... element in the Indian communal system, one that grew up in the frame of the four orders—in the end even replacing it—and acquired an extraordinary vitality, persistence and predominant importance was the historic and still tenacious though decadent institution of caste, jāti . Originally this rose from subdivisions of the four orders that grew up in each order under the stress of various forces. The subdivision... communal self-determined freedom and order to suit this growing development and new order of circumstances. The Indian mind evolved, to meet this necessity, the stable socio-religious system of the four orders. Outwardly this might seem to be only a more rigid form of the familiar social system developed naturally in most human peoples at one time or another, a priesthood, a military and political aristocracy... and knowledge as distinguished from traditional authority and lore, derived from all the strata of the community down to the lowest Shudras and even the despised and oppressed outcastes. The four orders grew into a fixed social hierarchy, but, leaving aside the status of the outcastes, each had attached to it a spiritual life and utility, a certain social dignity, an education, a principle of social ...
... authentic movement, not what is imposed on it from outside or laid on it by life's compulsions or the mind's error. This swadharma is of four general kinds formulated outwardly in the action of the four orders of the old Indian social culture, cāturvarṇya . That system corresponds, says the Gita, to a divine law, it "was created by me according to the divisions of the gunas and works,"—created from the... less loosely followed in practice,—and it should be considered in that connection alone. Here too there is considerable difficulty as to the exact outward significance. The ancient system of the four orders had a triple aspect; it took a social and economic, a cultural and a spiritual appearance. On the economic side it recognised four functions of the social man in the community, the religious and... sacrifice, but gave it a profound turn, an inner, subjective and universal meaning, a spiritual sense and direction which alters all its values. Here too and in the same way it accepts the theory of the four orders of men, but gives to it a profound turn, an inner, subjective and universal meaning, a spiritual sense and direction. And immediately the idea behind the theory changes its values and becomes an ...
... comprehensive development. The original concept of the chaturvarna (four orders) was in the Veda symbolic and spiritual. The Purusha Sukta of the Veda speaks of the four orders as having sprung from the body of the creative Deity (Purusha), from his head, arms, thighs and legs. In the Vedic idea, the four orders represented the Divine in four aspects, the Divine as knowledge, the Divine... _____________11______________ Dharma and Fourfold Social Order An important feature of the organization of Indian life was the complex and subtle arrangement of human life through four orders of communal life and four stages of individual life. The human life was conceived as a process of gradual growth, and provisions came to be made in each stage of growth so as to stabilize ...
... fourfold order, caturvarṇa , miscalled the system of the four castes,—for caste is a conventional, varṇa a Page 8 symbolic and typal institution. We are told that the institution of the four orders of society was the result of an economic evolution complicated by political causes. Very possibly; 1 but the important point is that it was not so regarded and could not be so regarded by the... only subordinately for its material factors and looked always first and foremost for its symbolic, religious or psychological significance. This appears in the Purushasukta of the Veda, where the four orders are described as having sprung from the body of the creative Deity, from his head, arms, thighs and feet. To us this is merely a poetical image and its sense is that the Brahmins were the men of... forms are lax, free and capable of infinite development. One thing, however, begins to progress towards a firm fixity and this is the psychological type. Thus we have first the symbolic idea of the four orders, expressing—to employ an abstractly figurative language which the Vedic thinkers would not have used nor perhaps understood, but which helps best our modern understanding—the Divine as knowledge ...
... original sense is not that. It is the law of being – social or moral – which sustains the being. Is the old classification of men in four orders, according to the peculiar Dharma of each, tenable now ? Can each human being have the characteristics of the four orders ? Sri Aurobindo : There is infinite possibility. So the potentiality of all the four castes is in every man, but that does... does not exist as a fact. No classification can be perfect so long as man is living in the mental consciousness. It is not possible to classify all natures into four orders. So we have come to the present confusion because it is regulated by birth. Of course, there are tradition, training, culture and atmosphere which tend to give the stamp of nature. Page 51 But then the economic ...
... millenniums. It was a hierarchical system but based upon living psychological forces. Each group or section or class in it had inevitably its appropriate function and an assured economic status. The Four Orders – the Brahmin (those whose pursuit was knowledge – acquiring and giving knowledge), the Kshattriya (the fighters, whose business it was to give physical protection), the Vaishya (traders and farmers... groups of the unfortunate in the three other Estates also. Or perhaps if we like we can extend the meaning of the term "proletariate" and include in it all the less favoured sections of all the Four Orders As already stated, the remedy is to be sought in the salvage Page 123 of the individual. The present trend of social forces is towards movements in the mass. That was ...
