Darwin and India

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was the British naturalist who became famous for his theories of evolution and natural selection. He believed that all the life on earth evolved over millions of years from a few common ancestors. He went on expeditions around the world from 1831 to1836, studying and collecting plants and fossils. Upon his return to London, Darwin conducted thorough research of his notes and specimens. Out of this study grew several of his related theories: (a) Evolution did occur; (b) evolutionary changes were gradual, requiring thousands of millions of years; (c) the primary mechanism for evolution was a process called natural selection; and (d) the millions of species alive today arose from a single original life form through a branching process called specialization.Darwin's theory of evolution holds that variation within species occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is determined by that organism's ability to adapt to its environment. Although he avoided talking about the theological and sociological aspects of his work, other writers used his theories to support their own theories about society and humankind.

Darwin's theory of evolution is rooted in a philosophical commitment to naturalism or materialism, which assumes that all reality is ultimately physical or material. Thus, in his theory, mind or spirit is reducible to material reality, and God and religion are vanished to the land of irrelevance. This contradicts India's Hindu philosophy of life, its existence, and development.

Hindu philosophy believes in different types of origins of humankind than what Darwin prescribed. In one of the earliest literatures of Hindu social thought, Purushasukta, a reference has been made to the four orders of society as emanating from the sacrifice of the primeval being. The names of those four order are given there asBrahmana, Rajanya, Vaisya, and Sudra, who are said to have come respectively from the mouth, the arms, the thighs, and the feet of the creator. This origin of the four classes is repeated in most of the later works with slight variations and interpretative additions. For example, the Taittiriya Samhita ascribes the origins of these four classes to the four limbs of the creator and adds an explanation. The Brahmins are declared to be the chief because they are created from the mouth. The Rajanyas are vigorous because they are created from vigor. The Vaisyas are meant to be eaten, referring to their liability to excessive taxation because they were created from the stomach, the receptacle of food. The Sudra, because he was created from the feet, is to be the transport of others and to subsist by the feet. In this particular account of the creation, not only is the origin of the classes interpreted theologically, but also a divine justification is sought to be given to their functions and status. The creation theory is here further amplified to account for certain other features of their social classes. In Hindu social thought, God is said to have created certain deities simultaneously with these classes. TheVaisya class, the commoners, must have been naturally very large, and this account explains that social fact by a reference to the simultaneous [Page 683]creation of Visvedevas, all and sundry deities, whose number is considerable. Also, no deities were created along with the Sudra, and hence, he is disqualified for sacrifice. Here again, the social regulation, which forbade Sudra to offer sacrifice, is explained as an incidental consequence of the creation.

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