By: Parmanand Pandey
Division of Hindu society on the lines of Varnas and castes has made it completely hollow. This division, practiced and perpetuated for centuries, has made it so weak that it is unable to withstand any onslaught from outside and that is why myriad of evils and vices have set in this religion.
It is highly disturbing and makes one sick as to why all all great thinkers of Hinduism kept aloof from this cancer which has been eating its elan vital for the last many millenniums.
In this backdrop the advent of Gautam Buddha came as a whiff of fresh air. He could have expurgated the Hindu society by removing the division along the Varna and caste lines. The only drawback which one could find in teachings of Buddha was that laid excessive emphasis on the non-violence, which proved to be disastrous for the safety, security, unity and integrity of the country.
It is all the more perplexing that why even a person of dazzling intelligence like Swami Dayanand Saraswati could not think of breaking the shackles of castes. On the contrary, he advocated for retaining the system of four Varna. However, it must be stated in all fairness that Dayanand Saraswati, who was born nearly four and half decades before Mahatma Gandhi had made blistering attacks on the evils of the Hindu society.
He was very clear, confident and convincing in his thinking and logic that he dared all religions and tore into pieces the bookish religions like Christianity and Islam. Sikhism had not gained the status of separate religion independent of Hinduism till then. However, in his book Satyarth Prakash and Samskarvidhi he appeared to be in no doubt about the efficacy of four Varnas.
It hardly needs to be said that any amount of logic supporting the four Varnas cannot appeal to the reason of any conscientious person. It stands on very weak, fallible and extremely feeble legs. This obnoxious system has completely stopped the growth of society. There is no flow because all the avenues of mobility are stopped. Although it is said that there is no prohibition on the mobility from one Varna to the other but that is only for the namesake. The stark fact is that it is the birth which decides the Varna and caste of a person. Moreover, the trait and quality of a person is completely a subjective matter. We have not seen any person who could have moved from one Varna or caste to other. If anyone wants to leave or renounce his/her caste or Varna to adopt the other caste or Varna, he/she can never be adopted or accepted by the other case/Varna. We do not find any such example of mobility, at least in the known history. This stagnancy has done the incalculable damage to a society which was so advanced in learning, industry and intelligence.
It is again baffling that why the successive thinkers after Buddha did not think beyond. They concentrated more on rooting out the Buddhism from the land of its birth than in reforming the Hindism by making it casteless society. It is also equally true that the way Buddha wanted to cast away the treasure of knowledge and wisdom in Hindu religion was shocking to say the least. It is quite possible that Gautam Buddha might have considered over the rigidity of Varna and caste system and might have found himself incapable of removing the despicable evil and hence thought to completely severe the link from Sanatana dharma, which is how the Hindu religion is known today rather than making any effort to reform it. Hence he thought it fit to found a new religion instead of breaking the head against the hard stones of Hinduism.