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Examples

  • He is to be as vast and sincere as true brahmin in his aspiration towards Knowledge, as strong and courageous as kshatriya in his power and leadership, as generous and productive as vaishya in his dealing with life matters and wealth, as laborious and helpful as shudra in his service and help to others.

    Every individual is to develop within himself all the qualities and faculties of four varnas Tusar N Mohapatra 2007

  • That is, evolving from a puny being or kshudra/shudra to a purna or integral state of brahmana who encompasses the whole brahmanda or cosmos in his consciousness.

    Archive 2007-10-01 Tusar N Mohapatra 2007

  • Before the Bayars of Barkur came to Durga, Sugethi and Nuji, these forests were peopled by Male Kudiya adivasis and Billava shudra families.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Abhay N 2006

  • Bhootha culture is essentially a shudra peasant tradition with little room in it for brahmins.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Abhay N 2006

  • More than fifty adivasi families, and close to a hundred Billava families and other shudra caste families come with sacrificial chicken to the annual fair at Durga.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Abhay N 2006

  • But goddess Durga did not bless Keshava Bayar well, or else the malevolent Bhootas of adivasi and shudra lineage that live in her backyard had neutralised her spell.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Abhay N 2006

  • Some brahmins are so disturbed by the malevolence of the adivasi-shudra spirits that they succumb to their power and even sponsor plebeians to sacrifice chicken to appease the devils in their name.

    Archive 2006-07-01 Abhay N 2006

  • It was only a foolish curiosity-bitten _shudra_; a wretched member of the lowest and most servile class, who, passing on his way to his miserable hovel, had noticed the gate open at the untoward hour of midnight, and the absence of the ferocious _durwans_.

    Leonie of the Jungle Joan Conquest

  • Unto the vaishya he gave skill, and unto the shudra he gave the duty of serving the three other classes.

    The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 Kisari Mohan [Translator] Ganguli

  • A vaishya without skill is worthy of dispraise, as also a shudra who is bereft of humility (to the other orders).

    The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 Kisari Mohan [Translator] Ganguli

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  • “The basis of this resistance lay in the village, and its distinct form of community: the jati. These groups, numbering in the thousands, were governed by strict rules of endogamy and by taboos about purity, and arranged a social hierarchy: varna. The precise ideological sources of this system are obscure, but elements may be traced to one of the very late hymns of the Rig Veda, which describes the dismemberment of the cosmic giant Purusha, the primeval male whose sacrifice created the world: 'When they divided the Man, into how many parts did they apportion him? What do they call his mouth, his two arms and thighs and feet?/ His mouth became the Brahmin; his arms were made into the Warrior (kshatriya), his thighs the People (vaishiya), and from his feet the servants (shudra) were born.' The resulting intricate filigree of social interconnections and division -- a hierarchical order of peerless sophistication -- defies any simple account Perplexed Westerners came to describe it by the term 'caste', but a wide distance separates the deceptively well-defined doctrinal claims of the caste order and the actual operations of what is an essentially local, small-scale system.�?

    From The Idea of India, by Sunil Khilnani, excerpted in a review in The New York Times, The Jewel Without the Crown, by Judith M. Brown, Feburuary 15, 1998

    May 5, 2009