Yoga, Caste, and Fundamentalism

By Roar Bjonnes

When I lived in a yoga ashram in Nepal in the 1980s, I invited a young man in the neighborhood to practice with us. We became good friends, and he enjoyed the daily practice of yoga exercises and kirtan chanting. One day, he asked if he could learn meditation. He had to renounce his Brahmin caste to do so according to the Tantric system of yoga I was practicing. After some hesitation, he finally agreed to cut his white Brahmin thread, a symbol of his caste superiority, and to be initiated into the age-old practice of Tantric yoga.

A few months after his initiation, he abruptly stopped attending our meditation sessions. After weeks of inquiry, I finally learned that he had been called back to his family’s village and told in no uncertain terms by his father that he would become an outcast unless he put the Brahmin thread back on.

The Origins of the Indian Caste System

The caste system likely originated when the Aryan tribes arrived in India from the Caspian Sea and the steppes of Southern Russia and Ukraine in ancient times. Although contested by some historians, genetic research has now firmly established that these pastoralists, who brought with them an oral version of the ancient Vedic religion, may have arrived in India as early as 5–3000 BCE. Over time, this religion, based on animal sacrifices, hymns to the Gods and Goddesses in heaven, and a reverence for the cow, clashed and blended with the aboriginal people of India, the Dravidians, the Mongols, and the many tribes, the Adivasi.

The Vedic Aryans codified their religious laws in oral teachings first, then in texts such as the Dharmasastras (2000–1000 BCE) and the Manusmrti (200 BCE). These texts codified the rituals and the social regulations of the three upper castes: Brahmin (priest), Kshatriya (warrior), and Vaisya (merchant). These laws were immemorial practices ascribed to them by the Creator. The conquered indigenous peoples, easily recognizable by their darker skin color, were classified as Sudras. Well-known Indologist Heinrich Zimmer wrote in Philosophies of Inda that they were “excluded ruthlessly from the rights and power-giving wisdom of the society of the conquerors and forbidden to acquire even an inkling of the techniques of the Vedic religion.”

In her book Trauma of Caste, the Dalit (lower caste) activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan writes that “the caste-oppressed must accept the terms of their oppression as punishment from crimes in another life. Challenging the conditions of caste apartheid violates the cosmic order and is therefore a failure of one’s responsibility.” The punishments could be severe, including having burning oil poured into one’s ear and mouth or becoming an outcaste, who then had to submit to the dominance of the other castes.

Now living in the United States, Soundararajan was herself “punished” in 2022 when her scheduled speech at Google was canceled when upper caste Indian employees protested, calling her “anti-Hindu” and “Hindu-phobic.” Tanuja Gupta, the senior manager who had invited Soundararajan to speak, quit the company in protest. The ancient system of caste bigotry is still alive and well, also in the Indian diaspora. But it is not just Hindus in India who adhere to it. As Soundararajan emphasizes in her book, the caste system affects all the religions of India today — including Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Issues of caste and race are deeply embedded in humans and difficult to overcome, no matter the religious background.

Genetics, Castes, and Migrations

Apart from its origin in Vedic doctrines, it is difficult to determine exactly when the caste system started proliferating into multiple castes beyond the original four. Genetic science detected a huge reduction of mixing among the various peoples of India around 100 CE. This would coincide with the growing influence of the Manusmrti and the decline of Buddhism which was antagonistic to Vedic animal sacrifices and the caste system. Today, it is estimated there are hundreds of castes in India.

Upward social mobility is possible to some extent, but especially in the rural villages, the Brahmin groups occupy the highest place in the hierarchy, and differences in ritual purity determine your place in society. The most impure are the untouchables, who are officially part of the Scheduled Castes in the Indian constitution. Many members of these groups prefer the term Dalit — literally the Oppressed.

Due to the caste system, genetically speaking, India does not consist of one large population with similar genes but of many isolated groups. Geneticist David Reich explains: “There are few, if any, Indian groups that are demographically very large, and the degree of genetic differentiation among Indian Jati groups [castes] living side by side in the same village is typically two or three times higher than the genetic differentiation between northern and southern Europeans. The truth is that India is composed of a large number of small populations.”

The current consensus in genetic research is that all modern humans originated from a group migrating into the Middle East 70,000 years ago. From there, people moved to Asia and Australia about 65,000 years ago. The Dravidians arrived in India about 20,000 years ago, while the Aryans arrived between 7–5000 years ago. As Tony Joseph concludes in his book Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From, based on the latest genetic and archeological research, “We are all Indians. And we are all migrants.”

Yoga and the Caste System: An Uneasy Marriage

There are various theories about when and how yoga originated. One theory is that yoga evolved within Vedic society’s external ritualism, such as the fire ceremonies, and over time, developed the more subtle rituals of yoga postures, meditation, and chanting. According to this theory, yoga is at least 4–5000 years old. A more plausible theory is that yoga evolved among the indigenous people of India, the Mongols, and the Dravidians, and yogic ideas were then absorbed into the Vedic scriptures and religious observances over time.

