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Caste is an institution which is truely Hindu (Indian) in character. So much so that even the Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as, Hindu hereditary class, with members socially equal, united in religion, and usually following same trades, having no social intercourse with persons of other castes.
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The process that led to the creation of the Brahmin caste had its corollary in the formation of the Kshatriya caste. The Kshatriya caste was formed due to the gradual establishment of a monopoly on military training and the art of warfare by a section of the people of the casteless Vedic Ganas (tribes).
The fact that in the pastoral stage of Vedic society the main object of wealth and appropriation was cattle, is corroborated in Vedic literature by the word for war which is "Gavisti". Gavisti literally means "A search for cows". The basic social unit in those days of a pastoral society was the Gotra which literally means a cowpen or cow shed.
The Brahmin-Kshatriya combine was thus the appropriating section as against the Vaishya-shudra combine who represented the productive section. But although the two appropriating and the two appropriated sections of society performed different functions like the ritual worship undertaken by the Brahmins, warfare by Kshatriyas, cultivation by the Vaishyas and menial work by the Shudras.
In the Indian context the social division of labour into antagonistic caste groupings had two aspects. The first division took place on the basis of the economic function of the caste-groupings in the context of the role they played in the surplus producing economy of either production of the economic surplus or its appropriation.
