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I DENY BEING A BRAHMIN. Plus, I didn't want anyone to know that here. Eh, well, cat's out of the bag...


Well, reading the Manusmriti is about the most direct way of learning the various rules that most active Brahmins serving as professional priests observe. According to the rules, brahmin males are usually initiated at the age of 8, and study the Vedas until the end of their teenage years. Later on, Vedic study became specialized; various gothras specialized in one Veda. For example, one group of Kaundinya gothra brahmins specialized in the Yajurveda. In my case, when I state my lineage, I not only say that I am a member of the gotra, but I also state how many rishis that my gotra ("clan," for lack of a better term) is affiliated with (pravara rishi), who they are, and what sutra and Veda I have learned (e.g. "Apastamba" sutra, "Yajur" veda). The last two items also tell a lot about each other. For instance, the affiliation with the Apastamba sutra suggests that I am to observe the rites in the Krishna (Black) Yajur Veda. Were one affiliated with another sutra, say the Katyayana, one would proabably observe the Shukla (White) Yajur Veda.

Moving on, most people choosing to be brahmins take on their roles seriously, and dedicate their time learning Sanskrit to perfection, and reviewing their appointed rites until recall becomes second nature. I may be talking it up a little, but hey, my dad, for all intents and purposes, practically adopted our local temple's priest (only about five years older than I am) as a second son, and he's told me that his time at Sanskrit College was not a walk in the park.

Temple priests, as far as I can tell, seem to make the Grahasta-ashrama (the Home-setting Stage of Life) paramount, and I think they are encouraged to marry. Kind of like LDS elders, only not so young. Probably because their primary duties are to retain the traditional laws, rites, and customs, they're cajoled into preserving home life and observing what everyone else should.

Most brahmins are strict vegetarians and teetotallers. At least, today, "most" of them are strict vegetarians and teetotallers. I'd be lying if I said I've never gorged myself on meat. Then again, I don't want to be a priest. The Manusmriti strongly exhorts Brahmins to not eat meat, barring special sacrificial meat, and only sparingly in those instances. It expressly demands that alcohol should not be consumed by brahmins.

Well, that's about the extent of the random s**t that I can spatter on for tonight. I'm sure Dino might be able to fill in any blanks.


I was tempted, but then I thought, "Eh, who gives a ********?"

OUTRAGE AND SCANDAL.

I contest that brahmins don't eat meat, even those who decide to become priests. I can see the practicality of it: a lactovegetarian diet, for some reason, leaves people in a lucid state, and many lactovegetarians do actually perform cognitive functions at a higher capacity. I don't, however, think that the Brahmins during the formation of the Vedas went wholly without meat, or even considered it remotely sacrilegious to eat it. After all, one of the few smriti texts I trust, the Manusmriti, does say that although meat is generally not to be relished by brahmins, sacrificial meat can be eaten, and if mitigating circumstances require it, meat can be taken as a means of survival.

I think the rules were more lax than that. I think brahmins could eat what they wanted, but generally strayed away from meat for practical purposes, barring a few exceptions. I've yet to find some way to prove it, but very little of what I read actually disagrees with this notion. Mind you, this would have to be at least five thousand years ago, as the Vedas would have to be forming at this point.


Wait, there isn't specialization in the Church? Really? I would have thought there was, or at least some method of ritual hierarchy, where only Cardinals could perform rites that couldn't be done by bishops or priests.

Eh, what do I know about that?

Well, there's the other problem: canon. Current Christian canon was declared at the NC, right? That maps out the permitted books of the Bible (Tanakh, four gospels, Pauline epistles, and choice ones from Peter, Timothy, John, etc.). It "simplified" the bulk of Christian doctrine, reducing the amount of books and treatises required to understand in order to be a good Christian (not in terms of decency, but in terms of knowledge).

The rub is that the Rig Veda alone is as long as two Bibles, and the other Vedas weren't much shorter.

Naturally, such large texts required specialization; otherwise, the texts would risk being forgotten. That's my belief as to why the specialization occured.