Sanskrit and the people who spoke it?

As I told earlier Hinduism cannot be called a religion it is rather a culture with roots in Vedic Dharma or Sanathana Dharma.Vedas originated in the banks of saraswati (And it cannot be defined by one or two posts here.)

Due to various reasons(natural calamities,Overpopultion,drying up of rivers etc) the saraswati people migrated to other parts of the country and settled on the banks of other rivers along with them they took their beliefs and religions also.All these new societies had their structure common the division of society on the basis of Varnas.

Brahmins : the priestly class who carried out the religious riuals and monitored customs and practices.

Kshatriyas : The warrior class who specialized in weapons and protected their settlements from outsiders/invadrers

Vaisyas(baniyas/panis) : The trader class who used to trade with other settlements or cities and earned revenue.

Shudras : the worker class who carried out all the works including farming.

Vedas ,Upanishads & most Puranas are called “Sruthi”  which means direct revelation through mouth and other texts ie some puranas,Epics and others are called “Smrithi” which means recollection or memory.

All the religious rituals and customs are based on Vedas.

There are 4 vedas.

Rik,Yajur,Sama & Atharva.

Most of the Brahmins in India follows the first two Vedas.Some learn the third veda also.

Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala are Sroutha Brahmins who learns all Vedas and perform fire rituals like agni cayana & agnistoma.All other Brahmins are Smarta Brahmins

Dixit Brahmins of Karnataka and Maharashtra are Yajurvedi Brahmins they learn only Yajurveda.Yajurveda has two sects 1) Krishna Yajurveda & Shukla Yajurveda of which they are Krishna Yajurvedins.

Kulkarni Brahmins of Maharashtra are Shukla Yajurvedins..

Iyer Brahmins of Tamil Nadu are Rigvedi Brahmins.

Vajpayee Brahmins of North India(UP) are those who perform the ritual of Vajapeya during  Yajnas.

Similarly all Brahmins of India are associated to one or other veda and they are the priestly class of their particular locality.

There are basically 4 classes of Kshatriyas.

1)      Surya Vanshi 2) Chandra Vanshi 3) Agni Vanshi 4) Naga Vanshi

Maharana Pratap Singh of Mewar was a Shisodaya Rajput who belonged to Surya Vansh.Rathore Kurmi,Bedi & many others comes under Surya Vansh

The Rajputs Jadejas, Tomars , Chandels  & many others comes under Chandra Vansha

 The Pruthvi Raj Chauhan the last Hindu king of Delhi belonged to Agni Vansh The Rajputs Chauhan,Pawar ,Solanki,Vaghela and many others comes under AgniVansh.

Nairs,Nambiars,Samantha Kshatriyas,Kodavas  and others comes under Naga Vansh.

Baniyas or Vaishyas are the trader class of India.

And all other farming and working population comes under Shudra class.

All thses groups have different surnames based on the place they belong to,the language they speak and the nature of their occupation. But their religio-philosophical thoughts are based on Vedas only.

Discrimination based on castes was an evil practice which came into being due to the hunger for power and it was never suggested anywhere in any spiritual books.

In India from North to south & East to west we have several micro and macro societies which functioned in the above mentioned manner.All were having common roots but rituals & customs varied from place to place.But they were never part of different religions, was part of Sanathana Dharma only.And even villages all over india had their own governing bodies and their societies were divided according to the varnas.The village heads of north India were called Mukhiya,Sarpanj,Choudhary etc.In TamilNadu they were called as "Nattamai".In kerala they were called Madambi.

They were the rulers of the area they(village head) had a small army or a group of people who practiced martial arts to protect their village from outsiders.Village had its farming class & Trader class.