Lecture II

Let us go back to the ancient civilisation of India. In that civilisation there were certain divisions of the people; they were divided into four castes, the highest of them being the Brahmins, who cultivated wisdom. The separation of the castes in ancient India was so strict that, for example, the sacred books might only be read by the Brahmins and not by members of the other castes. The members of the second caste, the Warrior caste, were only allowed to hear the teachings contained in the Vedas or in the epitome of the Vedas—the Vedanta. The Brahmins alone were allowed to explain any passage from the Vedas or have an opinion as to their meaning and it was strictly forbidden for all other people to have any opinion on the treasure of wisdom which was contained in the sacred books. The second caste consisted of those who had to cultivate the profession of war and the administration of the country. Then there was a third caste which had to foster trades, and a fourth, a labouring caste. And last of all, an utterly despised part of the population, the Pariahs, who were looked down upon so much that a Brahmin felt he was contaminated if he so much as stepped upon the shadow thrown by such a one. He even had to perform certain rites of purification if he had touched the shadow of such an outcast as a Pariah was considered to be. Thus we see how the whole nation was divided into four recognised castes and one that was absolutely unrecognised. Though these regulations may now be considered severe they were most strictly observed in ancient India. Even at the time of the Graeco-Latin civilisation in Europe, no one belonging to the Warrior caste in India would have ventured to have his own independent opinion about what was in the sacred books, the Vedas. Now, how could such divisions as these have arisen amongst mankind? It is certainly remarkable that we should find these castes exactly in the most outstanding people of human antiquity and in the very people who had wandered over to Asia from Atlantis at a comparatively early date and also precisely those amongst whom were preserved the greatest wisdom and treasures of knowledge from the old Atlantean epoch. This seems very remarkable, and how can we understand it? It almost seems as if it contradicted all the wisdom and goodness in the order of the universe, in the guidance of the world, that one caste, one group of people should be separated off, who alone were to preserve what was looked upon as the highest possessions and that the others should be destined from the very beginning, by the mere fact of their birth, to occupy subordinate positions.