As varna means color, is varnashrama based on bodily color?

Answer Podcast

Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Question. As Varna means color, is Varnaashram division based on color with complexion people at the top and dark complexion people at the bottom? No, not at all. Yes, one meaning of Varna is color, but it doesn’t necessarily refer to the color of the physical body.
Actually, Varna in this context refers to the color of one’s mind. That means one’s mental disposition. And that’s why we will see in the Bhagavad Gita when Krishna talks about Varnaashram for the first time, 4.13 chatur-varanam maya-srishtam guna-karma-vibhagashah tasya-kartaram apimam vidya-kartaram avyayam So he says chatur-varanam maya-srishtam.
This chatur-varanam system I have created. guna-karma-vibhagashah So he doesn’t say that I have created it based on the Varna itself in terms of color. So he uses the word Varna, but the word Varna has many meanings.
Varna also at a broad level means category. So chatur-varanam maya-srishtam So if we were to take Varna here to refer to color, so it would say what it would mean is chatur-varanam maya-srishtam. I have created a category of four colors based on qualities and activities.
guna-karma-vibhagashah Now colors are themselves colors. They are not created by qualities and activities of people. So chatur-varanam which Krishna is referring to here is a division that is based not on bodily color, but that is based on the qualities and the activity, that means the we could say in today’s terms as the attitudes and aptitudes.
So what a person is comfortable doing and what a person is competent in doing. So these are divisions which are based on inner psychological disposition, the color of one’s mind and now with respect to the color of one’s mind, yes, the contamination for the brahmanas is much lesser and that’s why nirmalatvat. When Krishna talks about those who are in the mode of goodness, he says they are nirmalatvat.
In 14.6 he talks about how they are, the mala, the contamination is much less and the whiteness is associated with light. So he says their disposition, their ways are filled with light and Krishna uses darkness to refer to the mode of ignorance. Tamas means darkness or ignorance and yes, so the mental color is white for those who are in the mode of goodness.
So those are on top of the varanashram, that is the brahmanas and the mental coloring may be darker for those who are at the lower end of the varanashram, that is the shudras. Now it is also possible that there can be some correlation. That means generally a brahminical birth is a result of past good karma and a shudra birth is a result of past bad karma.
So in most standards of beauty, usually the fair complexion is considered to be beautiful and a dark complexion is not considered to be so beautiful. So now beauty is also a gift that comes because of past karma. So therefore it may well work out that those who have good karma, now those who have good karma, they get a beautiful complexion and those who have good karma, they get higher birth.
So they get a brahminical birth and those who have done bad karma in their previous lives, they get dark complexion and they also get lower births like shudras. So it’s possible that brahmanas may be fair complexioned and shudras may be dark complexioned. But we have to understand that nobody’s karma is entirely good or entirely bad and that’s why such simplistic correlation is usually not true.
So that may also be a principle but we can also see that there are sometimes dark complexioned people who are very deeply intellectual and many great thinkers who have been clearly brahminical in their disposition and yet they were dark complexioned. In fact, in the scriptures itself, Arjuna is a kshatriya and he is described to be not exactly fair complexioned. Draupadi is a kshatrani.
Of course, let’s focus more on Draupadi. Arjuna is sometimes depicted in dark complexion, sometimes in fair complexion. It depends on interpretation of specific Sanskrit words but Draupadi was described to be dark beauty.
Now she’s a kshatrani and still she has dark complexion. So we can’t simplistically equate dark complexion with shudras or for that matter those who may have fair complexion. People may have fair complexion but they may have very dark hearts, very selfish and they may be very much in the mode of Arjuna.
So they will be like shudras. So we shouldn’t simplistically equate Varanashram with the colour of the body. It is more specifically the colour of the mind.
That means the qualities, the disposition of the mind that determines the basis on which the division in Varanashram is done. Thank you. Hare Krishna.