The Dhaarmik Traditions - Indic Studies Foundation

general rule of thumb one elects to be in a profession which utilizes his GuNAs
fully. For example Brahmanas tend to cluster around intellectual pursuits (teaching,
legal, corporate management, administration etc. In the past the choice of
professions available to Brahmanas were limited to priestly duties and the services
he could render as a Minister to the Maharaja including mundane tasks such as
accounting and cooking. In recent years substantial numbers of Brahmanas faced
with increasing discrimination from their own government have elected to go into
Business, so that his varna is that of a Vaisya, unless he maintains his competency
and knowledge of the Vedic scripture and adheres to the injunctions of a Brahmana
Since there are three guNAs, why are there four varNAs
The GuNa Varna Vyavastha arose out of the propensity of individuals to exhibit a
dominant GuNa or GuNAs, rather than an equal distribution of all three. If all
individuals had only one guNa in them, then it would be logical to conclude that there
can be only 3 varNAs. But this is not so. The mapping between GuNAs and Varna is
not one to one .These 3 guNAs are found in 'varying degrees' in all individuals, be they
Indian, American or British. So the ancient seers made a broader classification of the
individuals based on the guNAs present in them. See the exposition by Sri Krishna in
Chapter 18, verses 18-40, on the GuNAs that the various Varnas should exhibit in order
to qualify as a member of a particular Varna. Note that it is not the case that the
Brahmanas and Kshatriyas are not subsets of the other two. Each Varna possesses a
mix of GuNAs which while not being mutually exclusive, and while having a degree of
overlap, have distinctive characteristics as is to be expected if it was a division of
labor which we emphatically believe to be the case
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