Hipocricy In Ancient India:
Amartya Sen opens his famous book, “The Argumentative Indian” with the opening; “Prolixity” is not alien to us in India. The substitution of the word prolixity with hypocrisy might ring true to a large extent. One might interpret the Indian varna system as the extreme manifestation of Indian hypocrisy. The very attribute of pretending to be pure and thus superior is a statement of sorts in itself. Perhaps, even the ‘Benevolent Despotic British’ couldn’t device such a machination.
The ancient law text, Manusmriti prescribed that the maximum punishment the king can give for a brahmin offenders was to banish him from his kingdom. On the other hand, it prescribed severe and inhuman punishment to the lower castes.
According to ancient texts marriages were categorized into Anuloma (Allowed) and Pratiloma (prohibited). Pratiloma involved a lower caste man marrying an upper caste women. It would be an under attribution to consider this as hypocrisy.
There is evidence of the so called 'upper caste' organizing a Havan Kund to recognize a particular sect as a martial class. So much for the birth based discrimination and classification into castes.
The Kautylian treatise “Arthasastra” begins with the assertion that all it’s contents are a compilation of texts that have been already published. It is alleged that Kautylia despite his profound insights and original thoughts felt it was necessary to make such an assertion to gain acceptance and compliance from his fellowmen.
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