More properly referred to as the Adesi, the Raheni Caste System was the primary system of social organization in Rahen from the 1400s BA until the Jadd Conquest of 1562 AA, with elements and pockets of the system persisting well into the 1800s. As a concept, caste is a fixed social group into which an individual is (generally) born and which holds a particular place within a system of social stratification. Those individuals within the system are expected to follow lifestyles linked to a particular occupation, hold a ritual status observed within a hierarchy, generally marry exclusively within the same caste, and interact with others based on cultural notions of exclusion and deference, with certain castes considered as above or below others.
The Raheni caste system is often poorly understood by outsiders, and is most commonly summarized as one’s social class. This is not necessarily inaccurate, but it is an oversimplification. Particularly for those who live in formally classless societies, where the only difference between folk are unofficial, quiet divisions based on ancestry or income, it can be difficult to conceptualize the ways in which a caste-based civilization organizes itself. Since at least the time of the Nadimrajas, Raheni social organization has featured a dyad system for describing one’s place in relation to the people around them. The two components of this caste system are “Prikarti” (Nature) and “Kija” (Toil) - literally, how one is made and what one does.
Prikarti and Kija[]
Kija is a combination of profession, location of birth, extended family, and religious adherence. Kija often have certain expected behaviors, rituals, clothing, and diets - subcultural elements that are unique to them, displaying and affirming kinship outwardly to the world and privately to loved ones. While the practices of a kija are religious in nature and seen as a guide to the proper way to live one’s life, several scholars have noted that many practices emerged from a place of practicality, even if the apparent utility of the rituals has become obscured over the millenia. While there are only three Prikarti, there are thousands of Kija, describing every imaginable variant of artisan, laborer, merchant, thinker, and administrator while considering their religious school, native land, and ancestry.
Prikarti is where one falls in social strata. There are three tiers of Prikarti - the Idisari, Sarstayri, and Hitiyari - often simply noted as the Upper, Middle, and Lower castes respectively, into which all Kija fall. A Kija only ever exists within one Prikarti, and all those of that Kija belong to the Prikarti it belongs to. Those in a lower kija are to serve those above them, insofar as such service is seen as “morally just”, as laid out in the teachings of the high gods and consistent with Visvatma. Those of the same Prikarti are seen as equals in matters of standing, law, responsibility, obeisance, and homage, regardless of their Kija. While the rule of law may require a warrior or scholar to obey the commands and mandates of a ruler, this is only by necessity of an ordered society and does not, theoretically, make a king superior to their Samanaprikarti (literally, “equal natured”). Those who hold themselves to be anything other than “first among equals” are seen as prideful and misguided, straying from the Nitikamarja in their arrogance, and such a thing is often cited as the root cause of noble rebellions and depositions of Raheni rulers.
Relationships between Prikarti[]
The relations between the Bhinnaprikarti (literally, “different natured”) are substantially more stratified than those within the caste, but also more generalized. While members of different Kija within a Prikarti may have distinct greetings, honorifics, or dining customs for the other kija they regularly interact with, the expected interactions between Bhinnaprikarti are generalized - a Sarstayri merchant would greet an Idisari warrior, king, scholar, or guru in the same way, and would give each equal service were they to stay in their house. Such things are seen as divinely ordered, and part of the Visvatma - the balance of the world’s soul, coinciding with the natural order set down by the High Gods.
While the above explanation would give the appearance that the Kija are nested within and beneath the Prikarti, and thus subservient to them, this is not exactly correct. Prikarti is very much an organizational tool that functions at the level of the state, grouping broad swathes of people for purposes of census, taxation, administration, and war. Decrees from royal governments and ministries tend to regulate at the level of the Prikarti - while laws could be made that regulated the strength of walls between Kija and their place among the Prikarti, the making of laws that regulate a specific Kija’s practices is poorly attested.
