Indian People
Castes were the central feature of people's identities in ancient India.
Beginning soon after the Aryan invasion,
people in India began to divide everyone into one of five groups, or
castes. Caste gave some people special rights and privileges that other
people did not have. The castes are described in the Rig
Veda. There were really four castes, and then the lowest group had
no caste, and were known as Untouchables. Below the untouchables were
the slaves.
Untouchables usually did the worst jobs, like cleaning up people's poop
from the gutters, or collecting garbage.
The lowest of the castes was the shudras - the servants and farmhands
who did not own their own business or their own land, and who had to
work for other people. But gradually a lot of land-owning farmers fell
into this caste, too. Probably the largest number of people belonged
to this caste.
Above them were the vaishyas, or farmers and traders, who owned their
own farms or businesses. There were a lot of them, too.
The most powerful caste was the Brahmans, the priests and leaders. There were only a few of them. Only Brahman men were allowed to go to school, or to teach in schools (Brahman women could not go to school).
There were also a lot of smaller groups within these castes. People who came from different castes could not eat together. Usually people from one caste did not marry or make friends with people from another caste.
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