Some more points:
- 4 yugas -> kruta, treta, dvapara, kali.
- There's a sloka: Mandhataca maheepatih krutayugalankara bhootogatah ... (read that in my school).
- There's pralayam after every yuga, not just kali.
- In one of the pralayams, Krishna is believed to have appeared as a child on a ... leaf (Aalilai krishnan in Tamil).
- After kruta yuga, Mandhata (or someone else) is believed to have collected specimens of var. plants & animals to avoid complete destruction of life after the pralayam.
- The cause of the pralayams are supposed to be different for each yuga, A.Krishna->Water (floods), Kali Yuga->Fire (which's why many say that the world is nearing destruction, with the growing no. of cases of death due to fire, 9/11, plane-crashes resulting in fire, etc.)
- It could be that one of the pralayams has something to do with the last ice age (that's my own imagination).
- It is believed that initially castes weren't inherited by progeny & could be chosen. i.e. castes were initially identified with the profession. Later on some people started calling them "upper castes" & started casteism, etc. This is also from my school textbook. But there are other references. Viswamitra becoming a brahmarishi though he was a kshatriya by birth.
- It is mentioned in the Vedas that Brahmins come from the head, ..., Shudras from the feet of (God?Brahman?...?). This could have meant that the intellectuals formed the class of Brahmins, the ones who were fit enough to do hard work from the Shudras (remember the feet have to carry 'heavy loads'), etc.
- Later on people started interpreting it as brahmins > shudras
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