The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.225

v1.c15.225

Before the end of the period covered by the hymns of the Rigveda a belief in the divine origin of the four orders of men was fully established; but there is nowhere in the Rigveda any indication of the castes into which these orders were afterwards subdivided¹. The word ‘colour’ is still used in its literal sense. There are as yet only two *varṇas*, the light and the dark. But in the next period, the period of the Yajurveda and the Brāhmaṇas, the term denotes ‘a social order’ independently of any actual distinction of colour, and we hear for the first time of mixed *varṇas*, the offspring of parents belonging to different social orders.