Jatis and social mobility

The Brahmanical theory of varna presented a neat, fourfold division of society. But the actual social world was far messier. The texts also use another term — jati — to capture this complexity. Like varna, jati was based on birth. But while the number of varnas was fixed at four, there was no limit on the number of jatis. This made jati a far more flexible category.

Whenever Brahmanical authorities came across a new group that did not fit the four varnas, they simply classified it as a jati. For example, forest-dwelling communities like the nishadas were labelled a jati. So were occupational groups like goldsmiths (suvarnakara), whose craft did not slot neatly into any single varna. In effect, jati was the catch-all category for everyone and everything the varna system could not absorb.

Some jatis that shared a common occupation organised themselves into shrenis (guilds). We rarely have documents that record the histories of these groups, but there is a remarkable exception. A stone inscription from Mandasor (Madhya Pradesh), dated to around the fifth century CE, records the history of a guild of silk weavers.

These weavers originally lived in Lata (in present-day Gujarat). They undertook a difficult journey with their children and kinfolk to Mandasor (then called Dashapura) because they had heard of the greatness of the local king and wanted to settle in his kingdom.

The inscription gives us a fascinating glimpse into how guilds actually worked:

• Membership was based on a shared craft — all were silk weavers.
• But some members adopted other occupations. The guild was not a rigid, closed group.
• Members shared more than a profession. They collectively decided to invest their wealth, earned through weaving, to build a splendid temple to the sun god.

The inscription also tells us what some of these silk weavers did. It is written in Sanskrit and describes the members' varied interests: …