>Indian caste system has undergone changes in different epoches(feudal,
>colonial and contemporary India) and has been put to different uses, >but
>castes seem to have originated in Ancient times.
After Yoshie brought up Japan's caste system and its formation, I looked in my little book about Premodern Japan (Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey by Mikiso Hane) concerning the Untouchables. The impression I got was that, although the various social classes were present much of the time, the barriers between them changed their porousness depending on the rigidity of the class rule imposed on them. During times of civil disorder, such as during the Ashikaga Period (about 14-16th cent.), individual peasants could climb the social ladder and groups of peasants could get their horrendous debts cancelled by rising against the shogun (and there were apparently lots of these in the early 15th century) or local authority (or by simply attacking the moneylenders and ripping up the documents). Class/caste barriers were rigidified enormously in the Tokugawa Period (1600-late 18th cent.), with all sorts of laws regulating social conduct (many of which were concerned with keeping the peasants in their place, away from such dens of iniquity as towns where they might discover unspeakable things: "A good peasant is one that does not know the price of grain."). I would suppose this is the base that capitalism later built upon, right Yoshie?
Todd
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