59-475: Divisions Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas The Kurma Purana ( IAST : Kūrma Purāṇa) is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas , and a medieval era Vaishnavism text of Hinduism . The text is named after the tortoise avatar of Vishnu . The manuscripts of Kurma Purana have survived into the modern era in many versions. The number of chapters vary with regional manuscripts, and
118-568: A macron ). Vocalic (syllabic) consonants, retroflexes and ṣ ( / ʂ ~ ɕ ~ʃ/ ) have an underdot . One letter has an overdot: ṅ ( /ŋ/ ). One has an acute accent : ś ( /ʃ/ ). One letter has a line below: ḻ ( / ɭ / ) (Vedic). Unlike ASCII -only romanisations such as ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto , the diacritics used for IAST allow capitalisation of proper names. The capital variants of letters never occurring word-initially ( Ṇ Ṅ Ñ Ṝ Ḹ ) are useful only when writing in all-caps and in Pāṇini contexts for which
177-455: A Brahmin?" Sonadanda initially lists five qualities as, "he is of pure descent on both the mother's and the father's side, he is well versed in mantras, he is of fair color handsome and pleasing, he is virtuous learned and wise, and he is the first or second to hold the sacrificial ladle". Buddha then asks the Brahmin, "If we omit one of these qualities you just listed, could not one be still
236-486: A Vaishnavism text, Vishnu does not dominate the text. Instead, the text covers and expresses reverence for Vishnu , Shiva and Shakti with equal enthusiasm. The Kurma Purana , like other Puranas, includes legends, mythology, geography, Tirtha (pilgrimage), theology and a philosophical Gita. The notable aspect of its Gita, also called the Ishvaragita , is that it is Shiva who presents ideas similar to those found in
295-561: A brief overview of the sections of the Kurma Purana , along with summaries of other Puranas. IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST ) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during the 19th century from suggestions by Charles Trevelyan , William Jones , Monier Monier-Williams and other scholars, and formalised by
354-433: A font, etc. It can be enabled in the input menu in the menu bar under System Preferences → International → Input Menu (or System Preferences → Language and Text → Input Sources) or can be viewed under Edit → Emoji & Symbols in many programs. Equivalent tools – such as gucharmap ( GNOME ) or kcharselect ( KDE ) – exist on most Linux desktop environments. Users of SCIM on Linux based platforms can also have
413-713: A philosophical Gita. It is titled Ishvaragita, and its eleven chapters are an adaptation of Bhagavad Gita in a Shiva-as-spokesman format. These eleven chapters are in the Uttaravibhāga . The Ishvara-gita borrows and refers to the Upanishads such as the Katha Upanishad and Shvetashvatara Upanishad . It presents yoga and vrata like the Bhagavad Gita, but as a discourse from Shiva. The discourse begins after Vishnu and Shiva embrace each other, according to
472-513: A sage named Bhrigu , "Brahmins Varna was white, Kshtriyas was red, Vaishyas was yellow, and the Shudras' black". This description is questioned by another prominent sage Bharadwaja who says that colours are seen among all the Varnas, that desire, anger, fear, greed, grief, anxiety, hunger and toil prevails over all human beings, that bile and blood flow from all human bodies, so what distinguishes
531-444: A true Brahmin?" Sonadanda, one by one, eliminates fair colour and looks, then eliminates Varna in which one was born, and then eliminates the ability to recite mantra and do sacrifices as a requirement of being a Brahmin. Sonadanda asserts that just two qualities are necessary to truthfully and without falling into falsehood identify a Brahmin; these two qualities are "being virtuous and being learned and wise". Sonadanda adds that it
590-680: Is a late 15th-century religion that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent . Sikh texts mention Varna as Varan , and Jati as Zat or Zat-biradari . Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of Religion and specialising in Christian, Hindu and Sikh studies, states that the Varan is described as a class system in 18th- to 20th-century Sikh literature, while Zat reflected the endogamous occupational groups (caste). The Sikh texts authored by
649-653: Is also used for major e-text repositories such as SARIT, Muktabodha, GRETIL, and sanskritdocuments.org. The IAST scheme represents more than a century of scholarly usage in books and journals on classical Indian studies. By contrast, the ISO 15919 standard for transliterating Indic scripts emerged in 2001 from the standards and library worlds. For the most part, ISO 15919 follows the IAST scheme, departing from it only in minor ways (e.g., ṃ/ṁ and ṛ/r̥)—see comparison below. The Indian National Library at Kolkata romanization , intended for
