    49

    ma

    rry a Brahman girl.  The members of the Iranian race were treated as

    Ubermenschen--overmen.

    Why did the Hindu religion tell its adherents to go with the flow,

    to abhor the things of this world, to set aside earthly desires, to hope

    only for an improvement of their lot after this life is over?  Because

    Hinduism was designed to keep the conquered shudras in their place.

    It told those trapped in the lower castes to be content with their

    humiliation and shun the appalling actions that might spring from

    desire and discontent.  It instructed them never  to overthrow their

    Iranian masters.

    A brilliant invention made the society work: specialization.  An

    entire class of human beings was consigned to agriculture for a

    lifetime.  Another class was given the lifelong specialty of warfare.

    Presumably, perpetual practice made each better at his craft.  And, of

    course, there were the specialists in religion who spent their time

    suppressing vanity and desire--the two things that could have torn the

    pecking order apart.  For desire would have made those pinned in the

    lower orders hanker to move above their humble posts.

    The armies of professional religionists, the priests and monks,

    seemed at first glance to serve no useful economic purpose.  But, in

    fact, they were the keepers of an indispensable meme.  They declared

    that if you had the patience to tolerate imprisonment in a lower caste

    during this life, you would be rewarded by rebirth later in the next

    caste up the ladder.99  If you held still long enough, you could actually

    become an Iranian!

    In a strange way, the Iranian overlords knew that they were

    fashioning a new superorganism from the swallowed pieces of the

    society they'd overwhelmed.  Their ancient chronicle, the  Rig- Veda,

    written in the days when the conquerors were piecing together their

    idyllic new social system, put the argument for superorganism quite

    bluntly.  The Brahmanic priests, said the Veda, were man's mouth.  The

    warriors were his arms.  His thighs were the Vaishyas (the tradesmen

    and landowners).  And the Shudras (the farmers) were his feet!100

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