... millenniums. It was a hierarchical system but based upon living psychological forces. Each group or section or class in it had inevitably its appropriate function and an assured economic status. The Four Orders—the Brahmin (those whose pursuit was knowledg - acquiring and giving knowledge), the Kshattriya (the fighters, whose business it was to give physical protection), Page 116 the Vaishya... groups of the unfortunate in the three other Estates also. Or perhaps if we like we can extend the meaning of the term "proletariate" and include in it all the less favoured sections of all the Four Orders. As already stated, the remedy is to be sought in the salvage of the individual. The present trend of social forces is towards movements in the mass. That was necessary perhaps; for larger ...
... of the four castes,—for caste is a conventional, varna a symbolic and typal institution.... This [symbolic significance of the Catur-varnya] appears in the Purusha Sukta of the Veda where the four orders are described as having sprung from the body of the creative Deity, from his head, arms, thighs and feet. To us this is merely a poetical image and its sense is that the Brahmins were the men of ...
... that this is being done. But even where this preparatory stage was effectively brought into existence, the subsequent stages did not necessarily follow. The feudal period of Europe with its four orders of the clergy, the king and nobles, the bourgeoisie and the proletariate has a sufficiently close resemblance to the Indian fourfold order of the sacerdotal, military and mercantile classes and the ...
... a truth behind this myth. 29 When writing about the four varnas – brahmins , kshatriyas , vaishyas , and shudras – Sri Aurobindo mentioned the Purushasukta of the Vedas “where the four orders are described as having sprung from the body of the creative Deity, from his head, arms, thighs and feet.” To us, he comments, this is merely a poetical image, but to the seers among the ancient ...
... are lax, free and capable of infinite development. One thing, however, begins to progress towards a firm fixity and this is the psychological type. Thus we have first the symbolic idea of the four orders, expressing — to employ an abstractly figurative language which the Vedic thinkers would not have used nor perhaps understood, but which helps best our modern understanding — the Divine as knowledge ...
... understood, gives us the underlying truth of the integrality of the four divine qualities. Its description of the creative Deity, from Page 204 whose mouth, arms, thighs and feet, the four orders are said to have sprung up, is not merely a poetical image. The Creator's body was to the Vedic poet more than an image; it expressed the divine reality. Human society for them was an attempt to ...
... aspect and the light of a profounder and more far-reaching Truth. Equally the idea of action according to the Shastra, the fourfold order of society, the allusion to the relative position of the four orders or the comparative spiritual disabilities of Shudras and women seem at first sight local and temporal, and, if they are too much pressed in their literal sense, narrow so much at least of the teaching ...
... the objects. Even the system of the four social orders in ancient" India was originally such a hierarchy. The higher and lower orders did not carry any moral appreciation or depreciation. The four orders placed one above the other schematically denote only the respective social functions classified according to the nature of each, even as the human body represents such a hierarchy, rising from ...
... s, 50'6; Radha Krishna cult, 506; ancient Indian polity, 508; self-poised and balanced, 508; balance upset in later times, 508; organisation of Government, 508; close participation of all the "four orders", 508; three-tier Government, 508; unity of spirit and culture, 509; Yuga Sandhya of a new India, 509; renaissance in India, 509; compared with the Celtic & Japanese, 510; a future for India, 510-1 ...
... authority for the State as well as freedom for the communities constituting the nation. Before the system deteriorated, it permitted and indeed thrived upon the close participation of all the "four orders" in the common life; and as a result there was "a wise and stable synthesis... of all the natural powers and orders, an organic and vital coordination respectful of the free functioning of all the ...
... same split second. But it does not mean that culture should not be brought to every doorstep. Shutting out someone from culture was an invention of later times. But even in later times when the four orders had grown into a fixed social hierarchy, when we had lost almost all our freedom, there remained the individual's freedom to pursue his or her spiritual knowledge. In India we find, said Sri Aurobindo ...