Historically, the rules of a Kija were largely self-imposed - the various Kija largely self-regulated and enforced their own customs through local or tribal courts and other bottom-up social organizations. These would often be sanctioned by low level magistrates or governors, but there was very little in the way of interference from the state. Indeed, the rules and customs that govern interactions between the Bhinnaprikarti tend to obscure the precise nature of the Kija to those outside of the caste in which it belongs, such that those outside the Prikarti often found it easiest to simply group all of the Kija into their collective Prikarti. In cases where control was attempted, the matter almost exclusively fell into controls on changes of an individual from one kija to another - the often misunderstood topic of “fluidity”.
Fluidity - Movement Within and Between the Castes[]
The movement of individuals between castes is a subject of much discussion among scholars both within and beyond Rahen, and is often likened to social mobility or social freedom within Cannorian societies. As experts on this topic often find themselves repeating, this topic is more complicated than that, because there have been many different interpretations of the roles and relations of Prikarti and Kija, and one’s ability to move between them, in different places and times. While the topic as a whole is often simplified to the “fluidity” of the castes, we will attempt a more detailed analysis here.
Intra-Prikarti Movement[]
First, we consider the matter of moving between Kija. To begin, it is important to remind the reader that in nearly all societies across all of recorded history, one’s birth determines their fate - those who are born as poor peasants bound to the land in some way will live and die as subsistence farmers eking out a meager living, with little opportunity to become a rich merchant or noble lord. In this, the fate of the average Raheni farmer is little different to that of their Cannorian cousins.
What does differ between caste and non-caste societies is that there are real, concrete, religious and legal restrictions in place to prevent one from changing their profession and station in life. What these restrictions are varies wildly over time and specific location. In various societies throughout Rahen over its millennia of human habitation, many Raheni have been able to enjoy a degree of social mobility - these are well attested from the mid-Rahenraj of the 500s BA, as well as among the Rajnadhid from the 9th century onward and the Raghamideshi of the 13th-15th century. In each of these cases, records indicate that it was not uncommon for a moderately successful family to apprentice their children to journeymen or masters of other professions with good economic prospects. The exact nature of how this transfer of social role took place varied in each of the proceeding cases, but the broad strokes are the same - In becoming an apprentice, the child would be “adopted” into their masters’ house and join their kija, leaving behind their ancestral trappings and being educated in the new rituals and practices of their social role.
There were many caveats to these matters, depending on the exact place and time discussed, but the concept was simple and well understood even outside of those societies where movement between Kija was practiced. Contemporary writings in kingdoms near to these power centers display an understanding of the various complexities of such arrangements and a discussion of the relative merits of allowing such mobility - such writings are ubiquitous and mundane enough that it can be assumed the idea of moving between Kija was common knowledge, at least among the literate. Until the 18th century, such apprenticeship programs were common even in areas where the Prikarti had been formally abolished under the Jadd Empire, as the conversion to the Jadd did very little to affect the day to day jobs and rituals of most Raheni, who continued the practices of their kija as they had for thousands of years.
Movement of an adult into a new kija was substantially less common than the movement of a youth as part of a formal adoption and apprenticeship. Before the modern era, “skills retraining” for a new profession was practically unheard of, so folk tended to do the jobs they were trained for in their youth. For those with transferable skills in related professions, such a change mostly entailed observation of the variety of new rituals of their adopted kija - but learning these changes in clothing, socialization, and eating habits would still require that such an individual be sponsored and formally taken in by some member of that kija, as there were very few ways to learn these expected rituals otherwise. The willingness of many to do this training of an outsider, which functionally added non-kin individuals into their social sphere, was rare in most times and places unless other bonds of camaraderie already existed.
