Explain the concept of ‘Varna’ and ‘Jati’ and
examine the factors which led to the proliferation
of jatis in the Gupta and the post-Gupta periods
(AD 300 – AD 750)
According to the scheme of society conceived by the Brahmanas, society was divided
into four varnas (Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra), with each varna
performing the set of functions prescribed for it and enjoying whatever rights were
given to it. This was the ideal social order and the state was expected to preserve it.
The Brahmanas came to exert considerable influence on the kings from the Gupta
period and this is quite clear from the way they received land from the kings and
others. The kings, officials and others gave land not only to individual Brahmanas
but also sometimes incited big groups of Brahmanas to come and settle in remote
areas. Thus, the number of Brahmana settlements variously called Brahmadiyas,
Agraharas and so on started increasing and they started spreading, among other
things, the idea of a varna-divided social order.
The conventional historiography projected continuation of the four-fold division of
the Varna-System (Chatuh-Varna) in the Gupta and post-Gupta period. However,
R.C. Hazra mentions that early Puranas offer descriptions of Kaliyuga in terms of
foreign invasions, instability, social tension, struggle, teaching of hedonistic sects.
But modern historians like R. S. Sharma ascribes the origin of Kaliyuga to mixing of
castes (Varna Shankara) and the rise of Shudras on the beginning of the 4th century.
Hence, it was a period of social crises. It was an age of enmity between Brahmans
and Shudras, Vaishyas refusing to perform yojnas on tax burdened subject
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population law and order problem, thefts, unsecured family and property,
increasing materialism and decreasing religions rituals, sovereignty of mlechha
(low-caste) kings. The inscriptions of the Vakatakas of Viderbha and Pallavas of
Kanchipuram are quoted to show that they acted together against Kaliyuga.
Brahmanization of villages under the Vakatakas and Pallavas are supposed to
indicate social disorder. It is assumed that the rulers set to order Kaliyuga from the
4th century onwards. The rise of the Vakatakas, Pallavas, Gangas and Kadambas are
supposed to indicate brahmanical reactions against the shudras as these dynasties
originated from brahmana families.
From the latter half of the Gupta period and particularly the Vakatakas and Pallavas
enforced strict rules according to Varna-order to deal with Kaliyuga. One of the chief
mechanisms of continuing Kaliyuga was land grants. The Guptas and their
contemporaries began to grant land to religious denees, Brahmanas and temple-
priests, and later to secular denees, ministers, civil and army officers and even
merchants. Thus, began the age of landed-intermediaries intervening between states
and peasants. Land grants gang rise to a graded rural society and ranking status and
ranks which did not fit into Varna-order: Mahamandalika, Mandalika,
Mandaleshwara, Mahasamanta etc as mentioned in Aparajitaprachha (a book of
architecture) but a receipt which clearly indicate that the concept of Kaliyuga was
popularized by Brahmanas must be viewed in the context of state formation process.
Rural society had to be initiated in the norms of state society in regions where local
state formation was taking place for the first time. Taxes and resources had to be
mobilized for the first time from a rural population which was getting families with
state and its administration and military institutions. The fear of Kaliyuga forced
communities to conform to social and political order in regions, which were going
through processes of state formation for the first time. Secondly a detailed study of
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epigraphical records reveals that land grants did not introduced a graded society for
the first time. B.D. Chattopadhyaya and Nandini Sinha Kapur in their case studies
have demonstrated a hierarchical rural society in Bengal, Karnataka, Rajasthan and
Gujarat in which Brahamana and non-Brahamana landlords, peasants, artisans and
landless labourers constituted rural society before the beginnings of the practice of
land grants. One of the most important social developments in this period was
proliferation of castes or jatis. Many castes originated with incorporation of
economic specialists, tribes and immigrants from central Asia into the Brahmanical
Varna Society.
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