... act in a highest free and immortal dharma of the divine nature. All these aspects of the Dharma were closely linked up together in a progressive unity. Thus, for an example, each of the four orders had its own social function and ethics, but also an ideal rule for the growth of the pure ethical being, and every man by observing his dharma and turning his action Godwards could grow out of it ...
... beings possesses. The ancient Aryan culture recognised all human possibilities, but put this highest of all and graded life according to a transitional scale in its system of the four classes and the four orders. Buddhism first gave an exaggerated and enormous extension to the ascetic ideal and the monastic impulse, erased the transition and upset the balance. Its victorious system left only two orders, ...
... which he called “the body of the creative Deity.” When considering the four varnas – brahmins , kshatriyas , vaishyas , and shudras – he mentions the Purushasukta of the Vedas “where the four orders are described as having sprung from the body of the creative Deity, from his head, arms, thighs and feet. To us,” he comments, “this is merely a poetical image. As if this were all, as if the men ...
... development who change only within a certain settled framework as a preparation for subsequent existences; it is variable in natures which admit of considerable enlargements and changes. There are four orders in the ordinary human nature, mental, psychic, nervous, physical; four in the superior or superconscient nature. It is probably to the four human orders that the 290 belong; the physical are few ...
... —the real teaching of the Gita. But Indian ethics has always seen the practical necessity of graded ideals for the developing moral and spiritual life of man. The Kshatriya ideal, the ideal of the four orders is here placed in its social aspect, not as afterwards in its spiritual meaning. This, says Krishna in effect, is my answer to you if you insist on joy and sorrow and the result of your actions as ...
... circle of elite, a few chosen people at the top, then gradually the limited aristocracy is widened out into a larger and larger democracy. One may describe the phenomenon in the Indian terms of the Four Orders. In the beginning there is the Brahminic culture, culture confined only to the highest and the fewest possible select representatives. Then came the wave of Kshatriya culture which found a broader ...
... communities grew larger and the pressure of new circumstances came into existence, a new system was called for. To meet this necessity, the Indian mind evolved the stable socio-religious system of the four orders. And in ancient India, the four-fold order was at once and inextricably, the religious, cultural, social, political and economic framework of the society. Within that framework, each order had its ...
... of the objects. Even the system of the four social orders in ancient India was originally such a hierarchy. The higher and lower orders did not carry any moral appreciation or depreciation. The four orders placed one above the other schematically denote only the respective social functions classified according to the. nature of each, even as the human body represents such a hierarchy, rising from the ...
... of the objects. Even the system of the four social orders in ancient India was originally such a hierarchy. The higher and lower orders did not carry any moral appreciation or depreciation. The four orders placed one above the other schematically denote only the respective social functions classified according to the nature of each, even as the human body represents such a hierarchy, rising from the ...
... although here, too, there can be a good amount of beauty in shape of ingenuity, cleverness and conceit: Voltaire and Delille are of this order in French poetry. Page 85 The three or four major orders I speak of in reference to conscious artistry are exampled characteristically in the history of the evolution of Greek poetry. It must be remembered, however, at the very outset that the Greeks ...
... here, too, there can be a good amount of beauty in shape of ingenuity, cleverness and conceit: Voltaire and Delille are of this order in French poetry. Page 313 The three or four major orders I speak of in reference to conscious artistry are exampled characteristically in the history of the evolution of Greek poetry. It must be remembered, however, at the very outset that the Greeks ...
... victory in an alien movement. It concludes that to follow the law of another's nature is dangerous to the soul. 2 At a later stage, in the last chapter, the Gita explains in precise detail four distinct orders of the active nature, swabhava, and the work and proper function of each human being corresponding to his type of nature. The works of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra are divided according... originating from the four-fold order of the society, chaturvarnyam. This four-fold order of the society rests upon the four-fold quality of the antaratman, the quality of Knowledge, the quality of Strength, the quality of Mutuality and Harmony and the quality of Skill in Works. The more you dwell and live in these four qualities, the more you experience your antaratman. Normally, these four qualities get... initial remarks of Principal Chitle emboldened me to expound my problem a little more elaborately. I told him: "Sir, the Gita speaks of four Varnas, and Sri Krishna explicitly states that four Varnas were created by the Divine and that the four-fold Varna corresponds to four-fold divisions of quality and action. 1 The Gita speaks of "kartavyam karma" (obligatory action) and also of "niyatam kartavyam" ...
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