| From The River Of Heaven |
 |
| Books By David Frawley |
| VEDIC SOCIAL SCIENCE : THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF CULTURE | |
|
|
|
| The Class Structure All ancient and medieval cultures up to the past few centuries in the West and many of those still existing elsewhere in the world have been based upon the same general idea. This is the division of society into several major groups according to an organic differentiation of functions. These are the classes of the priests, nobility and the common people, the latter usually divided into merchants and farmers. Within this are usually other sub castes like artists and craftsmen. This idea which we still find in its petrified form in the caste system of India was the universal idea of the ancient mind. It appeared to the ancient mind to represent the natural order, to be self-evident. We find it among the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas of the New Word. We see it in ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, as well as India and China. Even Christian Europe in the Middle Ages followed it. While we may want to dismiss it today as a form of social inequality and political oppression, it is not wise simply to reject ideas according to the forms they have degenerated into in time. If this idea was so universal it had a meaning and a purpose, it reflected a certain truth that must have had some validity at least for a time.
|
|
|
|
