The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.229

v1.c15.229

Neglect of these fundamental considerations has led to much discrepancy among writers on the early social history of India. Students of the Brāhman books have asserted that the caste-system existed substantially in the time of the Yajurveda (say 1000–800 B.C.): students of the Buddhist books have emphatically declared that no traces of the system in its later sense are to be detected in the age of Buddha (c. 563–483 B.C.). Both parties have forgotten that they were dealing with different regions of Northern India—the former with the country of the Kurus and Pañchālas, the home of Brāhmanism (the Delhi Division of the Punjab with the north-western Divisions of the Province of Agra), the latter with Kosala and Videha, the home of Buddhism (Oudh and N. Bihār). They have forgotten, too, that the records, on which they depend for their statements, are utterly distinct in character. On the one hand, the Brāhman books are permeated with social ideas which formed the very foundation of their religion: on the other hand, the Buddhist books regard any connexion between social status and religion as accidental rather than essential.