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种姓主义是一种社会概念，创造出了一个精心制作而又复杂的系统，涉及到了职业、婚姻、社会等级、文化、群体附属关系和政治权利等各种元素。它不应该与更为基础性的特征混淆，比如贵族、社会等级或种族。任何社会中，所有等级的人们可能属于同一个种族，但是统一社会里同一等级的成员可能属于不同的种族。

种姓主义这个词汇，最初是葡萄牙人使用，为了描述欧洲社会里因为继承遗传而区分开来的社会地位。Caste这个词语是拉丁语castus的变形，意思是“纯粹的、分隔开来的、割断的”，分词carere则指的是割断。对这个词语的最早记录是17世纪的印度社会，葡萄牙语的casta指的是“种类、团体、种族”。

种姓制度是印度的一种社会分级和限制的制度，这里的团体被很多同种姓的群体分开来，叫做jatis。印度的种姓系统是由最高种姓婆罗门来公设的，包括四大种姓，也被叫做varnas，同时也有少部分社会群体，比如外国人、原住民、游牧民和chandalas（专门处理尸体分解的人）在一起。

Casteism is a social concept which creates an elaborate and complicated system combining elements of profession, endogamy, social class, culture, affiliation to groups and political power. It should not be mistaken with more fundamental features such as nobility, social class or race. Members of all castes in any society may belong to one race, while members of same class in same society may belong to different races of castes.

The word 'caste' was first used by the Portuguese in order to describe class status derived by inheritance in the European society. The word 'caste' is derived from Latin 'castus' which means 'pure, segregated, cut off', and the participle 'carere' which means 'to cut off'. The earliest records of the word being applied to Indian social groups, date back to the 17th century, via Portuguese word 'casta' meaning 'breed, caste, race'.

The caste system in India is a system of social classification and restriction, in which communities have been defined by many endogamous groups called 'jatis'. The formalized Indian caste system which was postulated by the Brahmanical texts, comprises of four castes, also called as 'varnas', with few social groups like the foreigners, forest dwellers, nomads and the chandalas (people dealing with the disposal of the dead) excluded altogether.

Although the caste system is generally associated with 'Hinduism', the caste system has also been observed among the ancient Persian society and other religious communities including few groups of Muslims and Christians, most likely because of cultural assimilation over a number of centuries.

While the caste system is endorsed by the Hindu scriptures, the caste-based discrimination is not endorsed by any of them. Moreover, the Indian constitution treats caste-based discrimination as a violation of fundamental right and therefore outlawed. However, it continues to exist in modern India, because of a combination of political, demographic and social factors.

Literature Review

A lot of research has gone into the origins of the Indian caste system, however, so far there is no universally accepted theory about it. In many ways, the Indian classes and Iranian classes ('pistras') show some similarity, where priests are called 'Brahmins', the soldiers are called 'Kshatriya', the merchant class is called 'Vastriya' and the craftsmen and artisans are called 'Huiti'

One of the scientific investigations published in 'Nature', a well-known science journal, concludes that one particular ancestral lineage, genetically very similar to Middle Eastern, European and Asian populations, comprised mostly of upper-caste individuals and they spoke Indo-European languages like Hindi. Such investigations do suggest that the origin of caste system is essentially connected to Indo-Aryan migration to the subcontinent.

Castes and their social status. Although the political power lay m