Chandala

"Birth is not the cause, my friend; it is virtues, which are the cause of welfare. Even a Chandala (untouchable) observing the vow is considered a Brahmana by the gods."

"Christianity, which has sprung from Jewish roots and can only be understood as a plant that has come from this soil, represents the counter-movement to every morality of breeding, race or privilege: – it is the anti-Aryan religion par excellence: Christianity the revaluation of all Aryan values, the victory of Chandala values."

"I cannot oversee whether the Semites have not already in very ancient times been in the terrible service of the Hindus: as Chandalas, so that then already certain properties took root in them that belong to the subdued and despised type (like later in Egypt). Later they ennoble themselves, to the extent that they become warriors […] and conquer their own lands and own gods. The Semitic creation of gods coincides historically with their entry into history."

"What a yes-saying Aryan religion, born from the ruling classes, looks like: Manu’s law-book. What a yes-saying Semitic religion, born from the ruling classes, looks like: Mohammed’s law-book, the Old Testament in its older parts. What a no-saying Semitic religion, born from the oppressed classes, looks like: in Indian-Aryan concepts; the New Testament, a Chandala religion. What a no-saying Aryan religion looks like, grown among the dominant classes: Buddhism."

"The Chandala-s must have had the intelligence and even the more interesting side of things to themselves. They were the only ones who had access to the true source of knowledge, the empirical. Add to this the inbreeding of the castes."

"It makes the Jews look like a Chandala race which learns from its masters the principles of making a priestly caste the master which organizes a people."

"The priest is our chandala—he should be condemned, starved, and driven into every kind of desert."

"All innovators of the spirit bear for a time the pallid, fatalistic sign of the Chandala on their brow."

"In a far-fetched departure from Manu’s use of the term, [Nietzsche] relates the concept of Chandala to the psycho-sociological origin of the Jewish national character..."

"More serious is Nietzsche’s uncritical reliance on the flawed translation of the text by Jacolliot, an amateur openly denounced by leading philologists like Friedrich Max Muller. Uncritical reading of this text led Nietzsche to quote mistranslations and later insertions in support of the claim concerning the Chandala (low caste) origins of the Semites, used to attack Christianity in TI and AC. Elst goes on to highlight what Nietzsche missed or omitted in his reading of the text, including not just the actual politics and institutions of the caste system, but also some striking affinities with his own views and teachings. Despite these philological blunders and misjudgements, however, Nietzsche seems to have landed on his feet after all; for in Elst’s view, he did succeed in grasping Manu’s view of man and society."

"Let us recall Adi Shankaracharya’s unequivocal rejection of social exclusions which he felt were not in line with Advaita’s tenets of inclusion and universalism. He says: “....I am that which pervades as a witness in the bodies of all living beings right from Brahma to the tiny ant. One who has the deep conviction that ‘I am That, not any of the objects of perception’, he is a Guru, whether a Chandala or a Brahmana...” (Venkataraman 2014:107)"

"In the Pañcatantra story of the greedy holy man Devasharma, who is cheated of his gold coins by a rogue who comes to win his trust in the garb of a disciple, the unsuspecting guru utters these words while initiating him as his disciple: “Whether he be a śūdra or any other, a caṇḍāla or a sannyāsī, once he is initiated with the Śiva-mantra, smeared with sacred ash, he becomes as auspicious as Śiva Himself.” (Kale 2012:29)"

"If a person has attained the firm knowledge that he is not an object of perception, but is that pure consciousness which shines clearly in the states of waking, dream and deep sleep, and which, as the witness of the whole universe, dwells in all bodies from that of the Creator Brahma to that of the ant, then he is my Guru, irrespective of whether he is an outcaste or a Brahmana. This is my conviction."