Three Shudras who were the Gurus of Brahmins: Challenging the Caste System Narrative
I get a lot of objections from some of you that all you talk about is the achievements of Brahmins, what about the Shudras? There is a big misconception in India regarding the caste system that your status as a Shudras were determined by your birth and if you were a Shudra you were completely barred from studying the scriptures. People think that this status between the varnas was maintained throughout the history of India and at all places in India. In this article I will challenge this narrative by giving you three examples of Shudras who actually were Gurus of Brahmins.
There is a big part of Indian population who feels estranged from the great achievements of Indian civilization because they are fed this narrative that all these great achievements were attained by Brahmins who were a certain ethnic group in India. This ethnic group did not allow other ethnic groups to participate in any intellectual pursuits and so they were the oppressors who relegated others to the lower rungs of the society. This narrative of the caste system estranges a certain fraction of the society of India from their own culture and creates division amongst us.
Such a caste system narrative propagates because we are emotional people and suffer from inner insecurities. Whenever somebody comes in and gives an emotional speech on the injustices we experience in everyday life, we get emotional and never stop and give it a second thought. As a result, we easily skip the glaring counter examples against this whole narrative. There are glaring counter examples in both Ramayana and Mahabharata against this narrative that we do not pay attention to. In the Ramayana we have Valmiki himself who was a highway man and then turned into a sage by reciting the word Rama-Rama. Then we have another example of Rishi Matanga of Rishymukh, who was the son of a Chandala. In the Mahabharata you can see that Shantanu marries Satyavati who is the daughter of a Shudra fisherman and her son Vichitraveerya becomes the king, clearly showing the fluidity in the hierarchy. Then we have the whole Vyadha Geeta in Mahabharata where a Vyadha or hunter giving instructions to a Brahmin. So here we have an untouchable who is teaches wisdom to a Brahmin.
Since our mind is only fixed on the caste system, the only stories we think of is that of Shambuka in Ramayana and Eklavya, in Mahabharata. Even for Karna in Mahabharata, people fail to appreciate that through his brilliance he did end up becoming ang raj eventually. People mostly focus on his hardships and fail to appreciate that even today, if you have the misfortune to be born in a poor family, you will have to struggle more than others to get to the top, irrespective of your so called caste. With this in mind let me give you three examples of scholars from three different periods of Indian history, who belonged to a lower caste, but who actually had Brahmin disciples.
Kabir (1400s): The great mystic, poet and saint of 15th-century India, whose writings influenced the Bhakti movement of Hinduism and was a major inspiration in the founding of Sikhism. Scholars keep fighting over whether Kabir was a Hindu or a Muslim, but we all know that he was a weaver which is an occupation belonging to the Shudras. Moreover, religion of a person is not determined by his/her birth but by beliefs and Kabir is widely believed to be the disciple of the Bhakti poet-saint Swami Ramananda in Varanasi, known for devotional Vaishnavism. If Shudras were prohibited from following the spiritual path in India then why did Swami Ramananda accept Kabir as a disciple? Later on, Kabir took on as disciples Suratgopal and Jagudas who were Brahmins. If Brahmins were so oppressive of the Shudras why did they decide to learn from a weaver? This clearly goes against the popular narrative on rigid caste system we hear all the time about India.
Sant Tukaram (1598–1650): Sant Tukaram was born to a More belonging to the Kunbi caste, which is a backward caste of Maharashtra. Sant Tukaram’s first wife, and his son starved to death in the famine of 1630–1632 under the Mughal empire. As a side-note this was also the time when Shah Jahan started the construction of Taj Mahal in Agra, and they want us to thank the Mughals. The deaths and widespread poverty had a profound effect on Tukaram, and made him contemplative and meditative. Tukaram married again, and spent most of his later years in devotional worship.
In his work of Abhangas, Tukaram repeatedly refers to four other persons who had a primary influence on his spiritual development, namely the earlier Bhakti Saints Namdev (who is thought to be a tailor), Dnyaneshwar (an Outcaste Brahmin), Kabir (a weaver as we have already discussed) and Eknath (who was a brahmin). This clearly shows no dogmatism of keeping non-Brahmins out of the intellectual pursuits in India. Sant Bahinabhai who was a brahmin was a disciple of Sant Tukaram.
Gulab Rao Maharaj (1881–1915): Gulabrao Maharaj also belonged to a Maharashtrian Kunbi family. He wrote the commentary on the theories of Darwin and Spencer. He had written books on various subjects such as dhyan, yoga and bhakti and written commentaries on ancient treatises. He wrote on the “Manas Ayurveda”, i.e. psychological part in the Ayurveda. He had given valuable guidelines to those who want to attain the salvation and gain the eternal knowledge. He used to respect Vedas, Brahmins and the guidance received from great wealth of old Indian religious treatises. He was straight forward and would defeat many Pundits and Intelligent people in the debate on the Shastras.
There are many other examples against this caste system narrative that I can mention, such as Deva Dasimayyah in Karnataka who was weaver and had many Brahmin disciples or Pambatti Siddhar who was a snake charmer and had a Namboodri Brahmin disciple Sri Sivaprabhakara Siddhayogi Paramahamsar. So, when you look at all this, you can clearly see that the situation in India was not how they portray it to you. The path to intellectual pursuit was open to almost everyone in India if you were a worthy student.
The truth is that situation then and today is not very different. When I was studying in the IIT, I could clearly see that most of my classmates were from well to do families, with a few coming from poor families as well. Since only rich parents have the means to prepare their children for JEE through coaching, you mostly see rich people’s kids in IIT. As such there is no bar on anyone to sit for the JEE, in fact if you belong to a depressed class IITs will relax their entrance requirements for you. If you are a brilliant student and can score well in JEE without spending money on coaching then you will make it into the IIT. So, there is no bar as such on your income level to allow you t study at IIT, however affluence of parents does end up being a factor in terms of determining your success. Similar situation was there in the old times also.
Originally published at https://stoicsadhu.com on March 15, 2020.