Restrictions on Kijaic Shifts[]
The hard walls between Prikarti that exist in so-called “Rigid” caste structures are walls both for the movement of Kija and the people within them, and in extreme cases would attempt to exert control on changes in Kija themselves. Disallowing folk to even change their kija was the strictest of possible systems and bound children patrilineally to their father’s occupation. This extreme interpretation of caste was not common except in some of the Golden Palace states of the Dhenbasana, most often in the years immediately leading up to the ascension of Ramapalar the Reunifier. More common than this strict binding to kija was a binding Deviai - a binding “In god”. This restriction involved the requirement that one’s potential for shifting occupation was limited to only that which remained in the domain of the High God whose domain principally concerned the primary occupation of the patrilineage. Such a restriction was often encouraged by “rigid-caste” states and functionally enforced through the same bottom-up practices that handled the training and adoptions that enabled mobility between kija.
Keeping Kija[]
It is important to note that in both adult and child changes of kija, the most important part of changing one’s kija is not learning the new skills of the profession, but correctly observing the rituals associated with the new kija. While a proper teacher is required in both cases, the ritual observance of the rules of one’s kija is more than just social convention- it is a critical religious obligation to one’s self, one’s community, and the gods.
Keeping Kija is associated with cleanliness of both the body and the soul, for the individual and the community - those who improperly observe the many intricacies of their kija’s requirements disrupt not only their own svayatma, but the tamatma of the local community. Kija is thus a moral imperative - a good woodworker is not good only because they have good skills, but because they are religiously behaving as a good woodworker behaves. Alongside the various universally understood moral imperatives of Raheni society, both aspects of Kija are required to be a moral person.
Rather than a top-down prohibition on changing kija, then, this understanding of the ordering of the world led these rules to be self-propagating and internally policed by their communities. Ensuring that everyone in a community adhered to their kija was important to the survival of the community because of the consequences of faltering tamatma, which was seen as being linked to war, famine, and disease.
Military service and Kija[]
While professional elite soldiers were drawn from and counted among the Idisari, levy soldiery was not an unknown concept in Rahen, and many young Raheni of various kija would find themselves obligated to serve in armies of princes and kings. Importantly, such drafted soldiers were not suddenly considered Idisari. As with many activities of state organization, the state saw these conscripted soldiers through the lens of their Prikarti, and the levy obligations of each kija descend clearly from the Prikarti that each person finds themselves in. Interestingly, though the majority of practices of military organization are uniform across the Prikarti, there were a variety of Kija-specific practices pertaining to soldiering, which often reconciled or were meant to make up for important religious practices of the kija with the realities of warfare, and made the average levied Raheni army a place of a dizzying number of religious obligations on a given day. The fact of the kija’s ritual demands meant that individual units tended to be raised from common kija where possible, to simplify logistical matters for states.
Inter-Prikarti Movement[]
Next, there is the topic of movement of a Kija between the Prikarti. As noted previously, the Prikarti was the primary lens by which the State viewed castes, and in various places and times, certain groups of people have obtained more governmental power than they would otherwise have in “baseline” Raheni society. The placement of a Kija into a higher or lower Prikarti was often a matter of the role of certain occupations for the state. While there are certain general arrangements, coastal kingdoms often saw merchants rise into the Idisari, and sailors rise to the Sarstayri. Administrators, Priests, and Warriors almost never dipped out of the Idisari, but the various artisans, builders, makers, performers, and artists fell into different positions depending on the specific cultural mores of the society in question, as Rahen was and remains a culturally diverse region with greatly different habits between places.
Outside of the movement of an entire kija into a higher Prikarti, there is also the matter of how highly fluid societies would allow one to be adopted into a higher kija that exists within an entirely different prikarti. This is generally considered the most extreme end of the “rigid-fluid” spectrum of approaches taken to shifting between kija, and would generally only be done for highly meritorious individuals who showed great skill, or had exceptional familial or financial connections that were required by the adoptive clan of higher Prikarti.
