Thread by @PankajSaxena84

1. Did Brahmins Monopolize Knowledge in Ancient India?
While we rightly celebrate & support praṇa pratiṣṭha of Prabhu Śrī Rāma on 22nd Jan, We, the Hindus, shall also be careful to not let our enemies (anti-Hindus) to turn this into an opportunity of spreading Brahmin hatred.

2. One of the most common charges against the Hindu society is that the Brāhmaṇas monopolized knowledge and hence power for themselves in ancient India.

3. They claim that only the Brāhmaṇas and Kṣatriyas were allowed to perform Vedic Yajna and the Śūdras and in most cases the Vaiśyas were prevented from gaining any knowledge or power.

4. Anyone who is not addled with colonial, racist and anti-Hindu propaganda will realize that this is not true in many ways, but a lie repeated a thousand times becomes a truth as they say. That is why it is imperative to interrogate this charge a little.

5. A common misconception is that ‘Śūdras’ were prevented from all education, including vocational training. This is just wrong. Most of fine arts, music, dance, architecture, sculpture etc. employed not just non-Brāhmaṇas but also a huge number of Śūdras.

6. But in absence of contemporary institutions and means of communication, families were the best universities to learn any craft. This is why hereditary transfer of knowledge was considered the most efficient and in most parts the only means for education.

7. The prohibition was regarding the Vedas, and only about its practice in performing Yajña. All other subjects were freely studied by all other jātis and varṇas. Śrī Dharampal’s work in modern India when the British arrived in India proves this point beyond any doubt.

8. Monopolies are a common feature of the modern world, where giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google etc. are trying to kill every other competitor in the world, including the smallest vendors in the streets of countries like India.

9. An essential feature of any monopoly is that those who create these monopolies make sure that it is never broken. This never happened with Brāhmaṇas and there are many evidences to that effect.

10. The Natyashastra is a text which dispels this charge of monopoly on Brāhmaṇas. Nāṭyaśāstra expounds not just on the art of drama, but also on bhavas, mudras and is a foundational text on music, dance, iconography and many other disciplines which derive from these basics.

11. The stated goal of the Nāṭyaśāstra is to take the knowledge of the Vedas to everyone: “As the Vedas are not to be listened to by those born as Śūdras, be pleased to create another Veda which will belong to all the Varṇas. " (The Natyashastra - Chapter 1: Verse 12)”

12. The Nāṭyaśāstra is called the fifth Veda, and the Veda which was created to take the knowledge of the Vedas to those who are not able to partake the knowledge directly through performing Yajñas.

13. A society in which Brāhmaṇas wanted to manipulate knowledge and preserve it for them and them only, why would such a society think of an instrument like the Nāṭyaśāstra which is virtually an instrument of taking Vedic knowledge to everyone?

14. In fact it is the Brāhmaṇas who devise these ways to take the knowledge to the masses. The Nāṭyaśāstra was created by the Brāhmaṇas and so are most other texts. Why would Brāhmaṇas create a monopoly on one hand and then create means to break it on the other?

15. There are many texts which claim to be the fifth Veda. The Mahābhārata is an Itihāsa text, and it is also claimed as a Pancham Veda. The purpose of the Itihāsas too is to take the knowledge of the Vedas to those who are not able to perform the Yajña themselves.

16. The Rāmāyaṇa is also said to contain all the knowledge of the Vedas in capsule form and it is written in a form of story which can be conveyed to the masses.

17. If this were not enough, then both the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata were adapted for reenacting in various mediums such as stage play, poetry or songs sung by roaming bards. There was absolutely no bar on who these actors were.

18. No one was bothered about the jāti or varṇa of the roaming bard. Most of them were not Brāhmaṇas. They sang about these great epics in the manner in which they liked, and in the language in which they liked, making any sort of monopoly absolutely impossible.

19. There are hundreds of authorized Rāmāyaṇas and many versions of the Mahābhārata. If Hindu dharma was intolerant like Christianity it would convene a council of priests and declare all except one version of the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata to be heretical.

20. The fact that the multiple versions of these great epics were allowed tells us the anti-monopolistic character of the Indic knowledge system.

21. The field of arts generally employed all varnas and jātis. Most of the dancers, singers, musicians and even sculptors and architects working in the temples were not Brāhmaṇas, but in fact belonged to all jātis, and most of them were Śūdras.

22. The Āyurveda is an entire science. It is called the fifth Veda for it is a life science and instructs not just on medicine or food, but on entire lifestyle and thus qualifies to be a text akin to the Vedas in its orientation towards pure knowledge.

23. It also shows that the very idea of Pancham Veda was kept fluid, to convey the sense that though the Vedas were to be respected highly, it was not impossible to attain highest form of knowledge outside the Vedas.

24. The idea of the fifth Veda militates against the notion of Brāhmaṇas monopolizing knowledge. If they wanted to do so, why would they create so many fifth Vedas to break that same monopoly on knowledge?

25. If the evidence above given was not enough then the example of the Hindu temple shall throw some more light on the issue. Hindu temple existed as an institution to take the knowledge of the Vedas to those who are not directly capable of performing the Yajña.

