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varna
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Infographic explaining the Varna system of India, with illustrated figures representing the five groups: Brahmin (priests, advisers), Kshatriya (rulers, military), Vaishya (merchants, farmers), Shudra (artisans, servants), and Dalit (formerly called untouchable, outside the caste system). Each group includes a brief description and a labeled example profession. Seventeenth-century illustration from the Mahabharata showing Krishna, with blue skin, driving a white horse-drawn chariot as Arjuna sits behind him holding a bow. Dayananda Saraswati Mahatma Gandhi Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
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Infographic explaining the Varna system of India, with illustrated figures representing the five groups: Brahmin (priests, advisers), Kshatriya (rulers, military), Vaishya (merchants, farmers), Shudra (artisans, servants), and Dalit (formerly called untouchable, outside the caste system). Each group includes a brief description and a labeled example profession.
The varna system A list of the varnas, featuring images from the manuscript “Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India” by T. Vardapillay, 1837. In the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

varna

Hinduism
Also known as: varṇa
Written by
Charles Preston
Charles Preston is Associate Editor for Religion at Encyclopædia Britannica.
Charles Preston
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
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•History

varna, any of the four traditional social classes of India. The literal meaning of the word varna in Sanskrit (“color”) once invited speculation that class distinctions were originally based on differences in the degree of skin pigmentation between an alleged group of lighter-skinned migrants from Central Asia called “Aryans” and the darker-skinned indigenous people of ancient India. However, this theory of the origin of varna has been discredited since the mid-20th century. The term may...

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