>>512979417
It is very hard to explain and no one truly completely understands it barring the history autists and the traditionalist religious leaders who spent their entire lives studying it
There are 2 distinctions. Varna, meaning religious duty/classification, and Jati, meaning ancestral job.
The Varna has 4 parts. Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras. Brahmins are the hindu priestly class who composed the Vedas (the Saraswat Brahmins did it to be specific), tasked with rituals, worshipping, maintaining temples, ritual rights (only a Brahmin can invoke the gods in fire rituals) and above all oral memorisation of the scriptures and passing them down. Infact, writing down the Vedas is forbidden. The brahmins are philosophers/theologicians of hinduism.
Kshatriyas are the soldiers /rulers/warrior class tasked with the wars and police work.
Vaishyas are merchants and traders
Shudras do crafts, pottery, blacksmithing, stonesmithing, farming, cattle herding
leather worker. Here is where it starts to get blurry. Beyond these 4 lie the Avarnas, a- prefix means negation, aka without Varna, aka dalits in modern terminology. In jobs like animal herding, cleaning etc the line between Shudra and Dalit is blurred.
Jati is the ancestral job guild your ancestors were in
For brahmins their Varna and Jati is same, aka brahmins. Some brahmins took up weapons for war and there Jati of further classified. For Kshatriya it gets classified same some became merchants, some Vaishyas took up weapons . It is too confusing from vaishya shudra part even for me. Most marry within their Jati. A north indian Saraswat brahmin marrying a South Indian Tamil brahmin is quiet rare.
I can't explain more as even I am confused beyond this
Many castes got sanskritised. Many trials got sanskritised to hindu castes. Different scriptures state laws on how a sub caste can fall and rise based on actions