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#1732765126012708-782: Is by setting up an alternative keyboard layout . This allows one to hold a modifier key to type letters with diacritical marks. For example, alt + a = ā. How this is set up varies by operating system. Linux/Unix and BSD desktop environments allow one to set up custom keyboard layouts and switch them by clicking a flag icon in the menu bar. macOS One can use the pre-installed US International keyboard, or install Toshiya Unebe's Easy Unicode keyboard layout. Microsoft Windows Windows also allows one to change keyboard layouts and set up additional custom keyboard mappings for IAST. This Pali keyboard installer made by Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) supports IAST (works on Microsoft Windows up to at least version 10, can use Alt button on
767-540: Is discussed in the Dharma-shastra texts, but only in the context of the individual's moral, ritual and biological pollution (eating certain kinds of food such as meat, urination and defecation). In his review of Dharma-shastras, Olivelle writes, "we see no instance when a term of pure/impure is used with reference to a group of individuals or a varna or caste". The only mention of impurity in the Shastra texts from
826-476: Is important to recognize, in theory, Varna is nongenealogical. The four Varnas are not lineages, but categories." The Bhagavad Gita describes the professions, duties and qualities of members of different varnas. There is no entity on earth, or again in heaven among the Devas, that is devoid of these three Gunas, born of Prakriti. Of Brâhmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, as also of Sudras, O scorcher of foes,
885-492: Is impossible to reduce the requirement for being a Brahmin any further, because "for wisdom is purified by morality, and morality is clarified by wisdom; where one is, the other is, the moral man has wisdom and the wise man has morality, and the combination of morality and wisdom is called the highest thing in the world". Brian Black and Dean Patton state Sonadanda admits after this, "we [Brahmins] only know this much Gotama; it would be well if Reverend Gotama would explain meaning of
944-699: Is the earliest mention of Varna and Jati in Jainism literature. Jinasena does not trace the origin of Varna system to Rigveda or to Purusha Sukta, instead traces varna to the Bharata legend. According to this legend, Bharata performed an " ahimsa -test" (test of non-violence), and those members of his community who refused to harm or hurt any living being were called as the priestly varna in ancient India, and Bharata called them dvija , twice born. Jinasena states that those who are committed to ahimsa are deva-Brāhmaṇas , divine Brahmins. The text Adi purana also discusses
1003-693: Is untouched by [pride and egoism], he only is the Brahmana. Such is the opinion of the Vedas, the smritis, the Itihasa and the Puranas. Otherwise one cannot obtain the status of a Brahmana." The Mahabharata , estimated to have been completed by about the 4th century CE, discusses the Varna system in section 12.181. The Epic offers two models on Varna. The first model describes Varna as colour-coded system, through
1062-476: The Bhagavad Gita . The original core of the text may have been composed about the start of the 8th-century CE, and revised thereafter over the centuries. The Kurma Purana , like all Puranas, has a complicated chronology. Dimmitt and van Buitenen state that each of the Puranas is encyclopedic in style, and it is difficult to ascertain when, where, why and by whom these were written: As they exist today,
1121-486: The Guru Granth Sahib in their Gurdwaras with the texts of Ravidas. The terms varna (theoretical classification based on occupation) and jāti (caste) are two distinct concepts. Jāti (community) refers to the thousands of endogamous groups prevalent across the subcontinent. A jati may be divided into exogamous groups based on the same gotras . The classical authors scarcely speak of anything other than
1180-628: The Kali Yuga , the age of immorality and decline. The varna system is extensively discussed in the Dharma-shastras. The Varna system in Dharma-shastras divides society into four varnas (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishya and Shudras). Those who fall out of this system because of their grievous sins are ostracised as outcastes (untouchables) and considered outside the varna system. Barbarians and those who are unrighteous or unethical are also considered outcastes. Recent scholarship suggests that
