The Gita according to Gandhi 144

The Gita according to Gandhi -Mahadev Desai

The Four Varnas and Svadharma Hence salvation was more difficult for those who had greater tasks to perform and easier for those entrusted with humbler functions. For these were not cumbered with much knowledge. Whilst it was easy, for instance, for a butcher or for a scavenger to carry on his forefather's profession with equanimity and detachment and as a sacrifice offered to God, it was quite likely for a learned Brahmana to darken counsel with much learning and even "with devotion's visage and pious action sugar o'er the devil himself." Among the Indian saints we have fewer from among the Brahmanas than from the non-Brahmanas. Among the saints of revered memory, Sena was a barber, Sajana was a butcher, Gora a potter, Raidas a cobbler, Chokhamela an untouchable, Tukarama a kunbi, and so on. None disclaimed his profession but worked his salvation through a detached prayerful performance of it. (iv) The functions were hereditary because heredity is a law of nature, but there were no exclusive divisions, as we know from several cases of intermixture of functions and varnas in the Mahabharata. (v) The organism is shattered to pieces today and there are no defined classes that can answer to the description of the old varnas, but the rule to respect the law of nature may stand even today and all societies which are to any extent well-ordered would on examination be found to be based on a vocational division of some kind.