The original Vedic concept was 'varna' - a flexible system based on individual qualities and occupation, not birth. The Bhagavad Gita [4.13] clearly states that the four varnas were created based on guna (qualities) and karma (actions), not heredity.
The current birth-based discrimination has no scriptural basis. The Upanishads contain examples of people from various backgrounds achieving spiritual excellence. For instance, sage Valmiki was a hunter, and Vyasa was born to a fisherwoman. The rigid hereditary system emerged much later as a social construct.
Modern scholarship shows that ancient Hindu society had considerable social mobility. The Mahabharata and other texts describe individuals changing their varnas based on their actions and abilities. Today's Hindu leaders and scholars uniformly condemn caste discrimination as a distortion of Vedic principles.
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