Credit: CC0 image via PXhere This is the third part of an ongoing series, which traces the origins of India’s people and civilization. Previous parts can be found here: Unraveled: Where Indians ...

Caste, a word foreign in origin but deeply immersed in India's identity today, has travelled centuries and continents. From colonial classification to present-day politics, it continues to define ...

RS Sharma wrote in his seminal work, ‘Shudras in Ancient India’: ... and while emperor Ashoka attempted to erase caste or varna divisions, he didn’t succeed in doing that. ...

The present birth-based caste system – a distorted merger of jati (one’s birth-community) and varna (one’s nature based on guna and karma) – emerged roughly between 1,600 to 2,000 years ...

The ancient Varna system separates the three twice-born (Dvij) groupings – Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaishya – from the Shudras who constituted the lowest rung.

RS Sharma wrote in his seminal work, ‘Shudras in Ancient India’: “In point of time the Purusa Sukta version may be ascribed to the end of the period of the Atharva veda, in which it occurs ...