Varṇasaṅkara
Varṇasaṅkara · varṇa-saṅkara, “the mixing of varṇas”
Grammar: masculine noun; a compound of varṇa and saṅkara (mixing): “the mixing of varṇas”, and those born of it.
Meaning: the mixing of varṇas, and the people of mixed varṇa.
In the scriptures: the Brahma Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa says that if women have no proper protection many faults appear, such as the birth of varṇa-saṅkaras (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 8).
The Pratisarga Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa tells that after the Pramara line came to its end, many varṇasaṅkaras were born of the women of the kshatriyas who remained in Gaṅgāsiṃha‘s line, and they lived by vaiśya-vṛtti (Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 4, Chapter 1). After the death of Lakshaṇa, the small kings who remained were tainted by varṇasaṅkaras and stayed in the mleccha kingdom (Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 4, Chapter 3).
In the Brahma Purāṇa: the munis ask Vyāsa by what karma a varṇa falls and by what a śūdra gains brāhmaṇa-hood, and Vyāsa answers with an earlier saṃvāda. On a peak of Himagiri, Devī Pārvatī bowed to Mahādeva Trilocana and asked: by the ripening of which karma are brāhmaṇas and the others born as kshatriyas and the rest, and how does the mixing of the varṇas, anuloma and viloma (varṇa-sāṅkarya), come about? Bhagavān Śiva answered that the four varṇas were formed by their own nature, and that one falls from them by wrong deeds and by giving up one’s svadharma. A vipra who has fallen as far as śūdra-hood falls from Brahma-loka and comes into varṇa-sāṅkarya. A dvija who dies with the remains of a śūdra’s food in his stomach is born a śūdra, even if he kept the sacred fires and performed yajñas, and for this there is no prāyaścitta; whoever dies with the food of any varṇa in his stomach is born in that varṇa (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 223).
Related terms: Varṇa · Jāti
Sources
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 8; Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 4, Chapters 1, 3
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 223