Aaj Ka Ravan Raaj South Movie Cast

[Ilario Grijalva]

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Today is Basant Panchami when Goddess Saraswati is worshipped across India and World and I think this is right time to present my lond research on Origin and expansion of Brahmins to all of you. May Maa Saraswati Bless us all.

In the ancient world and even in the modern society people usually form cohesive groups based on their language, culture and geographical location. These groups have a common ancestry and are led by chiefs of the families around which they gathered. Such communities are called tribes1. There are innumerable tribes in this world. The Indian continent is not different from the rest of the world1b as far as tribes and the rivalries between them are concerned.

It seems there are two kinds of tribes in the Indian continent, the tribes and castes2. The tribes are still in the forests and hills and not really part of the modern society. Castes have been living in the villages and cities since ancient times and are civilized. In the Indian Continent, a caste means a modern civilized tribe or clan or group of people that have marital relationship among them. Some castes are further divided into subcastes. Matrimonial relationship among subcastes is not acceptable due to differences in religious and cultural practices. It is important to note that the caste or tribe is blood-related and genetic, and hence hereditary. So, one has to be born into a caste or tribe to belong to that tribe or caste. Again, this is not unique to India. These ancient tribal traditions are slowly disappearing in this modern age3. One among such communities in the Indian continent is the Brahmin caste. For consistency in this article, Brahmins are referred to as a caste.

The census of 1881 enumerated 1,929 castes. Brahmins, Kunbis and Chamars accounted for approximately 10 million each. Of these 1,929 castes, 1,432 (74 per cent) were geographically localized groups and each caste or tribe is unique to a particular place. Only few castes like Brahmins had an all-India presence.

During the Islamic conquests in India, it was a typical policy to single out the Brahmins for slaughter, after the Hindu warriors had been bled to death on the battlefield. Even the Portuguese in Malabar and Goa followed this policy in the 16th century, as can be deduced from Hindu-Portuguese treaty clauses prohibiting the Portuguese from killing Brahmins.( )

Brahmins are Vedik people. The Vedas describe the landscape of northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Over and over the Vedas mention a mighty river called the Sarasvati where Brahmin communities flourished, where the Indus Valley civilization flourished and dispersed when the Saraswati river dried up around 1900 BCE. Long before, during the Ramayana period Brahmins migrated to Dandakaranya (Dandaka Forest) in the south with Viswamitra, the author of several hymns in Rigveda including Gayatri mantra, and practiced Vedik religon performing yajnas under the protection of Lord Rama and Lakshmana. Long before Rama went south, Agastya, a prominent Brahmin sage and writer of several hymns of Rigveda, crossed Vindhyas and established Vedik religion in south India. Sage Agastya appeared to Rama when he was despondent at the impending war with Ravana and instructed him in the use of Aditya Hridayam, a hymn praising the Sun God. Brahmins have been migrating to various regions within the Indian Continent since time immemorial and recently to other continents as well.

The word Brahmin means many things to many people resulting in confusion. One of the reasons for this confusion is Sanskrit language5. Many words in Sanskrit have many meanings6. Depending upon the context one has to take the meaning of the word. The word Brahmana (hereinafter "Brahmin") means the God, one who knows God, one who has the knowledge of God, one who has the knowledge of Vedas, an intellectual, a priest, a teacher, a professor, a person belonging to Brahmin caste, a superior person, a text related to Vedas, and so on7. Accordingly, priests in a mosque, church, a synagogue, a gurudwara etc. are all Brahmins because they are all , obviously, priests. They are also Brahmins because they are supposed to have the knowledge of God. They are also Brahmins because they are intellectuals. However, none of them are God and at least a couple of them would consider it blesphemous to say so. They may not have the knowledge of the Vedas and they may not belong to the Brahmin caste. And certainly, they are not the texts related to Vedas. To add to this confusion there are Boston Brahmins who are Americans and have nothing to do with the Vedas or vegetarianism. They are not even remotely related to the Indian Continent.