Some scholars today maintain that yoga evolved a few hundred years before or around the time of the Buddha (500 BCE), among the sramana ascetics in the Magadha region of North India. The primary evidence for that theory is based on the dating of scriptures. Another group of scholars, gurus, and teachers claim that yoga is much older and was introduced during the Indus Valley civilization within the Dravidian Shaiva tradition. They point to the oral tradition, thousands of years older than the texts, and its claim that Shiva is considered the King of Yoga, the Adi Yogi, or the First Yogi.

In the words of author and Indologist Edwin Bryant, “Yoga evolves on the periphery of Vedic religiosity and beyond the parameters of Vedic orthopraxy. Yoga is clearly in tension with Vedic ritualism… and its goals are in stark and explicit opposition to it.” According to Shrii Shrii Anandamurti (aka P. R. Sarkar), a modern Tantric guru, this resulted in the followers of Shiva also influencing Vedic culture. “When the Aryans came to India,” he writes… “they learned Tantra sádhaná [yoga and meditation] to some extent after coming in contact with the Indian Tantrics. This resulted in the Atharvaveda [one of the four Vedic texts] being pervasively influenced by Tantra. Although during the post-Vedic Buddhist era, as well as the post-Buddhist Brahmanical era [500 BCE], changes in the religious outlook of the people were apparent, the process of sádhaná remained Tantric as it does even today…”

Some scholars view the Pashupatinath seal (2500 BC), which is thought to depict a yogi in an advanced meditation asana (posture), as one of several proofs of the antiquity of yoga’s history. Indian cultural civilization is largely an amalgam of Vedic and Dravidian, priestly and yogic, ritualistic, and meditative practices. In my book A Brief History of Yoga, I have characterized this idea as the Two River Theory. Using the metaphor of two rivers or two cultures clashing and influencing each other over time, yoga has maintained a lack of caste restrictions through its core spiritual teachings but has nevertheless been tainted by it through the political, economic, religious, and cultural dominance of Vedic society.

When modern posture yoga was popularized outside India in the 1980s through teachers such as B.K.S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois, their Western students encountered two half-naked and aging teachers demonstrating yoga poses while proudly displaying their Brahmin threads. Most of their Western students had little to no understanding of the complex and often turbulent history these white, cotton threads embodied. They would also likely be unaware of why Shiva, a non-Aryan who rejected caste preferences, is not depicted with a Brahmin thread in artwork or statues.

Shrii Shrii Anandamurti spoke out against the caste system and instructed his students to marry across caste differences and not to accept dowries as per the ancient Hindu system of marriage. Anandamurti’s outspokenness about many religious dogmas within Hindu society is likely one of the reasons he was falsely accused and spent seven years as a political prisoner. He was finally acquitted of all charges in 1978 with the help of Amnesty International, a Canadian lawyer, and a worldwide protest movement.

Despite the growing consensus among scholars that yoga developed outside Vedic society, the tradition has nevertheless had an unholy relationship with the caste system. In India, I remember Anandamurti talking about those Brahmins who were “priests during the day and Tantric yogis during the night.” Thus, he indicated both the integration of Tantric practices into Vedic society and how some Vedic priests could not always practice Tantra openly. In India, I also encountered Indian yoga practitioners who themselves had given up an outward adherence to caste but still fostered prejudices against people of lower castes or Muslims.

Denial and Fundamentalism in the Yoga World

In a Twitter post in 2022, American author, yoga scholar, and Hindu philosopher David Frawley wrote that “The caste-based view of Hindu society was a deliberate distortion of the resilience, diversity, spirituality and antiquity of Hindu culture to cover over colonial racism, authoritarianism, Eurocentric biases, and anti-Hindu prejudices.” It is undoubtedly true that the British Raj, with their conquer and divide agenda, exploited and even “perfected” the caste system to suit their colonial needs, but to claim that the British in effect created the caste system does not hold up to historical scrutiny.

A recent study at the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka concluded that the poetry of Kabir, undoubtedly India’s most famous poet, who lived in the 15th century, several hundred years before the British Raj, contained sociological beliefs and philosophical ideas that should be viewed as an inspiration in creating a society free of the caste system. Kabir’s iconoclastic poetry spoke scathingly against all religious dogmas promoted by Hindus or Muslims.

In addition to glossing over the caste system, Frawley and other adherents of Hindutva, a fundamentalist Hindu ideology developed by Vinayak Sarvakar in 1923, do not accept that the Aryans migrated into India. To them, the Aryans represent everything noble, true, and just in Hinduism. But to Anandamurti, the denial of this age-old conflict of cultures and the superiority of the Vedic Aryans and their institutionalized caste system lies at the heart of the endemic racism, misogyny, and exploitation of the lower classes in India today.

