The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c12.33

c12.33

¹ The etymology of *rájañña* speaks no doubt against this view. In Sanskrit *rájanya* means "princely, royal" and "one belonging to the royal family," and if *rájañña* in Pali preserved this meaning, the word *rájaññakula* must, as it is done in Pischel's translation, be translated by 'royal family.' But, as is well-known, Pali words have very often deviated from the Sanskrit etymology and that *rájañña*, at least in this passage of the Assalâyana Sutta, cannot have the meaning of the Sanskrit *rájanya* seems to me beyond doubt, because otherwise, the concept 'princely, royal' would be repeated twice, once through khattiya and a second time through *rájañña*. To describe Khattiyakula, as "warrior family" and to look upon the scale, khattiyakula, brâhmaṇakula, *rájaññakula*, as an ascending one, is opposed to the terminology of Pali texts of that time and that found in the Assalâyana Sutta, which was to understand by khattiyas the princely or royal families and to give in an enumeration of castes, the highest rank, the first and foremost position to the khattiya.