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I'm not sure that the Indian caste system is the best argument for eugenics or even a central example of it. Sure, the maintenance of genetically distinct Jati over thousands of years of close contact is impressive in its own way, but the end result seems to me more dystopian than anything else, with a tiny population of highly successful Brahmins lording it over a majority living in worse squalor than most of Africa. Meanwhile China, where there was to my knowledge no intentional eugenics of the sort you attribute to other ancient societies, has today a much more uniformly successful population than India by nearly any metric you care to use. Even if the average Brahmin is smarter than the average Chinese person, which I could believe (are there any IQ statistics on Indian subgroups?), I can't say I think it was worth it.
I did not bring it up as an argument for eugenics, I am citing it to prove eugenic thinking in ancient time. I am not familiar with Chinese history except that it's a long history of being conquered and subjugated, making their genetic lineage not very straightforward. I seriously doubt there were no elements of eugenic societal organizations there, i.e. inherited priestly or chieftain function, but I don't know nearly as much about that ancient history and there is already a huge wealth of examples in ancient Aryan civilizations to prove the point I was making.
Saying that the Indian caste system is not a central example of eugenic thinking... again, I just have to scratch my head wondering what you are smoking to not see this tradition as a central example of eugenic thinking. Not necessarily something to emulate, but to disprove the point he was making "oh, it's better the ancients invented writing than eugenics." They did invent eugenics, and it was central to their religions and civic society.
We could do much better with technology and knowledge of the biology of inheritance. But eugenic thinking is at least as old as writing.
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