1239-654: The Khalsa Dharam Sastar in 1914 argued that the entry of certain Sikh castes into major Sikh shrines should be barred. Similarly, in practice and its texts, the Gurus of Sikhism did not condemn or break with the convention of marrying (and marrying off their children) within the jati , and all the Sikh Gurus were Khatri, had Khatri wives and practiced arranged marriages within their zat . According to Dhavan,
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#17327651260121298-653: The Manusmriti . The earliest application to the formal division into four social classes (without using the term varna ) appears in the late Rigvedic Purusha Sukta ( RV 10 .90.11–12), which has the Brahman, Rajanya (instead of Kshatriya), Vaishya and Shudra classes forming the mouth, arms, thighs and feet at the sacrifice of the primordial Purusha , respectively: 11. When they divided Purusa how many portions did they make? What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet? 12. The Brahman
1357-532: The critical edition (edited by Anand Swarup Gupta, and published by the All-India Kashiraj Trust, Varanasi) of the Kurma Purana has 95 chapters. Tradition believes that the Kurma Purana text had 17,000 verses, the extant manuscripts have about 6,000 verses. The text, states Ludo Rocher , is the most interesting of all the Puranas in its discussion of religious ideas, because while it is
1416-484: The 1st millennium is about people who commit grievous sins and thereby fall out of their varna. These, writes Olivelle, are called "fallen people" and impure, declaring that they be ostracised. Olivelle adds that the overwhelming focus in matters relating to purity/impurity in the Dharma-sastra texts concerns "individuals irrespective of their varna affiliation" and all four varnas could attain purity or impurity by
1475-570: The Dharma literature is concerned with the individual and not with groups, with purification and not with purity, and lends little support to a theory which makes relative purity the foundation of social stratification. The first three varnas are described in the Dharmashastras as " twice born " and they are allowed to study the Vedas . Such a restriction of who can study Vedas is not found in
1534-858: The European term "caste" . The varna system is discussed in Hindu texts, and understood as idealised human callings. The concept is generally traced to the Purusha Sukta verse of the Rig Veda. In the post-Vedic period, the varna division is described in the Mahabharata , Puranas and in the Dharmashastra literatures . The commentary on the Varna system in the Manusmriti is often cited. Counter to these textual classifications, many Hindu texts and doctrines question and disagree with
1593-612: The Kshatriyas, born of (their own) nature. Agriculture, cattle-rearing and trade are the duties of the Vaishyas, born of (their own) nature; and action consisting of service is the duty of the Sudras, born of (their own) nature. The Brahma Purana states that acting against both varna and ashrama (stage) , which together guide one's dharma, leads to hell. The Brahmanda Purana calls associations between low and high varnas signs of
1652-585: The Puranas are a stratified literature. Each titled work consists of material that has grown by numerous accretions in successive historical eras. Thus no Purana has a single date of composition. [...] It is as if they were libraries to which new volumes have been continuously added, not necessarily at the end of the shelf, but randomly. The Kurma Purana exists in many versions, but all of them consist of two parts—the Purva-vibhaga (older part) and Upari-vibhaga (upper part). The number of chapters vary with
1711-531: The Rahit-namas and other prescriptive Sikh texts from mid-18th century onwards accommodate and affirm the "natal and marriage traditions of different caste groups within the Sikh community". Ravidassi Sikhs and Ramgarhia Sikhs follow their own textual and festive traditions, gather in their own places of worship. These are varan-based (caste-based) religious congregations that emerged from Sikhism, states Nesbitt. The Ravidassia group, for example, emphasizes
1770-513: The Rigveda and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality". Ram Sharan Sharma states that "the Rig Vedic society was neither organized on the basis of social division of labour nor on that of differences in wealth ... [it] was primarily organised on the basis of kin, tribe and lineage." The Chandogya Upanishad indicates that a person's varna is determined on
