'The mixing or confusion of varnas.' In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna fears that war will cause varna-sankara and social breakdown. The term is central to debates over whether classical texts endorse a rigid hereditary order or merely assume the society of their time.

Where this term appears

• The caste system: what Hinduism says Essentials →

  … and Arjuna's own anguish at the start of the poem includes a fear of varna-sankara , "the confusion of varnas," the social chaos he thinks war will bring.

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