From: Antonio Menezes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
a hindu who has led a pious life is rewarded with another birth: a very good but not yet a perfect life leads to rebirth as a brahmin; and in decending order one could be born as a kshatriya or as a vaisya . these three castes are collectively known as twiceborn castes.
whereas for some mysterious reasons known only to the good old bhagwan other persons are born as sudras, outcastes and untouchables.
since the word sudra has a derrogatory connotation ,i thought it would be safer to use instead the words ''non twiceborn'' to describe this overwhelming majority of social class before their conversion to christianity.
antonio
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Dear Antonio,
I truly appreciate the sensitivity you have utilized in your post wrt the "non-twiceborn'.
The points you write in the first (above quoted) para may not be exactly as per Manu, but they convey the generally meaning.
However, there are two issues which you may wish to review:
1. that the majority of the converts to Christianity were from the "non twiceborn" - This automatically assumes that the Christians mainly came from Hindu forebears.
We might need to review that. What happened to our Muslim and Buddhist forebears?
2. "this overwhelming majority of social class"
Let's call it what it was ...CASTE and not CLASS
http://www.colaco.net/1/caste.htm
jose
2.
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