In all such circumstances, the movement is of the individual into the kija that is considered higher status, not of an individual practicing an art in a lower kija into a higher prikarti. Such an individual is taking on a position that rests in the social strata, and while the position may move in the strata, and the individual may hold certain positions in different locations, the individual DOES NOT move in the strata. Even in the most “fluid” of raheni societies in the premodern era, a man born a farmer who showed great skill in arms in the levy could be elevated to become a household soldier of a ruler, but in doing so he would cease to be a farmer. He would go through the same intra-kija training as any other and would become Idisari by virtue of being a professional soldier, often being formally adopted into the household of their captain or the honor guard of the prince they served. In this process, they cease being a farmer, lose all obligations and expectations of their former kija, and are expected to act in the eyes of law and gods as is required of their prikarti. If that person had stayed a farmer, they would remain Hitiyari, and there would not be a way for them to be considered Idisari, no matter how wealthy or prestigious they were, unless the whole kija they belonged to were elevated to the Idisari. Practically, such an elevation of the laborer kija never occurred.
Summary - Fluidity[]
Thus, fluidity between the castes represents several things. It is the ability to choose one’s occupation and training, which usually involved adoption into a broader clan that was part of the appropriate kija, which was sometimes restricted into Deviai restrictions, Prikartic restrictions, or, more rarely, firm kijaic restrictions by the state (these latter, it should be noted, were incredibly difficult for the a state to actually enforce). There is also the matter of the state’s envisioning of a kija’s particular prikarti, often due to a unique set of circumstances surrounding the powerholders of a kingdom.
In all such circumstances, however, the critical component of fluidity was the specific ritual and religious Kijaic practices - learning them and doing them well was required to become a part of whatever kija you intended to become. This was a moral imperative and, as moral imperatives were critical for collective svayatma and global visvatma, was seen as the most important part of any “caste-fluid” action. Doing this wrong was always possible if the one leaving their birth kija was not sufficiently skilled, and this could invite disaster on the families or communities involved. It is little wonder then that there was often a degree of skepticism in communities about major changes to kija or the Prikartic structure. Major philosophers such as Tarphenday of the Chromatic Coat railed against too permissive kijaic change, lamenting that such a thing is clearly antithetical to the order of the high gods and that caste stability across generations is necessary to stabilize Visvatma and allow all to properly walk the Nitikamarja.
The concept of adhering to the specific rituals of your kija, that ritual was an expected part of occupation, that occupational changes could not be swiftly or simply undertaken - these ideas underpinned Raheni cultures for thousands of years, and even the advance of the Hobgoblin Command and the Jadd Empire did not succeed in breaking these ideas entirely. Even as High Philosophy became a minority religion in Rahen around 1700, the understanding of kija among the common people continued to persist to some degree, and it is not until the late 1800s with the spread of mass industrialization that we begin to see ideological socialist movements breaking down the specters of prikarti and kija that continued to haunt the Raheni conception of labor and ritual.
Practical Application - Social Immobility and Inequality[]
The practical consequence of Prikarti and Kija was a compounding and reinforcing stability and conformity but also stagnation, weak economic growth, class immobility, and legal inequalities. Though nothing in these systems necessitates a strict and harsh division between the Prikarti and self-selection to prevent cross-training of children into different kija, in practice this has generally not been the case. Particularly after the collapse of the Phoenix Empire in 1136 and the coincident rise in influence of the Golden Palace philosophical tradition, the caste system became more calcified than it had been at any point since the writings of Tarphenday of the Chromatic Coat.
To take Prikarti first - The concentration of Harimari in administrative positions, a direct outgrowth of the harimari expansion during the imperial period, saw them disproportionately represented among the nobility and petty kings that came to rule Rahen as the empire broke down in the 700s AA. Over time, this over representation injected a belief in Harimari supremacy, and a conflation of Harimari and Idisari, into a system not necessarily predicated on race - this was especially true in the south, though such attitudes were not absent in Shamakhad either. Aristocratic distaste for mercantile operations and labor walled off the Idisari elite from the bulk of the (majority human) Sarstayri and Hitiyari, and saw very few families or individuals rising from wealthy Sarstayri or distinguished Hitiyari into the upper castes. Those who did tended to be Harimari traders in more mercantile societies or particularly distinguished mages or adventurers in frontier territories - individuals who were too powerful to risk exclusion from the ranks of the Idisari.