1829-453: The Sikh Gurus and by non-Sikh Bhagats such as the Namdev , Ravidas and Kabir , states Nesbitt, declared the irrelevance of varan or zat of one's birth to one's spiritual destiny. They taught that "all of humanity had a single refuge" and that the divine teaching is for everyone. Sikhism teaches a society without any varan . In practice, states Harjot Oberoi, secondary Sikh texts such as
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1888-781: The Transliteration Committee of the Geneva Oriental Congress , in September 1894. IAST makes it possible for the reader to read the Indic text unambiguously, exactly as if it were in the original Indic script. It is this faithfulness to the original scripts that accounts for its continuing popularity amongst scholars. Scholars commonly use IAST in publications that cite textual material in Sanskrit, Pāḷi and other classical Indian languages. IAST
1947-672: The Varna system of social classification. In India, communities that belong to one of the four varnas or classes are called savarna Hindus. The Dalits and tribals who do not belong to any varna were called avarna . The word appears in the Rigveda , where it means "colour, outward appearance, exterior, form, figure or shape". The word means "color, tint, dye or pigment" in the Mahabharata . Varna contextually means "colour, race, tribe, species, kind, sort, nature, character, quality, property" of an object or people in some Vedic and medieval texts. Varna refers to four social classes in
2006-530: The Varnas, he asks? The Mahabharata then declares, according to Alf Hiltebeitel , a professor of religion, "There is no distinction of Varnas. This whole universe is Brahman. It was created formerly by Brahma, came to be classified by acts." The Mahabharata thereafter recites a behavioural model for Varna, that those who were inclined to anger, pleasures and boldness attained the Kshatriya Varna; those who were inclined to cattle rearing and living off
2065-630: The Vedic era literature. Manusmriti assigns cattle rearing as Vaishya occupation but historical evidence shows that Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Shudras also owned and reared cattle and that cattle-wealth was mainstay of their households. Ramnarayan Rawat, a professor of History and specialising in social exclusion in the Indian subcontinent, states that 19th century British records show that Chamars , listed as untouchables, also owned land and cattle and were active agriculturalists. The emperors of Kosala and
2124-632: The area of Sanskrit studies make use of free OpenType fonts such as FreeSerif or Gentium , both of which have complete support for the full repertoire of conjoined diacritics in the IAST character set. Released under the GNU FreeFont or SIL Open Font License , respectively, such fonts may be freely shared and do not require the person reading or editing a document to purchase proprietary software to make use of its associated fonts. Varna (Hinduism) Traditional ' Varṇa' ( Sanskrit : वर्ण , Hindi pronunciation: ['ʋəɾɳə] ), in
2183-410: The basis of their actions in their previous life. Among them, those who did good work in this world [in their past life] attain a good birth accordingly. They are born as a brāhmin, a kṣatriya, or a vaiśya. But those who did bad work in this world [in their past life] attain a bad birth accordingly, being born as a dog, a pig, or as a casteless person. The Vajrasuchi Upanishad , however, states that
2242-536: The consumer edition since XP. This is limited to characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Characters are searchable by Unicode character name, and the table can be limited to a particular code block. More advanced third-party tools of the same type are also available (a notable freeware example is BabelMap ). macOS provides a "character palette" with much the same functionality, along with searching by related characters, glyph tables in
2301-443: The content of their character, ethical intent, actions, innocence or ignorance, stipulations, and ritualistic behaviours. Olivelle states: Dumont is correct in his assessment that the ideology of varna is not based on purity. If it were we should expect to find at least some comment on the relative purity and impurity of the different vamas. What is even more important is that the ideology of purity and impurity that emerges from