In 2011, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, a prominent Hindu leader and teacher of Vedanta, stated caste discrimination, albeit with a subtle denial in the opening sentence: “There is no Vedic scriptural sanction for any act of cruelty or oppression, or unfair discrimination based on anyone’s birth.” The problem with that statement is that the origin of caste can be found in the Vedas themselves and the Manusmrti. Widely considered the ancient law book for people of the Vedic faith, it is full of unjust injunctions against lower caste people. The text states, for example, that “dwellings of the Chandalas (the outcastes) must be outside the village and considered forbidden. The Chandalas must wear the garment of the dead and eat their food from broken dishes; their only ornamentation should be black iron to show that they are enslaved.”

“Caste, like death, is ubiquitous in the Indian context,” writes futurist Sohail Inayatullah. “While rulers may come and go and economies may rise and fall, caste remains.” Seen from a rational point of view, the caste system is abhorrent, he maintains, but seen from a romantic and religious viewpoint, caste can become noble and mythic, even spiritual. And herein lies the danger of accepting an oppressive system based on a mythic spirituality that only serves a dominant class and system. But yoga, especially Tantra, argues Inayatullah, is not mythological but a practice that embraces “the struggle to break out of all boundaries, to dialectically transcend the limits of what is…” Hence, the yogis embracing Hindutva and fundamentalism are doing the opposite; their romantic notion of yogic liberation does not include the oppressed, the Dalits.

Although the caste system has been outlawed by the Indian constitution since 1950, and there are political and economic incentives for upward mobility, caste discrimination is still very much alive today. Caste and religious violence are indeed on the rise. Moreover, recent studies have shown that most Hindus only marry within their caste, and there are still over 160 million Dalits.” The denial of these issues, which is central to the dangers inherent in all fascist, racist, and fundamentalist dogmas, is now manifesting itself in a strange union of yoga and Hindu fundamentalism.

Overcoming Yoga’s Unholy and Unconscious Alliance

I recently attended a dinner meeting with an Indian yogi and classical singer of devotional songs. He was an eloquent philosopher and inspiring storyteller, and our conversation initially touched me until I asked his opinion about the recent increase in the killing of Muslims by Hindus. He suddenly went into a long rant about how Muslim Marxist provocateurs and terrorists were destroying the holy fabric of Mother India. He said Hindutva was India’s only hope in restoring justice, peace, and a return to a society based on Hindu spirituality and, of course, a culture based on yoga. I left the dinner with a very uneasy stomach.

During another encounter, I was severely criticized by two Indian American writers, accusing me of being Euro-centric and racist for supporting the Aryan migration theory. Their slanderous arguments became so irrational and disturbing that another friend who took part in the written exchange suddenly pulled out, saying he was afraid for his life. Thankfully, a few months later, one of them apologized for his “bad language.”

The challenge we modern yogis face is the same challenge Kabir faced 500 years ago and the same challenge the ancient Dravidian yogis faced thousands of years earlier. Let us, therefore, heed the words of Dalit writer Soundrararajan: “Dominator systems like caste are sustained by the continued disruption and dysregulations of our nervous systems to accept untenable conditions that keep our survival responses continually engaged. We are in a state of constant hypervigilance, which in turn makes us threats to each other and the planet. To become free is to become aware and then, in turn, to heal.”

The poet Kabir, in his love-intoxicated ecstasies, sang about his love of God but also of oppression and dogma. It is time yogis become part of that time-tested spiritual movement championing the opposite of denial and hatred. Yoga is about integration and liberation — physical, mental, and spiritual. It is time we integrate its practices into our continued social, cultural, and political awakening.

Beyond Caste and Fundamentalism

In Anandamurti’s book Neo-humanism: Liberation of Intellect, he writes that differences based on caste are based on “pure deception.” He refers to the Sanskrit sutra from the Vedas, which is generally considered the textual origin behind the caste system, how each caste was born from different parts of God’s body: “Brahmans came out of the mouth, Kśatriyas were born out of the arms, Vaishyas came out of the trunk of the body, and Shúdras were born out of the legs. This is the interpretation given by supporters of casteism… The so-called scriptures which are based on casteism are equally baseless.”

Instead of a philosophy based on division and hatred of others, yoga’s social vision should be based on the unity of humanity, on a universal sentiment of oneness, not one religion, writes Anandamurti. Neo-humanism is based on that idea alone — of love for all beings, of one human society.

Five hundred years before Anandamurti, Kabir espoused a similar revelation. In one of his songs, translated by Andrew Harvey, he explains our common origin, the insanity of caste differences, and the need for a new human vision.

Same skin, same bones, same faces,

Same piss, same blood, same marrow.

Everyone comes from a sperm-drop.

So who’s a Brahmin, who’s an untouchable?

Who’s a Hindu? Who’s a Muslim?

Go beyond Vedas, Koran, Heaven, Hell.

Realize directly the God in you.

Kabir says: Listen Friends,

We need a new human race.