South and Central Asian Peoples

This subcategory gathers social groups documented within the historical caste and community structure of South Asia, including the varna groupings Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra, the Dalit communities historically placed outside that system, and the Rajput warrior and landholder community. These are hereditary social-status and kinship groups rather than ethnic or linguistic peoples in the narrower sense, and their placement here reflects the documented ethnographic literature on South Asian social stratification. This group does not cover the institutional account of caste as a stratification system, which the Institutions and Social Structures type carries under Stratification Systems.