  The effects of nonperturbatively generated ``quark sea'' have been
investigated to determine the flavor structure of the octet baryons. The chiral
constituent quark model ($\chi$CQM), which is known to provide a satisfactory
explanation of the proton spin and related issues in the nonperturbative
regime, is able to explain the qualitative generation of the requisite amount
of quark sea. The importance of quark sea has been studied at different values
of the Bjorken scaling variable $x$ by including it phenomenologically in the
sea quark distribution functions. The results for the quark sea asymmetries
like $\bar d(x)-\bar u(x)$, $\bar d(x)/\bar u(x)$ and Gottfried integral for
the octet baryons strengthen the significance of quark sea at lower values of
$x$.
