Vedic Wisdom: On Race-Mixing

From the Bhagavad Gita:

The destruction of a family destroys its cultural traditions, and when the cultural traditions are no more, unrighteousness overcomes the whole family.

When unrighteous disorder prevails, the women sin and are impure; and when women are not pure there is disorder of castes, social confusion. 

This disorder carries down to hell the family and the destroyers of the family. The spirits of their dead suffer in pain when deprived of the ritual offerings.

Those evil deeds of the destroyers of a family, which cause this social disorder, destroy righteousness of birth and the ancestral traditions. 

- Chapter 1, verses 40-43



From the Laws of Manu:

Men who are so infatuated as to marry women of low caste quickly reduce their families, including the descendants, to the status of non-Aryans.

A man falls when he weds a non-Aryan woman, or when he has a son by her, or when he has any children by her.

An Aryan who climbs into bed with a non-Aryan woman goes to hell; if he begets a son in her, he loses the status of Aryan.

The Ancestors and the gods do not eat the offerings to the gods, to the Ancestors, and to guests that such a man makes with her, and so he does not go to heaven.

No redemption is prescribed for a man who drinks the saliva from the lips of a non-Aryan woman or is tainted by her breath or begets her son.

- Chapter 3, verses 15-19



Continuing from the Laws of Manu:

An unknown man, of no visible caste but born of a defiled woman, and thus no Aryan, may seem to have the form of an Aryan, but he can be discovered by his own innate activities.

Un-Aryan behavior, harshness, cruelty, and habitual failure to perform the rituals are the manifestations in this world indicating that man is born of a defiled womb.

A man born of a bad womb shares his father's character, or his mother's, or both; but he can never suppress his own nature.

A man born of the confusion of wombs, even if he comes from a leading family, will inherit that very character, to a greater or lesser degree.

But the kingdom in which these degraded bastards are born, defiling the castes, quickly perishes, together with the people who live there.

- Chapter 10, verses 57-61

Continuing from the Laws of Manu:

If someone born from an Aryan [man] in a non-Aryan woman produces a child with someone of the higher caste, the lower caste reaches the status of birth of the higher caste after the seventh generation.

Thus a non-Aryan attains the rank of Aryan, and the Aryan sinks to the rank of non-Aryan; and you should know that this can happen to someone born of a ruler, too, or of a commoner.

But if this question should arise: "Which is higher, someone born by chance from an Aryan father in a non-Aryan mother, or from a non-Aryan father in a mother of Aryan caste?"

This is the decision: "Someone born from an Aryan father in a non-Aryan woman may become an Aryan in his qualities; but someone born from a non-Aryan father in an Aryan mother is non-Aryan."

The law has been established: neither of these may undergo the transformative rituals, because the birth of the former is deficient in Aryan characteristics, and the latter is born "against the grain".

Just as good seed, sown in a good field, culminates in a birth, so the son born from an Aryan father in an Aryan mother deserves every transformative ritual.

Some wise men value the seed, others the field, and still others both the seed and the field; but this is the final decision on the subject:

Seed sown in the wrong field perishes right inside it; and a field by itself with no seed also remains barren.

- Chapter 10, verses 64-72

Continuing from the Laws of Manu:

Comparing a non-Aryan who carries out the innate activities of an Aryan and an Aryan who carries out the innate activities of a non-Aryan, the Creator said, "The two are neither equal nor non-equal."

- Chapter 10, verse 73