2360-421: The context of Hinduism , refers to a social class within a hierarchical traditional Hindu society. The ideology is epitomized in texts like Manusmriti , which describes and ranks four varnas, and prescribes their occupations, requirements and duties, or Dharma . This quadruple division is a form of social stratification, quite different from the more nuanced system of Jātis , which correspond to
2419-631: The convention is to typeset the IT sounds as capital letters. For the most part, IAST is a subset of ISO 15919 that merges the retroflex (underdotted) liquids with the vocalic ones ( ringed below ) and the short close-mid vowels with the long ones. The following seven exceptions are from the ISO standard accommodating an extended repertoire of symbols to allow transliteration of Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts , as used for languages other than Sanskrit. The most convenient method of inputting romanized Sanskrit
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2478-508: The discussion of varna as well as untouchable outcastes in these texts does not resemble the modern era caste system in India. Patrick Olivelle , a professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions and credited with modern translations of Vedic literature, Dharma-sutras and Dharma-shastras, states that ancient and medieval Indian texts do not support the ritual pollution, purity-impurity as the basis for varna system. According to Olivelle, purity-impurity
2537-515: The duties are distributed according to the Gunas born of their own nature. The control of the mind and the senses, austerity, purity, forbearance, and also uprightness, knowledge, realisation, belief in a hereafter– these are the duties of the Brâhmanas, born of (their own) nature. Prowess, boldness, fortitude, dexterity, and also not flying from battle, generosity and sovereignty are the duties of
2596-552: The manuscripts. The critical edition of the different manuscripts contains fifty one chapters in Purva-vibhaga and forty four in Upari-vibhaga . Kurma is, states Rocher, the most interesting religion-themed Purana, because even though it is named after one of the Vishnu avatar, it contains a combination of Vishnu and Shiva related legends, mythology, Tirtha (pilgrimage) and theology. The stories are similar to those found in
2655-700: The opportunity to install and use the sa-itrans-iast input handler which provides complete support for the ISO 15919 standard for the romanization of Indic languages as part of the m17n library. Or user can use some Unicode characters in Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended Additional and Combining Diarcritical Marks block to write IAST. Only certain fonts support all the Latin Unicode characters essential for
2714-544: The other Puranas, but neither Vishnu nor Shiva dominate the text. The text presents a tour guide to medieval Varanasi (also known as the holy city of Banaras or Kashi), but mostly about the Shaiva sites, while elsewhere Pancharatra stories present Vishnu prominently but with Sri as the Supreme Shakti who is energy and power of all gods including Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma . The Kurma Purana, like other Puranas, includes
2773-654: The phenomenon of caste" in India. Ancient Buddhist texts mention Varna system in South Asia, but the details suggest that it was non-rigid, flexible, non-hierarchal, and with characteristics devoid of features of a social stratification system. Digha Nikaya provides a discussion between Gotama Buddha and a Hindu Brahmin named Sonadanda who was very learned in the Vedas . Gotama Buddha asks, "By how many qualities do Brahmins recognize another Brahmin? How would one declare truthfully and without falling into falsehood, "I am
2832-510: The plough attained the Vaishyas; those who were fond of violence, covetousness and impurity attained the Shudras. The Brahmin class is modelled in the epic, as the archetype default state of man dedicated to truth, austerity and pure conduct. Indeed, it goes on to assert that all men are children of Brahmins, which does not make sense, unless understood this way.In the Mahabharata and pre-medieval era Hindu texts, according to Hiltebeitel, "it
2891-511: The priestly function, and that the Brahmin took food from anyone, suggesting that strictures of commensality were as yet unknown. The Nikaya texts also imply that endogamy was not mandated in ancient India. Masefield concludes, "if any form of caste system was known during the Nikaya period - and it is doubtful that it was - this was in all probability restricted to certain non-Aryan groups". Ādi purāṇa , an 8th-century text of Jainism by Jinasena,
