Jati means “birth” in Sanskrit. In Indian culture, the term Jati broadly represents a traditional social grouping.
There were hundreds of these groupings, which were deemed
exogamous because there were stringent taboos against marrying outside one's
jati—people from various jatis were seen as separate "species" of
humans.
The traditional occupation of the Jatis, which they and they
alone had the right to practice, was frequently used to designate the subgroup.
The jatis were ordered in society in hierarchical order based on the perceived purity or impurity (ashaucha) of their jobs, and this hierarchy provided the foundation for the caste system, a traditional Hindu social structure.
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