◊       Another beautiful metaphor for varnas comes from the writings[9] of Shri Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888 – 1975), former President of India and a Vedic scholar of immense international repute says,

Māyā evolves a variety of names and forms, which in their totality is the jagat or the Universe. It conceals the eternal Brahman under this aggregate of names and forms. Māyā has two functions of concealment of the real and the projection of the unreal. The world of variety screens us from the real.

Some think Creation’s meant to show him forth,
I say it’s meant to hide him all it can.

Browning, “Bishop Blougram’s Apology”

“In Hindu thought, māyā is not so much a veil as the dress of God.” A dress serves two purposes – it hides and it displays. Likewise māyā can be likened to a scrim. A scrim is a thin canvas used in theater and opera in order both to show the audience shapes and colors and to hide what is going on backstage…..

The scrim therefore is like varnas , you illumine it from the rear and you can imbibe what is at the back ; you light it from the front and you can project on it like a cinema screen – the same varnas are used to utter the projected, spoken words.