There are hundreds of religions, practices, traditions, castes, tribes etc. dubbed as Hinduism. One among those religions is the Brahminism8 practiced by the Brahmin caste. Brahmins have distinct traditions, culture and religion and follow certain principles and practices. This religion9 may also be called Sanatana (ancient) Dharma or Vedic religion. However, there is a lot of confusion as to the definition of Hinduism10, which encompasses everything indigenous to the Indian Continent, e.g., some groups of Indians like Busddhists, Jains, Sikhs, dalit Christians, Muslims, and people like Iliah Kanche, a Kuruma Christian, confuse Brahminism with Hinduism (Indigenous Religions of Indian Continent). Iliah Kanche declares that he is not a Hindu, because he does not follow any of the principles of Brahmins such as vegetarianism etc. However, Brahminism is only one of the many religions of India that are collectively called Hinduism. Yet, almost all other Indian (Hindu) religions also respect the Vedas because they are essentially the human heritage and the most ancient texts. The Rig Veda was declared by UNESCO as part of the world heritage.

The Vedas are the primary source of knowledge for all Brahmin traditions, both orthodox & heterodox. All religions of Brahmins and all traditions, in one way or other, take inspiration from the Vedas. Traditional Brahmin accepts Vedas as apaurusheyam (not man-made), but revealed truths and of eternal validity or relevance and hence the Vedas are considered Srutis that which have been heard and are the paramount source of Brahmin traditions and is believed to be divine. These Srutis include not only the four Vedas (the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda), but also their respective Brahmanas. Brahmins also give tremendous importance to purity of body and mind and hence attach importance to ritual baths and cleanliness.

In general, gotra denotes all persons who trace descent in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor. Panini defines gotra for grammatical purposes as ' apatyam pautraprabhrti gotram' (IV. 1. 162), which means 'the word gotra denotes the progeny (of a sage) beginning with the son's son. When a person says ' I am Kashypasa-gotra' he means that he traces his descent from the ancient sage Kashyapa by unbroken male descent. According to the Baudhyanas'rauta-stra Vishvmitra, Jamadagni, Bharadvja, Gautama, Atri, Vasishtha, Kashyapa and Agastya are 8 sages; the progeny of these eight sages is declared to be gotras. This enumeration of eight primary gotras seems to have been known to PNini. The offspring (apatya) of these eight are gotras and others than these are called ' gotrvayava '.

The gotras are arranged in groups, e. g. there are according to the svalyana-srautastra four subdivisions of the Vasishtha gana, viz. Upamanyu, Parshara, Kundina and Vasishtha (other than the first three). Each of these four again has numerous sub-sections, each being called gotra. So the arrangement is first into ganas, then into pakshas, then into individual gotras. The first has survived in the Bhrigu and ngirasa gana. According to Baud, the principal eight gotras were divided into pakshas. The pravara of Upamanyu is Vasishtha, Bharadvasu, Indrapramada; the pravara of the Parshara gotra is Vasishtha, Shktya, Prsharya; the pravara of the Kundina gotra is Vasishtha, Maitrvaruna, Kaundinya and the pravara of Vasishthas other than these three is simply Vasishtha. It is therefore that some define pravara as the group of sages that distinguishes the founder (lit. the starter) of one gotra from another.

There are two kinds of pravaras, 1) sishya-prasishya-rishi-parampara, and 2) putrparampara. Gotrapravaras can be ekarsheya, dwarsheya, triarsheya, pancharsheya, saptarsheya, and up to 19 rishis. Kashyapasa gotra has at least two distinct pravaras in Andhra Pradesh: one with three sages (triarsheya pravara) and the other with seven sages (saptarsheya pravara). This pravara may be either sishya-prasishya-rishi-parampara or putraparampara. When it is sishya-prasishya-rishi-parampara marriage is not acceptable if half or more than half of the rishis are same in both bride and bridegroom gotras. If it is putraparampara, marriage is totally unacceptable even if one rishi matches.

There are several Brahmin law givers such as Angirasa, Apasthambha, Atri, Brihaspati, Boudhayana, Daksha, Gautama, Harita, Katyayana, Likhita, Manu, Parasara, Samvarta, Sankha, Satatapa, Usanasa, Vasishta, Vishnu, Vyasa, Yajnavalkya and Yama. These twenty-one rishis were the propounders of Dharma Sastras. There is a lot of contradiction among theseDarmasastas, even within one Smriti. These differences in the rules and rituals resulted in the rigid stratification of subcastes among Brahmins. None of these smritis is supreme and universally applicable throughout the Indian Continent. The oldest among these Dharma Sutras are Apasthambha, Baudhayana, Gautama and Vasishta Sutras.

Brihaspati: Brihaspati was probably the first jurist to make a clear distinction between civil and criminal justice. Yajnavalkya referred to Brihaspati. However, Brihaspati is considered to belong to 200-400 AD. Brihaspatismriti has a lot of similarities with Dhammathats of Myanmar (Burma).

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