must share it with the Brahmins. By his deferential behaviour to a Brahmin, a man of a lower caste can attain rebirth in a higher." The Shankaracharya is reputed to have remarked: "whatever Manu says is medicine." The Shankaracharya and others directed their deep learning to conceiving a brilliant combination of ideas, ideology and state power with which to turn the tables on the Buddhist and Jain revolts.

Buddhism virtually vanished from the land of its birth, although it flourished in almost all other countries in South and East Asia. Jainism survived with a small following, a far cry from the days of its apogee.
Even during Islamic rule, there was no serious threat to Brahminical privileges. From the time of Muhammad bin Qasim (711) till Feroz Shah Tuglak (1350), Brahmins, unlike other castes, did not pay taxes. Abbé J.A. Dubois, the French scholar who lived in India from 1792 to 1823, observed that "the rule of all the Hindu princes, and often that of the Muhammadans, was, properly speaking, Brahminical rule, since all posts of confidence were held by Brahmins." Even ...

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  • EditoreAlfred a Knopf Inc
  • Data di pubblicazione2000
  • ISBN 10 0375407286
  • ISBN 13 9780375407284
  • RilegaturaCopertina rigida
  • Numero di pagine276
  • Valutazione libreria

Altre edizioni note dello stesso titolo

9780385502061: SIKHS, THE

Edizione in evidenza

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780385502061
Casa editrice: Random House, Inc., 2008
Brossura

  • 9788171676248: The Sikhs

    Rupa P..., 2002
    Brossura

  • 9780719557149: The Sikhs

    John M..., 1999
    Rilegato

  • 9788185004198: The Sikhs: Their Literature on Culture History Philosophy Politics Religion and Tradition

    South ..., 1990
    Rilegato

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