Austronesian Quadripartition and the Indian Varna System

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Austronesian Quadripartition and the Indian Varna SystemBy Paul K. ManansalaIn 1995, I wrote an article "Austric Influence in the Brahmana and Rishi Traditions," in which I examined the Austric contribution to the formation of the varna, or four caste system, and also to the linked brahmin and rishi (seer) traditions of India.My view was that the varna system was mainly an indigenous development with major contributions from Dravidian and Austric societies rather than something brought in by Indo-European invaders, which is the more common position in Western scholarship.The mainstream Western view is that the Aryan invaders or migrants into South Asia retained the Proto-Indo-European system of three classes, conceived by Georges Dumézil as consisting of clerics, warriors and husbandmen/agriculturalists. Upon arriving in India, they supposedly forced those aborigines who adopted their

religious system into a fourth lower class known as Sudras. A strong racial component is evident in this theory with some asserting the Sudras were originally slaves and they were darker-skinned than the other three classes composed of the Aryan invaders. According to this theory, these four classes eventually evolved into the four varnas.To support this theory, it is argued that the supposedly oldest parts of the Rgveda, considered the oldest literary work of India, do not mention the Sudra caste. Sudras though are mentioned in Purusa-sukta section of the book. Also, supporters of this view point out that the Sudras were not considered "twice-born" and worthy of pursuit of Brahman, a mana-like spiritual power or asset.Here are a few of the main problems with this theory:The Vedas, which supposedly cover the period of Aryan invasion/migration into India do not mention the mass conversion process of aborigines into Sudras or the conversion of

the old Indo-European husbandman/agriculturalist class into, presumably, the Vaisya or merchant caste. Such a conversion process would have been messy to say the least. In comparison, latter works mention the adoption of foreigners like the Sakas and Cinas into the caste system.According to present-day mainstream Western views, a relatively small number of Aryan speakers were involved in a migration and elite dominance scenario upon arriving in South Asia. However, how successful could a small number of people be in converting an entire indigenous population into slavery or servitude? More recent history shows that the process of caste assimilation involved introducing people into the brahmin system according to their position and rank in the previous society. Thus, we have Dravidian Brahmins and Dravidian Kshatriyas (warriors) and Yavana brahmins and Yavana Kshatriyas.Neither genetic nor physical anthropology studies support ideas that the upper castes

are composed of recent (post-Neolithic) migrants to India or that the Sudra caste is more aboriginal than the upper castes. As caste is determined by patrilineage, the genetic evidence suggests that upper castes consist overwhelmingly of Y chromosome types that have been in India long before the Neolithic. The only male haplogroups that show strong evidence of relatively recent arrival are J haplogroup and O haplogroup, neither of which appear linked with the theory of an Aryan invasion/migration into Northwest India. In most parts of India, forensic science can not reliably distinguish upper castes from sudra castes based on craniofacial or other physical anthropology techniques.The most important aspects of the varna system are not reconstructible to the suggested Proto-Indo-European system.http://sambali.blogspot.com/2008/03/pmp-quadripartite-social-structures.html

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