Buddhism's Role in the Birth of Caste Ideology

This paper argues that the seemingly ambivalent attitude of the early Buddhist tradition toward caste is in fact an artifact of a modern scholarly misunderstanding of the history of the caste system. The prevailing assumption has been that the caste system was of hoary antiquity by the time of the Buddha, and that therefore “the Buddha,” if he spoke about caste at all, must have taken a stand one way or the other about it. I will argue instead that the beginnings of caste ideology were coalescing among reactionary Brahmans at the same time as the early Buddhist texts were being composed. By reading Tipiṭaka texts alongside roughly contemporaneous Brahmanical text, we gain a clearer picture of how Buddhist rhetorical strategies against conservative and reactionary Brahmans contributed to the shape of an emerging caste ideology.