Now, just like here is a qualified lawyer, Mr. Goldsmith. He is lawyer. Now, because he is lawyer, his son cannot claim that "Because my father is lawyer, then I am also lawyer." How he can become? The son also must be qualified lawyer. He must pass the bachelor of law degree, examination. Then he can be lawyer. So similarly, here Kṛṣṇa says... Don't misunderstand the Indian caste system as hereditary. No. It is, according to Vedic literature, it is according to the quality.
And what is that quality? Janmanā jāyate śūdraḥ. Janmanā jāyate śūdraḥ: "Anyone who takes his birth, by his birth he's a śūdra." Śūdra means the lowest, in the lowest order. Everyone. Even if he is born in the family of a brāhmaṇa, he is to be considered as a śūdra, janmanā, by birth. And perhaps some of you know that the brāhmaṇas, the kṣatriyas and the vaiśyas, they are called dvija. Dvi means twice, and ja means birth. Twice-born. Twice-born.
The bird is also called twice-born. Why? The bird birth is first of all in the egg. The egg is fermented. Then the real bird comes out. Therefore bird is called in Sanskrit language also dvija, twice-born. Similarly, a man, unless he is twice-born, he is a śūdra. Twice-born. How is that twice-born? Because by birth anyone, everyone has got some father and mother because without father and mother, there is no question of birth. So the beast has also got father and mother, and the bird has also father and mother. Similarly, a human being has also got father and mother. So this birth, by father and mother, is not sufficient for becoming a dvija. He has to take his birth again.
So janmanā jāyate śūdraḥ saṁskārād bhaved dvijaḥ. Birth. Birth is not all, everything. The culture, saṁskāra. Saṁskāra means culture. One has to take his birth, rebirth, by culture, by education, by knowledge. That is called cultural birth. So unless one is in the cultural birth, he is to be considered the lower grade person, or the śūdra.
So therefore the system in the, according to varṇāśrama-dharma, that not only by birth, before birth, when the father and mother is going to be combined to beget a child, there are cultural saṁskāras or reformatory measures. How much carefully these things are. They wanted first-class son, not sons like cats and dogs, first-class son. So there is some saṁskāra. There is some purificatory measures, which is called garbhādhāna-saṁskāra. Garbhādhāna means pregnancy, the cultural ceremony before making the mother pregnant. And it is enjoined, you will find in the Bhāgavata, that any family, the brāhmaṇas, the kṣatriyas and vaiśyas, if they give up this garbhādhāna-saṁskāra, birth-giving ceremony, then that family turns immediately to the classification of the śūdras.