New member introduction: Sanjay Srivastava

[Vivek Anand Ganesan]

Hello :

  Sorry to intrude but just some clarifications ( based
on what I have read and heard ).

--- Shree Vidyasankar wrote:
> a. Swami Vivekananda was from a caste generally reckoned
> as Kshatriya;
I believe he was a kayastha. His poorvashrama name was
"Narendranath Dutta". Dutta, Sen, Ghosh and Sarkar are
Bengali Kayastha surnames. And, I am told that in Bengal
the Kayasthas are considered the equal of brahmins. They
even went to court to assert their right to wear
yajnopavitam ( based on Gavin Flood's book "The Hindus" ).


> b. Kayasth-s are usually listed as belonging to the
> Vaisya caste;
The following is based on the answers given to me by an
elderly Sri VaishNava gentleman ( and quite a learned
person ). His explanation was :
a) The second varNa is strictly speaking Rajanya and not
   Kshatriya.
b) Rajanya refers to all activities of Government such as
   defense, law enforcement, revenue collection etc.
c) Kshatriya is only one component of the Rajanya role,
   namely defense.
d) Kayasthas were responsible for revenue collection and
   treasury, accounting etc.
e) Typically, the Kayasthas are well-educated and place
   as great an emphasis on education as the brahmins.

This issue came about because I asked him how some of the
great Sri VaishNava scholars had names like "pillai".

-Vivek.

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