Talk:Varṇa Dharma for Universal Well-being:A Wrong Notion

By Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swami

A wrong notion has gained currency that in the varṇāśrama system the Brāhmaṇa enjoys more comfort than the others, that he has more income, that he has to exert himself less than the others.

In the order created by our śāstras the Brāhmaṇa has to make as much physical effort as the peasant. Since, at present, there is ignorance about the rites he has to perform, people erroneously believe that he makes others work hard and he lazes about and enjoys himself. The Brāhmaṇa has to wake up at four in the morning and bathe in cold water, rain or shine, warm or cold. Then, without a break, he has to perform one rite after another: sandhyāvandana, Brahmayajña, aupāsana, pūjā, vaiśvadeva and one of the 21 sacrifices. If you sit before sacrificial fire for four days you will realise how difficult it is with all the heat and smoke. How many are the vows and the fasts the Brāhmaṇa has to keep and how many are the ritual baths.

Other castes do not have to go through such hardships. A Brāhmaṇa cannot eat "cold rice" in the morning like a peasant – he has no adhikāra to it. The dharmaśāstras are not created for his convenience or benefit, nor to ensure that he has a comfortable life. He would not have otherwise imposed on himself the performance of so many rites and a life of such rigorous discipline. When he has his daytime meal it will be 1 or 2. (On the day of a śrāddha it will be three or four). This is the time the peasant will have his rest after his meal under a tree out in the field where he works. And the Brāhmaṇa’s meal, mind you, is as simple as the peasant’s. There is no difference between the humble dwelling of the peasant and that of the Brāhmaṇa. Both alike wear cotton. The peasant may save money for the future but not the Brāhmaṇa. He has no right either to borrow money or to live in style.

In the Yakṣa-praśna of the Mahābhārata the simple life of the Brāhmaṇa is referred to:

Pañcame’hani ṣaṣṭhe vā śākaṃ pacati svagṛhe Anṛṇī cā’pravāsī ca sa vāricara modate

If daytime is divided into eight parts, the Brāhmaṇa may have his food only in the fifth or sixth part after performing all his rites. Before that he has neither any breakfast nor any snacks. And what does he eat? Not any rich food, no sweets like almonds crushed in sweetened milk. Śākaṃ pacati – the Brāhmaṇa eats leafy vegetables growing on the banks of rivers, such areas being no one's property. Why is he asked to live by the riverside? It is for his frequent baths and for the leafy vegetables growing free there and for which he does not have to beg. He should not borrow money: that is the meaning of the word anṛṇī, because if he developed the habit of borrowing he would be tempted to lead a life of luxury. Poverty and non-acquisitiveness (aparigraha) are his ideals. A Brāhmaṇa ought not to keep even a blade of grass in excess of his needs.

Now even the government and big industrialists are in debt. If there are any people who live according to the śāstras, without being indebted to anybody and without bowing to anybody and at the same time maintaining their dharma, it is the tribe called Nārikuravas.

Apravāsaṃ (mentioned in the verse) means that a Brāhmaṇa must not leave his birthplace and settle elsewhere. Honour or dishonour, profit or loss, he must live in his birthplace practising his dharma. Nowadays, for the sake of money, people settle in England or America abandoning their motherland and their traditional way of life – and they are proud of it. Such a practice is condemned severely by the śāstras.

If all the castes worked hard and lived a simple life there could be no ill will among people and there would then be no cry that caste must be done away with. One reason for the "reformist view" is that today one caste is well-to-do and comfortable while another is poor and has to toil. Simplicity...