| Awaken Bharata |
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| Books By David Frawley |
| ANTI - BRAHMANISM, THE NEW COMMUNALISM OF MODERN INDIA | |
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| Often
kings would honor the Brahmin families under their patronage with
lands and property, mainly for establishing schools and temples.
This was a point at which some corruption did occur. Sometimes these
patronized Brahmins fell from their traditional austerity and began
to function like wealthy landowners, though such Brahmin landowners
were rare.
Yet even the princes and kings had to bow down to the Brahmins as a symbol of the precedence of spiritual over worldly power. In this way the Brahmins had their fame but in a way quite unlike the higher classes of other cultures. Not surprisingly members of other classes seldom aspired to be Brahmins, which was regarded as half way to becoming monks. Rather it was the merchant or the noble classes that the lower classes wanted to join in order to gain affluence and power. In fact there was a constant shifting of groups among these different classes relative to the roles in society people were compelled to take, with servant classes becoming farmers and merchants and sometimes vice versa when their fortunes fell. But few tried to become Brahmins in the process. |
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