– the arms.
3) Farmers-producers (vaishyas) – the belly.
4) Laborers-servants (shudras) – the legs.
No one can arrange functioning of society when neglecting these four classes. For harmonious functioning of society, there are required:
1) Intellectuals who advise and indicate ways of society development;
2) Producers (farmers) and merchants who create material values and provide food;
3) Laborers who do hard work;
4) Rulers who ensure the harmonious collaboration among these three classes and warriors who protect everyone from enemies from within and without.
As it is impossible to say which part of the body is more important, so it is impossible to say which social class is more important. Once the matter of priority rises, any system turns into the system of privileges and humiliation. Considering the psychology of persons influenced by the three gunas of material nature, it can be said that success of society depends on which guna persons carrying out these functions are influenced by. If, for instance, a person under the influence of ignorance executes duties of a counselor, society develops according to principles of violence and cruelty within the state and conducts an invasive foreign policy. If a counselor is influenced by the guna of passion, then such a person is sure to divide society into friends and enemies (clans). And if one is influenced by the guna of goodness, such a person will lead society to the overall equality and become the source of overall happiness (without creating unnecessary conflicts). People influenced by ignorance abridge people’s freedom because they think that only they have rights for enjoyment and domination over this world (dictatorial rulers). Those in the guna of passion lead society to freedom of senses (I can do what I want) for the sake of sense pleasure (democratic states). In goodness, moderation of senses is proposed for the sake of freedom from suffering and anxiety (the Aryan society). There is one more category of people, the Lord’s devotees, who suggest the freedom of senses but for the sake of the Lord’s satisfaction (inhabitants of the spiritual world).
While performing activity, as said above, the result achieved depends on the knowledge. Development of knowledge is the duty of brahmanas. Due to God-centered system, the Aryan society especially valued development of the spiritual knowledge as it is the basis for a person’s release from vice. Vicious persons cannot connect with the Lord. The Lord is the absolute purity and He does not contact with anything impure. The Aryan society was based on the Vedas which are composed of different parts discussing various material problems and specifying godly ways of their solution. The main idea is that all living beings depend on the Lord and have to satisfy Him or His representative to solve arising problems.
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says (Chapter 3, verses 10 and 15):
In the beginning of creation, the Lord of all creatures sent forth generations of men and demigods, along with sacrifices for Visnu, and blessed them by saying, "Be thou happy by this yajna (sacrifice) because its performance will bestow upon you a life of ease and, eventually, liberation.
Regulated activities are prescribed in the Vedas, and the Vedas are directly manifested from the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Consequently the all-pervading Transcendence is eternally situated in acts of sacrifice.
To satisfy the Lord, it is required to make sacrifices and for these sacrifices to be accepted pure persons are needed. These pure persons are brahmanas. The condition of society was dependent on their qualifications. Where qualified brahmanas live, God Himself lives. Brahmanas have got different qualifications. The simplest brahmanas were those who studied the karma-kanda section of the Vedas, lived a pure life and made sacrifices for fulfillment of material desires by religious methods. They were responsible for material prosperity of society and the minimal spiritual development.
Sacrifices were the axis of the activity of the Aryan society. Here the subject for a serious discussion is raised. In fact, the Vedic literature is full of descriptions of sacrifices; for a modern man their process and especially the results are unclear and unreliable. So, there is the need for the answer on the most important question: what was God-centeredness of the Aryan society based on? The answer on this question hides the difference between pseudo-religious and the Aryan societies. The Aryan literature is full of descriptions of meetings with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. No any other ancient and even more modern literature contains detailed descriptions of the personality of Godhead, the demigods and other personalities coming to us from different planets. It seems so impossible that modern scientists declare such descriptions fiction or revaluation of really existing “lesser mortals” who had displayed some incredible capabilities and therefore were worshiped on the same basis as gods. On the one hand, the Vedic literature includes very serious knowledge and till now its secrets have remained inaccessible to modern scientists, philosophers and ordinary people. On the other hand, incredible events, from our view point, are described there. Such contradiction makes the Vedas something unclear for people with secular mind habits.
In order to look no fool, people try to select from the Vedic literature aspects which seem to them believable and clever and reject those things which look like a fiction. The chaos is created in which the final goal of the Vedas remains inaccessible to the majority except for those who study them under the guidance of a genuine spiritual master. The secret is the Vedas shall be conceived comprehensively for their intrinsic meaning to unfold. Otherwise, they cannot be applied but can only serve as the basis for different philosophic contentions. In fact, things in the Vedas which seem incredible are the results which one receives by following them. If one follows the principles described in the Vedas, such person really gets those results which are described by the Vedas and which seem incredible to us. In fact, if there are no such results, then there is no need to follow the Vedas.
If Vyasadeva (the author of the Vedas) was such a serious personality that he described the most innermost secrets both of the material and spiritual knowledge, then why at the same time would he describe events which make the Vedas look like fiction? If the person’s goal is to be accepted and to create a serious scripture, then what is the reason to fill this scripture with fictions or exaggerations which can be appropriate only for sentimental people and might also raise doubts in the minds of pragmatists? If the author is a serious person and his goal is to be useful, he will try to write about the truth acceptable for serious people. So what is the reason that Vyasadeva safely writes that demigods and God (Vishnu) personally attended the sacrificial arena, if they became satisfied? Why did Vyasadeva need this senseless fiction? Either he is a lying swindler and one who believes him is a fool or he tells the truth and then we must try to understand him. With regard to the author of such philosophic tractate as Vedanta-sutra it is not possible to apply the term “lying swindler”. All that is left is to accept descriptions of unaccustomed events as real and then we have to try to understand why these events took place in the past and do not happen now?
Any civilization leaves behind the descriptions of that reality in which it existed. Nowadays, for instance, the Lord never visits the planet and that is why there are no such descriptions. If even in one thousand years our descendants find the remains of the modern literature or scientific tractates, they will never contain description of God as in the modern life there are merely no contacts with God by representatives of various religions. The Hebrew book (the Old Testament) describes as some ascetics heard God’s voice or saw Him as the flame, but there are no descriptions of His personality anywhere. The Ancient Greeks communicated with demigods and respectively described such communication but there are no descriptions of communication with God because there was no such communication, the same was with the Egyptian civilization, etc.
When describing the social life especially referring to ways how to settle arising problems, the Aryan literature says that the Aryans tried to solve these problems with the help of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or the demigods (aliens). There was the method by which the Aryans invited them to their planet and asked to resolve emerging problems. This method was the sacrifice. When it was accepted, the Lord together with the demigods visited the arena of sacrifice. What did Lord’s satisfaction depend on? First of all, it depended on the brahmanas’ qualifications. There was the requirement for their perfect purity, both external and internal. Secondly, there was the requirement for the