By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D., Anthropology (UCLA)
(I used the World History Encyclopedia as an informational base, but integrated and reinterpreted it within the Anunnaki Domination v Partnership framework)
3500–1500 BCE: ANUNNAKI PRINCESS INANNA/SHAKTI BESTOWED TANTRIC TEMPLES ALONG THE INDUS & GANGES RIVERS
Enki’s expedition settled the northwest wedge of ancient India long before the Vedic bards shaped their verses. Inanna arrived there as well, fierce and radiant, and generations of valley peoples remembered her as Shakti, the kinetic feminine blast of raw force, and later as Kali, the destroyer of domination and the liberator of the enslaved.
Indus priestesses placed their emblem on seals. Shepherd clans who migrated from Baluchistan carried stories of the sky lords who taught them irrigation and trance disciplines.
Villagers recalled her: Inanna descended here. She showed us how a woman. She channels storm-fire yet shares food with strangers. She punishes kings who enslave workers.
Partnership currents surged across the Indus plain. Women joined councils. Clans traded with no thought of caste or hereditary pollution. Dominator patterns still appeared, but no lineage was able to freeze superiority into law.
INDUS VALLEY’S ANUNNAKI PRINCESS INANNA/SHAKTI BESTOWED TANTRIC TEMPLES ALONG THE INDUS & GANGES RIVERS
ARYANS ARRIVED & ALIGNED WITH INANNA-SHAKTI (c. 1500 BCE)
Aryan clans crossed the passes with their herds and felt Shakti’s presence in the winds. They honored her under titles that echoed her Sumerian persona: war-lover, protector of women, giver of ecstatic insight. Their poets pictured her as the fury behind lightning and the wild generosity behind harvests.
They worshiped her beside Agni’s fire and called her the womb of heroic birth. Those early centuries still held flexibility. A man could rise through valor. A woman could choose her partner. Priests advised, but did not lock status by blood.
But older villagers remembered the balance.
When she flew off again for Sumer, one old man in Harrappa told his cohorts, Shakti prefers women choosing lovers without fear.
I liked the tantra sessions she made me and my buddies attend in her tantra temple after we fought our enemies, before we could go back to life in town.
In my sessions with the old crone who taught me how to bring women to satisfaction, I had to make love with her using all the tantra techniques she taught. Later, I could use what she taught for sex with girls in town.
But I dislike Shakti’s arrogance; women other than Anunnaki should obey their fathers and husbands, a sentiment.
Aryans brought a patriarchal perspective to Inanna/Shakti’s framework. The male demand for control gradually hardened: the fourfold Varna [functional classes based on occupation], which had been but a functional guide, evolved, over time, into an increasingly rigid caste system.
VEDIC VARNAS FORMED (c. 1500–1000 BCE)
Clans organized their populations into four main categories: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. The ancient Purusha hymn proclaimed that creation itself divided the cosmic body. Kings loved this imagery because it naturalized hierarchy.
Yet in those early centuries, birth still did not fix destiny. A trader’s son studied with Brahmins. A Shudra child joined warriors on campaign. Women of every Varna still gathered in circles that mirrored the old Shakti rites.
The partnership spark endured.
But domination slowly fermented inside each group.
VARNAS BECAME CASTES (c. 1200 BCE)
Each Varna shaped its identity through its duties. Each also cultivated its own form of in-group solidarity—partnership within, hierarchy without.
BRAHMIN PRIESTS
Brahmins taught the hymns and guarded ritual precision. They advised kings. They claimed the mouth of Purusha, the place of divine speech.
A proud Brahmin spoke to his students, We hold the knowledge and shape justice.
We must avoid pollution from improper unions.
He warned the students against women from lower castes—except when he himself desired them. Domination always carries hypocrisy.
KSHATRIYA WARRIORS
Kshatriyas governed territories and trained in war. Kshatriya women learned archery beside their brothers and held command when kings died in battle.
A warrior sharpened his blade as he spoke: I guard our people. I owe loyalty to my guru, but I trust my sword more.
I choose my wives from all castes, but no one decides for my sisters.
Partnership currents lingered in warrior brotherhoods and in the equality of Kshatriya daughters, but domination surged when kings sought rivals to crush.
VAISHYA MERCHANTS
Vaishyas built the economy—farmers, traders, herders. They fed everyone and expected respect for their labor.
A Vaishya merchant boasted: My cattle fatten this kingdom. My caravans bring wealth. I pay the priests only when they earn it.
