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Latest genetic research supports the anthropological and historical theory that
the Hindu caste system and the link between the Europeans invasion from west.
Those born into higher castes in India may be more related to Europeans, while
lower castes may be more similar to Asians, the research finds.
The
original Hindu caste system is said to have started when Indo-European nomadic
groups called Aryans invaded India about 5000 years ago. They set themselves as
priests and then divided the society they encountered into a four-part caste
system -- Brahmans (priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors),
Vaisyas (merchants and traders) and Sudras (workers and peasants) who were born
to serve the other three. There also are castes within castes; in all, there
are more than 1,000.
Lowest in the social order are the Harijans or
Untouchables. They did all the dirty work.
Researchers from the
United States, the United Kingdom, and India studied the linkage between the
Europeans and high caste in India by DNA. "We've been working in India,
asking questions about the origins of the caste system and tribal
populations," says Dr. Michael Bamshad, an assistant professor at the
University of Utah's Eccles Institute of Human Genetics in Salt Lake City.
"We were also interested in the effects of social forces on biological
variations."
Bamshad and his
colleagues conducted their research by drawing blood from eight different
populations in the lower, middle and upper castes. They compared five different
types of genetic data, Bamshad says. "Two of those types are inherited
only from your mother -- called mitochondrial data -- and two of those types
are from the Y chromosome, so they come only from the father."
The researchers compared
the data to about "750 Africans, Asians and Europeans and then compared
the affinities of the castes of different ranks with those continental
groups," Bamshad says.
The genetic data from the
mother shows "some evidence of European markers," Bamshad reports.
The higher the caste, the "higher the frequency of those European
markers," he says.
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But genes passed on from
the father show a more striking pattern. "When we looked at father
markers, we see that the castes are more similar to Europeans than Asians,
again with the upper classes being closer to Europeans than the lower
classes," Bamshad says.
Though discrimination
against the ancient caste system was declared illegal by bothe Nepalese and
Indian government, it still continues as part of day to day life in both
countries.
The findings, which
appear in the May issue of Genome Research, support the historical data
showing that India was in part populated by people from Turkey, the Middle
East, the Caucasus or Eastern Europe, Bamshad says.
"And it also
suggests that those who migrated from Europe often left their descendents in
the higher castes rather than the lower castes," Bamshad says. "The
evidence from the Y chromosomes shows that it was the men who married into the
upper castes, and it appears that more men than women moved into India, and
that certainly is consistent with the concept of a marauding army."
Bamshad's research falls
under the rubric of molecular anthropology, says Peter Underhill, senior
research scientist in genetics at Stanford University. "The main thrust of
this research project is to better understand the Indian population, where it
came from, how it developed."
"This research,
which attempts to correlate genetics with the historical record, provides good
genetic evidence, and such correlations are reassuring," Underhill says.
"What's particularly nice about this paper is that it doesn't emphasize
one slice of the genome. It weaves in genetics from both men and women."
While Bamshad's research
has no direct relevance, "it would be of some interest to medical genetic
studies. It's another piece of the puzzle that might help scientists understand
certain traits within the Indian population," Underhill says.
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