caste (redirected from Cast system)

caste [Port., casta=basket], ranked groups based on heredity within rigid systems of social stratification, especially those that constitute Hindu India. Some scholars, in fact, deny that true caste systems are found outside India. The caste is a closed group whose members are severely restricted in their choice of occupation and degree of social participation. Marriage outside the caste is prohibited. Social status is determined by the caste of one's birth and may only rarely be transcended. Certain religious minorities may voluntarily constitute a quasi-caste within a society, but they are less apt to be characterized by cultural distinctiveness than by their self-imposed social segregation. A specialized labor group may operate as a caste within a society otherwise free of such distinctions (e.g., the ironsmiths in parts of Africa). In general, caste functions to maintain the status quo in a society.

Castes in India

Nowhere is caste better exemplified by degree of complexity and systematic operation than in India. The Indian term for caste is jati, which generally designates a group varying in size from a handful to many thousands. There are thousands of such jatis, and each has its distinctive rules, customs, and modes of government. The term varna (literally meaning "color") refers to the ancient and somewhat ideal fourfold division of Hindu society: (1) the Brahmans, the priestly and learned class; (2) the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers; (3) the Vaisyas, farmers and merchants; and (4) the Sudras, peasants and laborers. These divisions may have corresponded to what were formerly large, broad, undifferentiated social classes. Below the category of Sudras were the untouchables, or Panchamas (literally "fifth division"), who performed the most menial tasks.

Although there has been much confusion between the two, jati and varna are different in origin as well as function. The various castes in any given region of India are hierarchically organized, with each caste corresponding roughly to one or the other of the varna categories. Traditionally, caste mobility has taken the form of movement up or down the varna scale. Indian castes are rigidly differentiated by rituals and beliefs that pervade all thought and conduct (see dharma). Extreme upper and lower castes differ so widely in habits of everyday life and worship that only the close intergrading of intervening castes and the intercaste language communities serve to hold them together within the single framework of Indian society.

The explanation that Indian castes were originally based on color lines to preserve the racial and cultural purity of conquering groups is inadequate historically to account for the physical and cultural variety of such groups. Castes may reflect distinctiveness of religious practice, occupation, locale, culture status, or tribal affiliation, either exclusively or in part. Divergence within a caste on any of these lines will tend to produce fission that may, in time, result in the formation of new castes. Every type of social group as it appears may be fitted into this system of organizing society.

The occupational barriers among Indian castes have been breaking down slowly under economic pressures since the 19th cent., but social distinctions have been more persistent. Attitudes toward the untouchables only began to change in the 1930s under the influence of Mohandas Gandhi's teachings, who called the group Harijans. Although untouchability was declared illegal in 1949, resistance to change has remained strong, especially in rural areas. As increased industrialization produced new occupations and new social and political functions evolved, the caste system adapted and thus far has not been destroyed.

Bibliography

See M. Marriott, ed., Village India (1955); M. N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India (1966); A. de Reuck and J. Knight, ed., Caste and Race (1967); L. Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (1970); D. B. McGilvray, ed., Caste Ideology and Interaction (1982); A. R. Gupta, Caste Hierarchy and Social Change (1985).

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caste

Any of the ranked, hereditary, endogamous (see exogamy and endogamy) occupational groups that constitute traditional societies in certain regions of the world, particularly among Hindus in India. There caste is rooted in antiquity and specifies the rules and restrictions governing social intercourse and activity. Each caste has its own customs that restrict the occupations and dietary habits of its members and their social contact with other castes. There are about 3,000 castes, or jatis (broadly, “form of existence fixed by birth”), and more than 25,000 subcastes in India. They are traditionally grouped into four major classes, or varnas (“colours”). At the top are the Brahmans, followed by the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. Those with the most defiling jobs (such as those who dispose of body emissions and dead animals) are ranked beneath the Shudras. Considered untouchable, they were simply dubbed as “the fifth” (panchama) category. Although a great many spheres of life in modern India are little influenced by caste, most marriages are nevertheless arranged within the caste. This is in part because most people live in rural communities and because the arrangement of marriages is a family activity carried out through existing networks of kinship and caste.

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caste

In biology, a subset of individuals within a colony of social animals (chiefly ants, bees, termites, and wasps) that has a specialized function and is distinguished from other subsets by morphological and anatomical differences. Typical insect castes are the queen (the female responsible for reproduction), workers (the usually sterile female caretakers of the queen, eggs, and larvae), soldiers (defenders of the colony; also sterile females), and sometimes drones (short-lived males). The differentiation of larvae into various castes is often determined by diet, though hormonal and environmental factors can also play a role.

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caste

1. 

a. any of the four major hereditary classes, namely the Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra into which Hindu society is divided

b. the system or basis of such classes

c. the social position or rank conferred by this system

2. Entomol any of various types of specialized individual, such as the worker, in social insects (hive bees, ants, etc.)