Their solidarity strengthened internal partnership, but greed often triggered the exploitation of Shudras.
SHUDRA FARMERS
Shudras worked as artisans, laborers, attendants, and agriculturalists. Their duties grounded society.
A Shudra woman carrying water paused and said: I serve because the law demands it
I know my strength; I see the others forget that none stands without us.
Shakti honored Shudras. Brahmin law codes did not.
DOMINATION HARDENED: CASTE OSSIFIED
Over centuries, each Varna converted its role into entitlement.
Brahmins demanded more gifts.
KhKings ignored their gurus and waged wars for personal ambition.
Vaishyas cheated in trade. Shudras, who were often oppressed, sometimes stole to survive.
By 700 BCE, the old Varna duties no longer guided conduct.
Status drifted from earned to inherited.
Caste endogamy became rigid.
Ritual purity rules ballooned into a suffocating web.
SEX, POWER, AND CASTE ENDOGAMY
Men who slept with lower-caste women faced purification rites.
Women who slept with lower-caste men faced death. Domination constantly policed female sexuality with lethal force.
Brahmin lawgivers wrote rules that reinforced male privilege and punished female autonomy.
A Brahmin elder declared: Women must protect lineage purity. Men recover. Women do not.
Kshatriya women scoffed: Shakti chooses lovers across caste. Why not us?
Partnership currents gasped but still flickered in village women’s circles.
RETURNING WARRIORS & TANTRIC CRONES
Young men came home from battles poisoned with domination. They learned killing, rivalry, and contempt. Villages refused to accept them until the tantric crones—elder priestesses in Shakti’s line—resocialized them.
The teaching-crones guided the returning soldiers. The crones used trance and breath-control, and when the soldiers were entranced, they facilitated their surrender of rage, fear, and grief that had accompanied their fighting.
The crone looked deeply into the eyes of a young Kshatriya soldier’s forehead, and said, You left as a son but have returned as a killer. But I wash the blood from your mind so your wife will not fear you.
Only when they released their emotions, learned the techniques of pleasing a woman and giving a woman ejaculatory orgasms, did the crones release them to re-enter town life, please their wives, and interact peacefully with the people of their town.
THE CRONE AND THE RETURNING WARRIOR
The crone looked deeply into the eyes of a young Kshatriya soldier’s forehead.
She said, You left as a son but have returned as a killer.
But I wash the blood from your mind so your wife will not fear you.
SUB-VARNAS MULTIPLIED
As North India’s population grew and regional cultures blossomed, Varna categories splintered into hundreds of sub-groups.
Jains declared that only one human Varna existed.
Migrants, converts, and mixed-heritage clans created new castes. The old fourfold system became ambiguous, claimed by everyone and no one.
India’s spiritual landscape diversified. Buddhists, Jains, Saivites, and Shaktas argued. Shakti’s worship spread among the marginalized—those crushed under Brahminical domination.
Muslim dynasties rose. Local Hindus adapted their caste norms under new rulers. Christian communities developed their own caste-like hierarchies. Partnership arose in places, but domination remained the central thread of power.
THE BRITISH ARRIVED AND FROZE CASTE INTO ADMINISTRATION (1757–1947 CE)
British officials studied India and filed its people into rigid categories they mistakenly called “ancient.” Their census-takers turned fluid identities into fixed bureaucratic labels.
A British officer noted: The natives insist on countless castes. We record them for ease of governance.
Another whispered privately: Their system mirrors our class obsession, only with more theology attached.
British rule amplified the ossification. Communities once mobile became locked by documentation that never existed before.
ANCESTRY, MEMORY & MODERN RESISTANCE (c. 1947–Present)
Modern India reinterprets its heritage. Some uphold caste as a sacred order.
Others fight domination with ferocity.
Dalit leaders invoke Kali, another facet of Inanna/Ishtar, as revolutionary mother.
Feminists reclaim partnership models from the Indus and early Shakti rites.
Young people challenge endogamy. Mixed-caste couples meet violent opposition but persist anyway.
The partnership spark—Inanna’s spark—burns again.
ASHOKA APPROACHES: THE MOMENT OF TURNING (c. 260 BCE)
Before Ashoka embraced Buddhism, he presided over a realm soaked in conquest. He ruled as an ideal Kshatriya—disciplined, ambitious, victorious. But the carnage at Kalinga shattered him. His transformation belongs to our next article.
For now, the story closes with the world waiting:
The king rides home from a great victory, sees corpses along the river and wispers, Enough.
Soon, he turns against domination itself.
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