At the heart of India’s oldest sacred literature lies a myth that has shaped – and scarred – one of the world’s most enduring social systems. The Purusa-Sukta, a hymn nestled in the tenth book of the Rgveda, tells the story of a cosmic being whose sacrifice gave birth to the universe – and, according to its most dominant reading, to the rigid hierarchy of caste. For Dalit philosophers and critical thinkers, this myth is not merely an ancient poem; it is the originary site of a distortion that has justified centuries of oppression. Understanding what the hymn actually says – and how its meaning was twisted – is essential to understanding the philosophical roots of the caste question.

The Purusa-Sukta: the myth at the source
What the myth originally described
The distortion: from interdependence to hierarchy
The Dalit philosophical response: Ambedkar and the critique of originary myths
Why the “originary myth” matters for Dalit philosophy
From myth to discrimination: the lived consequences

The Purusa-Sukta: the myth at the source

The Purusa-Sukta, or “Hymn of Man,” is the 90th hymn of the tenth mandala of the Rgveda. It describes Purusa as the primordial cosmic being – infinite, thousand-headed, thousand-eyed – who pervades and transcends all of existence. From his self-sacrifice, the gods are said to have drawn forth the entire universe: the sun from his eyes, the moon from his mind, the sky from his head, and the earth from his feet. All of creation, past and present, is held to be Purusa alone.

The verse that carries the heaviest historical weight is the twelfth, which describes the emergence of the four varnas (social categories): the Brahmin from Purusa’s mouth, the Kshatriya (or Rajanya) from his arms, the Vaishya from his thighs, and the Shudra from his feet. This single verse is widely regarded as the foundational scriptural source of the varna system in India – the point at which a cosmological story becomes a social blueprint.

It is worth noting from the outset that scholars have long debated the hymn’s position within the Vedic corpus. Scholars such as Vijaya Nagarajan, Stephanie W. Jamison, and Joel P. Brereton consider the social estate verses to belong to the latest layer of the Rgveda, suggesting it may have been composed – or inserted – to provide divine sanction to an already unequal social order rather than to describe the world as it was. Nagarajan writes that Vedic hymns were composed before the varna scheme was implemented and that the Purusa-Sukta might have been added to secure religious legitimacy for that scheme. The philologist Max Müller went further, describing the hymn as “modern” in both character and diction, noting that it contains the only passage in the entire Rgveda where the four varnas are enumerated together.

What the myth originally described

To understand the Dalit philosophical critique, it is necessary to first consider what the Purusa-Sukta myth may have originally meant – before centuries of Brahmanical commentary reshaped its interpretation.

The structure of the hymn itself is cosmological and holistic. Purusa is not a king or a god who commands – he is the universe itself. Every part of the world, from celestial bodies to human society, emerges from the same singular body. The bodily analogy underscores interdependence, portraying society as an integrated organism where each varna’s distinct role contributes indispensably to collective harmony, much like limbs cooperating for the body’s vitality. No varna, under this reading, operates in isolation. The priestly guidance of Brahmins depends on the enforcement of Kshatriyas; that enforcement depends on the productivity of Vaishyas; and all of it rests on the foundational labour of Shudras.

The mouth speaks, instructs, and preserves knowledge – hence the Brahmin. The arms protect and govern – hence the Kshatriya. The thighs support movement and commerce – hence the Vaishya. The feet bear the full weight of the body and keep it grounded – hence the Shudra. In the Early Vedic period, these varnas were linked primarily to occupation and qualities rather than fixed birth, with some degree of social mobility still possible.

The logic of the body metaphor actually argues against hierarchy: if the head is of greater worth than the feet, then the sun (from Purusa’s eyes) must be superior to the earth (from his feet) – which is plainly absurd. The moon would then be superior to the sun because it comes from the mind, and Indra would be on par with Agni – conclusions that make no sense within Vedic cosmology. The body metaphor, taken seriously, implies that all parts are necessary and none is dispensable. The feet are not inferior to the mouth; they simply perform a different, equally essential function.

The distortion: from interdependence to hierarchy

If the myth originally spoke of functional interdependence, how did it become the scriptural cornerstone of one of history’s most stratified social systems? This is precisely the question that Dalit philosophy forces us to ask.

The distortion did not happen overnight. Over centuries, the varna system – originally conceived as a social ideal rather than a social reality – hardened into something far more rigid. The society became more hierarchical as Brahmins and Kshatriyas gained greater influence, and Shudras moved to lower social positions. Sub-groups (jatis) formed within varnas, creating the complex and immobile caste identities that persist in India today. Crucially, birth replaced function as the defining criterion: one did not become a Brahmin through learning or a Shudra through labour – one was simply born into a position and was expected to remain there for life.

The Manusmriti, one of the most cited Hindu legal texts, codified and entrenched this hierarchy. Shudras’ duties are explicitly prescribed as service to the three “twice-born” varnas, restricting their access to Vedic study, ritual initiation, and economic independence. What had been a metaphor for collective function became a legal instrument of exclusion. And crucially, the Purusa-Sukta – with its cosmic authority – was invoked to make this exclusion appear not just natural but sacred.

