> All that awful muck about the "aryan master race" has its roots in the
> indo-european hypothesis. But even though that is all wrong and evil,
> underneath it is still interesting stuff.
You are absolutely right. (Your knowledge of South and West Asia is truly admirable !) Our local fascists have built on the same nonsense about the "aryan master race."
You are also right about your point in the previous post about:
> (1) this four part division was basically the three part division we
> Europeans know so well from our own Aryan past -- the division of society
> into Warriors, Priests and Peasants -- with the difference that in India,
> the preexisting groups weren't chased out, absorbed, exterminated or
> completely marginalized (e.g., the Basques), but instead remained numerous
> enough to form a fourth group, the Shudras, or untouchables.
Brahminism absorbed and incorporated pre-aryan communities' rituals, gods and totems and cults into Vedic practices, producing a hotchpotch/eclectic set of belief called "Hinduism". Consequently, fundamentalisms in strict sense, i.e. claims about one single text as the source of Truth don't have much appeal.
Jati seems to be caste in the sense of actual status, while the aforementioned four fold division refers to the ritual status. But I am not much clear about this distinction.
Ulhas