Brahmanism Quotes

“People in the West need to know that most of the spiritual, intellectual, and cultural products of South Asia are tainted by Brahmanism. What may have offered you liberation and healing also causes caste-oppressed people to suffer. You don't have to give up those practices or concepts, but the call is to be intentional and acknowledge the caste harm. Your faith is bound to the violence it sanctions. For practitioners of Brahminical traditions, this reckoning may be painful. It's hard to admit the gulf between your values and the history of your spiritual practice, but if you do not wish to be complicit in the suffering of others, then you must confront these truths. When we exalt some aspects of spiritual practices, we cannot be fully aware and present. People enter spiritual practices and surrender everything without critical judgment and informed consent. Any faith is a practice of teachings that come from an ego, and those can then be interpreted by bad actors. To my mind, part of being a seeker is to interrogate all teachings and practices, to stay soft and flexible as opposed to rigid and dogmatic, to move slowly enough to be able to see when we're being blinded to the truth.”
― Thenmozhi Soundararajan, The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition

“Thus, a civil war in India is a wish of a god who does not believe in caste.”
― Kancha Ilaiah, Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan, Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution

“Systems of faith are systems before they are places of faith. They are made by people
and share the flaws of their builders.”
― Thenmozhi Soundararajan, The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition

“There is a being with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes and a thousand feet. He surrounds the earth from all directions, he surrounds the universe from all directions, and yet there is more of him that is left over. This being is divided into four parts. Three of these parts exist in lofty places and the fourth part is manifested on earth. This fourth part embraces the four directions on earth. All beings who have been born and all beings who will be born are manifestations of this being. Three parts of the being are immortal and exist in heaven, and the fourth part sustains all objects on earth. This being is the lord of immortality and of food grains. He is supreme; he is the one who created the earth.”
― Bibek Debroy, Sama Veda