Kshatriya
क्षत्रिय kṣatriyaThe second varna: the class of rulers, warriors, and administrators, charged with protection, justice, and governance. Kings and the epic heroes are Kshatriyas; the Bhagavad Gita is spoken to the Kshatriya Arjuna about his duty in war.
Where this term appears
- The caste system: what Hinduism says Essentials
Kshatriyas are the rulers and warriors, charged with protection and justice.
- The Gayatri Mantra Worship
The king who was not a brahmin Vishvamitra was born a kshatriya.
- What is bhakti? Essentials
The Kashikavritti , nearly a thousand years later, says the name is that of a particular deity and not the designation of a kshatriya, reasoning that a famous kshatriya would already fall under the next rule.
- What is the Sri Yantra? Lineages
…roup offers there: offerings in that chakra by brahmins with milk, by kshatriyas with ghee, by vaishyas with honey and by shudras with mead.
- Samaya: the fetter and who was spared it Lineages
Manu 11.127 is explicit: a quarter of the brahmin-killing penance for killing a kshatriya, an eighth for a vaishya, a sixteenth for a virtuous shudra.
- The Nisvasa: the oldest tantra, and what it does not yet know Lineages
The Mulasutra sets it out at 8.6: a brahmin after three, four or five years, a Kshatriya after six, seven or eight, a Vaishya after ten or twelve, and a Shudra after twenty.
- The Svacchanda Tantra: the fight over what was in the cup Lineages
…e 'thavā priye sarve te samadharmāṇaḥ śivadharme niyojitāḥ "Brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas, shudras, or others besides, my dear: all of them have the same duties, being yoked to the observance of Shiva." — Svac…
- Reading the Bhagavad Gita in the modern world Journal
For Arjuna the meaning is specific and uncomfortable. He is a kshatriya , a warrior.