2950-429: The prince of Kasi are other examples. Tim Ingold , an anthropologist, writes that the Manusmriti is a highly schematic commentary on the varna system, but it too provides "models rather than descriptions". Susan Bayly states that Manusmriti and other scriptures helped elevate Brahmin in the social hierarchy and these were a factor in the making of the varna system, but the ancient texts did not in some way "create
3009-554: The relationship between varna and jati. According to Padmanabh Jaini , a professor of Indic studies, Jainism and Buddhism, the Adi purana text states "there is only one jati called manusyajati or the human caste, but divisions arise account of their different professions". The varna of Kshatriya arose when Rishabh procured weapons to serve the society and assumed the powers of a king, while Vaishya and Shudra varna arose from different means of livelihood in which they specialised. Sikhism
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#17327651260123068-471: The right side of the keyboard instead of Ctrl+Alt combination). Many systems provide a way to select Unicode characters visually. ISO/IEC 14755 refers to this as a screen-selection entry method . Microsoft Windows has provided a Unicode version of the Character Map program (find it by hitting ⊞ Win + R then type charmap then hit ↵ Enter ) since version NT 4.0 – appearing in
3127-486: The romanisation of all Indic scripts , is an extension of IAST. The IAST letters are listed with their Devanagari equivalents and phonetic values in IPA , valid for Sanskrit , Hindi and other modern languages that use Devanagari script, but some phonological changes have occurred: * H is actually glottal , not velar . Some letters are modified with diacritics : Long vowels are marked with an overline (often called
3186-412: The status of brahman is not based on birth, knowledge, or karma, but on the direct realisation of one's own Atman (inner self, soul). "Who indeed then is a Brahmana? He who has directly realized his Atman is without a second, devoid of class and actions[…] that exists penetrating all things that pervade everything. [He who] is devoid of the faults of thirst after worldly objects and passions… Whose mind
3245-582: The teachings of Bhagat Ravidas – a poet-saint born in a family whose traditional untouchable occupation related to dead animals and leather. They consider the teachings of living Gurus and the texts of Ravidass Dera as sacred and spiritually as important as the historic Sikh Gurus. This is rejected by Khalsa Sikhs. The disagreements have led the Ravidassia Sikhs to launch the Ravidassia religion movement which, amongst other things seeks to replace
3304-645: The text, and then Vishnu invites Shiva to explain the nature of the world, life and self. Shiva explains Atman (soul, self), Brahman - Purusha , Prakriti , Maya , Yoga and Moksha . The philosophical theme, states Rocher is built on Advaita Vedanta ideas, that is emphasizing the identity of the Atman (individual soul) and the Ultimate Reality concept of Brahman. The text is notable for asserting that anyone from any varna can achieve liberation through Bhakti yoga. The Nārada Purāṇa (I.106. 1-22) gives
3363-487: The transliteration of Indic scripts according to the IAST and ISO 15919 standards. For example, the Arial , Tahoma and Times New Roman font packages that come with Microsoft Office 2007 and later versions also support precomposed Unicode characters like ī . Many other text fonts commonly used for book production may be lacking in support for one or more characters from this block. Accordingly, many academics working in
3422-684: The two [morality, wisdom]". Peter Masefield, a Buddhism scholar and ancient Pali texts translator, states that during the Nikāya texts period of Buddhism (3rd century BC to 5th century AD), Varna as a class system is attested, but the described Varna was not a caste system. The Pali texts enumerate the four Varnas Brahmin , "Kshatriya", Vessa (Vaishya) and Sudda (Shudra). Masefield notes that people in any Varna could in principle perform any profession. The early Buddhist texts, for instance, identify some Brahmins to be farmers and in other professions. The text state that anyone, of any birth, could perform
3481-699: Was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya made. His thighs became the Vaishya, from his feet the Shudra was produced. Some modern indologists believe the Purusha Sukta to be a later addition, possibly as a charter myth . Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, a professor of Sanskrit and Religious studies, state, "there is no evidence in the Rigveda for an elaborate, much-subdivided and overarching caste system", and "the varna system seems to be embryonic in
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