26. The Hindu temple is built in the image of a Yajña vedī. The temple vimāna is imagined as the fire of a fire altar, of a Yajña vedī.

27. The shape of the vimāna, which tapers, recedes and coalesces into one point at the top with many of half-vimānas, or half-śikharas or miniature aedicular vimānas decorating the ascent of the vimāna resembles the sacrificial fire of a fire altar. (Rao 74)

28. The Hindu temple is, in fact, an evolution of the Vedic fire altar, the Yajña Vedī, in which the Yajñas were performed. Dr. R. Nagaswamy traces the roots of Hindu iconography directly to the Vedas in his seminal work Vedic Roots of Hindu Iconography.

29. Stella Kramrisch says: “The Sulva-sutras contained in the Kalpa-sutras, represent the rules and give proportionate measurement for laying out and piling up the Vedic altar. On them basically rests the building of the Hindu temple.” (Kramrisch 11)

30. The deity who was invoked and imagined in the Vedic fire took a permanent form in the temple in the form the temple deity and the entire temple structure was imagined as the Yajña Vedī.

31. A temple priest was appointed who maintained carya and offered worship on behalf of the devotee and thus anyone who wished, could participate in the divine process. Hindu temple as an institution was born to take the knowledge of Vedas to everyone.

32. Why would the Brāhmaṇas prevent the Śūdras and others to establish contact with the devatas while performing Yajña and then create temples to bring those same deities to them on the other hand?

33. Our tradition does prevent the Śūdras from taking part in the Yajña, but on the other hand it does not prevent them from taking part in the Hindu temple, which is nothing but a Yajña Vedī in a permanent form, and just another form of the Vedic Yajña.

34. Not only are the Śūdras not prevented from taking part in the Hindu temple, in many states more than 50% of the temples are managed by non-Brāhmaṇas, and a considerable number of them are run by Śūdras and in which even the priests are the Śūdras.

35. Why would a ‘Brāhmaṇa elite’ allow such a thing to happen if they wanted to exclude the Śūdras permanently from the Vedic knowledge or any other kind of knowledge?

36. Every temple has a dhruva berā, or primary icon of the presiding deity in the garbha-gṛha or sanctum sanctorum. This dhruva berā is built of stone or metal and is fixed permanently in the garbha-gṛha in most cases and never comes out once it is consecrated there.

37. But besides that, there is also an utsava Mūrti in the temple. This utsava mūrti is a portable icon of the presiding deity, usually of metal, which can be taken out on a procession.

38. During our history it so happened that some communities for one reason or the other were excluded from entering the temple for not following the carya (lifestyle) that was recommended for the devotees.

39. There was no one community which was permanently excluded, but at different times and different places one or the other community was excluded in some temples.

40. But at least once (more than once in most temples) a year, the utsava mūrti of every temple is taken out on a procession across the whole town, and during this time everyone can have darśana of the deity.

41. The concept of the utsava mūrti makes sure that even those who are excluded from visiting the temple due to some reason have darśana of the deity at least once every year, without following any carya.

42. I know of no other system which simultaneously elevates individuals and communities by exhorting them to follow a better value system and also makes sure that even those who cannot are not completely excluded from the Hindu temple or from taking part in bhakti.

43. I know of no other system which simultaneously elevates and then universally includes everyone in its fold. I know of no other system with such infinite compassion. Buddhism’s compassion is sentimental. Sanātana Dharma’s compassion is fundamental.

44. Once again, why would the Brāhmaṇas create an entire institution for taking the deities of the Vedas, and the temple to everyone, if they wanted to monopolize any kind of knowledge, religiosity or spirituality?

45. Why would they create so many vehicles of disseminating that same knowledge which they were trying to prevent at the first place?

46. The adhikāra of performing Yajña was of course limited. This was not only because performing Yajña was a technical job, which it was.

47. To perform Yajñas, and to communicate with the devatas, which the Vedas are all about, was something which required a completely different lifestyle which could not be done on the side, or partially. It needed training and samskaras from birth.

48. Only someone who was born in an environment conducive to such a lifestyle and who would be schooled in that lifestyle would be able to bear it. That is why Yajñas were not performed by everyone, but their benefits were invoked for everyone.

49. To mention the elephant in the room – it was all about merit, but merit which ran through many janmas. Any non-Brāhmaṇa who had a great desire to perform the yajña would be born as a Brāhmaṇa in the next birth by following carya and accruing good karma in the present one.

50. Brāhmaṇas did not have the monopoly of knowledge; they had monopoly of means of creating only certain kind of knowledge, like the performance of Yajña. Dissemination of knowledge was not at all prohibited and in fact encouraged by various institutions and mechanisms.

51. REFERENCES

a. Kramrisch, Stella. The Hindu Temple. Vol. I. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1946. (2015 ed.).

b. Ghosh, Manmohan (ed.) The Natyashastra. I-IV, Varanasi: Chaukhamba Prakashan, 2012.

52. c. Ramachandra Rao, S. K. The Vastu-Silpa-Kosha: Encyclopaedia of Hindu Temple Architecture and Vastu. New Delhi: Divine Books, 2012. Vol. I.