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154
RISABHA DEVA
three higher varņas. As a matter of fact there was no Brāhmaṇa class at the time of Bharata Chakravarti, strictly speaking, for any one could qualify himself for the sacred thread by observing the pratimās, it not being forbidden to Sudras to observe the pratimās.
The reason for the establishment of the Brāhmaṇa class lay in the necessity of finding out suitable donees for gifts which householders are enjoined to make every day. Bharata, who wanted to earn merit for himself, by making proper use of his immense wealth, established the class, or rather the order of the pious men, and gave them the sacred threads to indicate their rise in the spiritual scale. None who did not excel in the practising of the Dharma (religion) were to be considered Brahmanas. "By birth," says the author of the Adi Purāṇa, equal unto one another; but they differ in respect of the progress they might make on the spiritual path!"
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are all men
The Hindus, who are really Jainas-not Jaina dissenters, but Jaina Allegorists-and the originators of the Allegorical vogue, allegorised the varṇāśrama institution, which came, after the lapse of a long time, when the original nature of the teaching underlying the allegory was lost sight of, to be viewed as grounded on birth-dis
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