The Castes of Ancient India

The people of ancient India worshipped Shiva, Ganga, and many other gods. Their religion, called “Hinduism,” taught that these gods had created life on earth. Their holy book, the Rig Veda, told the Hindus a story about how life began.

ong, long ago, there was only one gigantic man who lived in the whole universe. His name was Purusha. He had a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet. The gods looked at Purusha and said, “Let’s make a world from this enormous man!”

So the gods turned Purusha’s head into the sky, and his eyes into the sun. They turned his legs into the Earth. His breath became the wind. And out of his body, they made four different kinds of people.

The first and most important people were the priests—the brahmin. They came out of Purusha’s mouth. They were intelligent and wise; as they walked out onto the Earth, they became the most honored people in India. They were given the most delicious food, the finest clothing, and the biggest houses.

Out of Purusha’s arms, the gods made the second kind of people—the noble warriors. They rode out onto the Earth on strong, beautiful horses. Their job was to protect the priests from enemies and to rule India. They too had good food and fine clothing, but not quite as fine as that of the priests.

Then the gods made traders and farmers out of Purusha’s knees. The traders bought and sold goods; the farmers grew crops and raised their animals. They worked hard every day. They had enough food to keep them from going hungry, warm clothes, and dry houses. Their lives were harder than the lives of warriors and priests.

Finally the gods came to the bottoms of Purusha’s feet. Out of his feet, they made a humble group of people—the servants. Servants were not allowed to learn how to read and write.

These four groups of people became known as castes. If your family belonged to the farmer caste, you could only grow up to be a farmer. You could only marry someone who was also born to be a farmer. You could never be a warrior or a priest. And if your parents were servants, you were doomed to be a servant. Priests, warriors, farmers and traders expected you to serve them for the rest of your life. You would never learn how to read, or to write. You would spend the rest of your life cooking, washing, and cleaning for someone else!

But the poorest people in India were those who didn’t belong to the caste system at all. They were called “Untouchables.” They weren’t priests, or warriors, or farmers and traders, or even servants. They belonged to the poorest, most miserable families in India. The “Untouchables” did all the dirtiest jobs in ancient India. They buried dead animals, cleaned the streets, worked in the fields, and picked up trash. They weren’t allowed to drink water from public wells, or to use the same dishes as people from the four castes. The Hindus believed that touching an Untouchable would make them unclean. And they didn’t even want to look at the Untouchables who did the dirtiest jobs! These Untouchables were called Unseeables. They were only allowed to do their work at night.

It was a terrible thing to be born into an Untouchable family! Untouchables were poor and badly treated. They weren’t allowed to go to the doctor when they were sick. Children from Untouchable families couldn’t go to school, or grow up to do jobs that they liked. They had to collect garbage and work in the fields, like their parents. Thousands and thousands of people were Untouchables in ancient India—with no chance ever to be anything else.