Kijaic self-policing compounded the divisions of the Prikarti. Because of fervent and widespread beliefs in the importance of maintaining Tamatma, deviation from norms of expected Kijaic behavior was suspect at best and an active threat to the community at worst. Expulsion from a community or Mob violence against those who failed to meet their Kijaic ritual obligations or who acted outside of cultural norms are well documented phenomenon, and though uncommon were always a potential reality for those who wished to slip the bonds of their lot in life. Locking people into positions they are ill suited for and stifling creative expression scarcely creates a happy and productive population, at least for those who do not conform to cultural expectations, but the ardent belief in the importance of maintaining Tamatma was generally too great a barrier for many communities to allow anything more than the most minor deviations among its member’s behavior.
Negative Consequences[]
Taken together, the behaviors of the individuals operating within these systems severely limited both scientific and economic progress. Despite the vast wealth of Rahen, often noted to be one of the richest areas of Halann, economic growth on the subcontinent was consistently sluggish. Because laborers suffered an extremely difficult time changing profession and finding new work where it existed, the ability of the economy to expand and grow per market demand or bounce back from local disasters was poor, particularly without top-down intervention by the state (some scholars link the long history of centrally managed bureaucracy in Rahen with the caste system - those states that adopted such a system were the only ones able to harness sufficient economic power to rise to prominence given the underlying social mores that otherwise slowed the capacity for growth). The inability of intelligent and motivated individuals to pursue lucrative jobs, create their own enterprises, or provide better job prospects for their children severely limited entrepreneurship, investment, and educational attainment. Even among the otherwise wealthy Sarstayri, the hard walls and ceilings that the caste system’s tenets reinforced tended to silo merchant families into limited operations, preventing horizontal integrations that would increase efficiencies or investments into new methods and research that would improve profitability. Higher learning at universities remained the domain of the Idisari, even if no hard rules on admissions existed and even though woodblock printing had made books available to those of moderate wealth as early as the 500s AA, keeping the scholarly class insular and smaller than it otherwise could have been.
Beyond matters of economics and education, it goes without saying that Prikarti and Kija were not systems that led to an expansion of rights for those living within them. By default, regardless of the racial makeup, the Prikarti system expects a degree of servitude by the lower castes to the higher. Idisari are expected to be obeyed when requests are made of Sartsayri and Hitiyari, and Sartsayri hold the same expectation over the Hitiyari. Though the system and the philosophical writings around it never frame this conception as a series of orders or as bondage of lower castes by those above them, there were certainly many who viewed it this way. Moralistic writings about the obligations of each prikarti abounded, along with admonishments to those who abused their rights to demand aid and service of those below them, but practically many Idisari behaved with imperious expectation towards the other castes and saw them as serfs and bonded servants. Though religious and secular laws saw all within the caste system as free people and forbid interpersonal violence even against those of lower castes, the enforcement of these rules was uneven, particularly when the offender acted against those of lower caste. As with any hierarchical system, enforcing rules of conduct against those of a ruling class requires buy-in from other members of the class, many of whom will share similar attitudes about the severity of a crime and will not take personal offense if one deemed “lesser” is the victim.
Ultimately, for all of its apologists looking at the best case scenario for the caste system, the Adesi was a social order built on hierarchical divisions and inflexibilities that only operated effectively if those individuals counted among the Idisari behaved with generosity and magnanimity towards the Sartsayri and Hidiyari, and which struggled to dynamically adapt to issues because of the many inefficiencies of Kijaic occupational division. Deeply embedded in their religious understanding of the world, Raheni of all castes were largely unable or unwilling to fundamentally undermine this system, instead instituting reforms and modifications within it. As an in-depth look at Raheni history would show, these reforms were all too few and far between to lead to meaningful changes to the system, which was exceptionally good at maintaining itself and the shape of the society it created.