The impact on Dalits, who fall entirely outside the four-varna system, was most severe. Deemed avarna (without varna), they were assigned the most polluting tasks and subjected to practices of untouchability that rendered them invisible within the social fabric. The myth, once potentially describing unity, had become a tool to place certain people permanently beyond its reach.

The Dalit philosophical response: Ambedkar and the critique of originary myths

No thinker engaged this problem more rigorously than Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. In his landmark 1936 work Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar argued that caste was not merely a social arrangement but a structural system of graded inequality, reinforced and perpetuated by religious scripture. He rejected the claim that the Vedic texts were divinely revealed – insisting instead that they were products of human authorship designed to maintain the dominance of the upper castes.

Ambedkar’s critique went to the root. He challenged the authority of the Vedas and Upanishads, asserting that they were not divine revelations but products of human interpretation designed to maintain the dominance of the upper castes. For Ambedkar, the varna system – whether or not it originally implied hierarchy – had in practice always functioned as what he called a “division of labourers,” not merely a division of labour. Ambedkar unequivocally argued: “There is no fundamental difference between Varna and caste; Varna is the philosophical justification of caste.”

This is the key philosophical move in Dalit thought: to trace the ideological function of myths, not merely their literal content. The Purusa-Sukta may or may not have been composed to justify hierarchy – but once it was used in that way, its origin ceased to be the primary issue. What mattered was its effect: the religious legitimation of a system that denied Dalits education, mobility, dignity, and basic rights. Ambedkar saw the caste system as an unequal mode of organization of social relations, with the pure and the impure at either extreme, sanctified through religious codes that forbade intermixture of castes.

Ambedkar ultimately concluded that the mythic framework could not be reformed from within. Rather than reinterpreting the Purusa-Sukta, he rejected the authority of the texts that housed it. He knew that resistance to Hinduism had to occur at all levels of existence: on the level of political institutions, but also on the level of religion itself. In 1956, he converted to Buddhism along with hundreds of thousands of his followers – a symbolic and philosophical break from the entire system of mythic legitimation that the Purusa-Sukta represented.

Why the “originary myth” matters for Dalit philosophy

Dalit philosophy situates the Purusa-Sukta as what might be called an originary myth – not simply a story about the past, but a narrative that has actively shaped social reality in the present. Originary myths are powerful precisely because they naturalize social arrangements: they make historically contingent decisions look like cosmic necessities. If the gods divided Purusa’s body into varnas, then the social order appears fixed, eternal, and divinely ordained – not the result of human choices that can be questioned or reversed.

The Dalit philosophical intervention is to denaturalize this narrative. By pointing out that the Purusa-Sukta is likely a later addition to the Rgveda, that its social verses are absent from earlier sections of the text, and that the original vision of interdependence was overlaid with a hierarchical reading serving particular interests, Dalit thinkers reveal that the myth is not a cosmic truth but a historical artefact. Jamison and Brereton note that there is no evidence in the Rgveda for an elaborate, much-subdivided and overarching caste system, and that the varna system represents a social ideal that was later mistaken – or deliberately presented – as social reality.

This matters because it opens the possibility of change. If caste was divinely ordained from the beginning of time, nothing can alter it. But if it was constructed through the misreading and political exploitation of a myth, then it can be dismantled through sustained philosophical, legal, and social critique. This is precisely what Dalit philosophy has done – and continues to do.

From myth to discrimination: the lived consequences

The stakes of this philosophical debate are not abstract. Dalits, as the lowest of the low in the caste system, have historically been assigned the most “unclean” tasks: the removal of waste, the tending of funeral pyres, butchery, and other labour deemed ritually polluting. The mythic assignment of Shudras to Purusa’s feet – the lowest, most earthbound part of the body – provided the cosmological vocabulary for this exclusion. And Dalits, positioned even below the Shudras, were excluded from the myth’s body entirely.

The caste system manifested in social segregation: Dalits were denied access to public spaces, temples, wells, and educational institutions. Ambedkar himself, despite exceptional academic achievement, was segregated from other children in school and denied access to water without a “touchable” person to operate the tap. The philosophical distortion of a myth had direct, material consequences in the lives of millions.

The Dalit philosophical project, then, is not merely about textual interpretation. It is about understanding how ideas – myths, cosmologies, sacred narratives – are recruited into the service of power, and how that process can be identified, challenged, and ultimately reversed. The Purusa-Sukta is not just an ancient hymn; it is a case study in how myth-making shapes justice.

What do you think? If the Purusa-Sukta was originally a vision of societal interdependence rather than hierarchy, does that change how we evaluate the caste system that developed from it – or does the real-world harm it caused make the original intent irrelevant? And can a social order rooted in sacred mythology ever be dismantled through philosophical argument alone, or does change require something more?

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The Origins of Caste in Dalit Philosophy: Unveiling the Myth

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Table of Contents

The Purusa-Sukta: the myth at the source 🔗

What the myth originally described 🔗

The distortion: from interdependence to hierarchy 🔗

The Dalit philosophical response: Ambedkar and the critique of originary myths 🔗

Why the “originary myth” matters for Dalit philosophy 🔗

From myth to discrimination: the lived consequences 🔗