Food for Soul – Divisions

chaatur varnam maya sristam, guna karma vibhagaasha -- Gita

While discussing about the reservation based on caste system, with my friends (don’t sigh I’m not here for that discussion), as the conversation becoming hotter, it moved slightly away from the topic and we started arguing why caste system and how it all started. Ram one of my friend said it all quoted in Veda, that caste system has been invented/implemented by Veda, he quoted the above slogan from Bhagavad Gita.

There were to and fro statements on the same, which I thought to explore and see how close Ram is on this, and it also looks to me as an incomplete sloka. I first want to understand the meaning of this slogan and complete the same.

Chaatur Varnam maya sristam which means four divisions were been created
guna karma vibhagaasha based on Qualities (Guna) and Work (Karma)

This way Lord Krishna himself has said through the Bhagavad gita, that he is held responsible for divisions (Varnas) of people, based on Work and behavior, anyways why this division is required, if there is no such division then this caste system would not have been existed. Now the question is are divisions necessary? Are they for any good? How this world would have been if there is no such divisions.

I started exploring further on this, as this is getting interesting, divisions are in every part of our life, yes, that is true, how? Take for an example our body, head is not same as toe, torso is not same as your thighs, mouth is not same as ears. I know you want to tell me that these are organs and not divisions, and it is parts of the body. Exactly I don’t deny that, what is the body then? How it looks like? If you look deep into it, there is nothing that you can show as body; it is a collective resemblance of these organs (divisions). Once you start removing these organs one by one from the body, you will see nothing there, because body does not exist, if at all it exists, it exists only in the collection of these organs (divisions).

If at all, the body has got no divisions, how it would look like, can you imagine? To the best of my imagination power, it will be like a sphere, because any geometric shape (except circle) will have divisions. There won’t be any difference between the ear, nose, eyes, mouth and all, including the excretional organs, so disgusting. This implies that divisions are implicit and it applies to almost everything that we know, from body, cars, bikes, aircrafts, to land (sea, mountains, plateaus and all) to globe, galaxy, Milky Way and all, divisions are inevitable.

Fine, let divisions be inevitable, why it is imposed by Veda (as per Lord Krishna in Gita), let me ask you one quick question before we proceed on this, if you are asked to become an organ of the body, which organ you would choose to become? Probably, Eyes to see beauty, Ears to hear, Mouth to taste, Nose to smell, Hands to touch, Legs to walk, you probably will choose any of these organs, but I’m sure that no one will ever choose to become Anus to excrete, its only job, it has got no pleasures like other organs, let me tell you a short story here,

Once body organs fought with each other, claiming they are the greatest of all. Eyes said I’m the greatest of all organs, since I show the path to all of you, Brain said, I’m the greatest of all, since I analyze what is seen/shown and decide the best, Heart laughed out loud and said if I haven’t pumping the blood to you (Brain) then you will suffocate to death, so I’m the greatest, and so all the other organs started telling there best feature to claim the greatest of all award, during which Anus is about to say something, all organs interrupted the Anus, and said, you stink, you are no good, you are not the greatest but worst of all, with this insult Anus kept his mouth shut, for next couple days, there is no way the in toxins get out of the body, the blood was not clean, the hemoglobin count came down drastically in the blood, because of which the nourishment that supposed to be supplied to brain was disturbed, brain was going crazy because of which it was not able to send signals to eyes, ears, nose and all, which are failing to sense, Spleen was bulging because of intoxicated blood and so the heart and all other organs. Now all organs understood the importance of Anus, and its job, they all spoke Anus and said you are the greatest of all of us and apologized for their behavior other day. For which Anus replied, I’m sorry for hurting you all, I just want to let you know all, that we all are greatest in our jobs, we don’t have to compete with each other to prove who is greatest of all.

The above story tells that divisions are not bad, but discrimination is. This is what exactly told by Lord Krishna in Gita, let me complete the slogan now,

chaatur varnam maya sristam, guna karma vibhagaasha
tatsye karthaaram mavibthi
agarthaaram aavyayam -- Gita

We discussed the first line already, lets explore the second and third

tatsye karthaaram mavibthi – means, yes I’m the one who created this division.

Lord Krishna is not denying that he created the divisions, he’s not hiding his face, with great boldness and authority he says “Look Arjuna, I created these four varna’s based on their Karma”

agarthaaram aavyayam – means I’m not responsible for these divisions.

This is the contradiction of the previous sentence, now Lord Krishna says, I’m not responsible for these divisions, we all know that Lord Krishna is mischief and playful, we might tend to think that he is playing with the words again, but it can’t be, he is preaching Gita to Arjuna he cant be playful, he cant be mischief now, then what actually he is trying to preach Arjuna. Lord Krishna actually meant was “I’m not responsible for the Discrimination”

So the complete meaning of this slogan is

“I created these four varna’s based on their karma and guna, but I’m not responsible for the discrimination's between them”

If not Lord Krishna, then who is responsible for these discriminations, its none other than we, don’t try to escape, remember when I asked you which body part you would like to become none of us, has said would like to become Anus, we discriminated our own body organs, we also discriminating our own fellow brothers, based on these divisions created by God.

As per Veda, Brahmana’s are born from Head, Shatria’s from Shoulder, Vaishiya’s from Thighs and Sudra’s from the Lotus feet of MahaVishnu.

So they all born from one body, they should not be discriminated, and they can be discriminated only if we discriminate body organs, which we are actually, rite? And remember prostration is done only to the Lotus feet of Maha Vishnu, not to Head, Shoulders or Thighs, no Alwars/Nyanmmars wished to prostrate Head, Shoulder or Thighs but the Lotus feet.

It was always told like this “Kamala Paadha sharana gadhi”, as per my knowledge no Jeer/follower or preacher prostrated “sharana gadhi” to head, shoulder or thighs, but feet which gets utmost importance. So if at all Vedas are responsible for discrimination, then it should be the other way round, Sudra’s should be given more importance then Brahmana, it reality it was not no, so it clearly implies that these verses (Veda/Gita) was misinterpreted by selfish morons to cause this discrimination for their self benefit, but blaming Vedas for the same.