The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c15.5

c15.5

Now we meet with the expression Vessa (=Skr. Vaiśya) in Pali texts but only in passages where we have to do with theoretical discussions about the caste-question which, as mentioned above, prove nothing for the real existence of a caste called Vessa. Nowhere do we notice in the Jâtakas—where we should expect to find it first, seeing that they get their materials so often directly from the people—an indication that as a matter of fact a caste which did not comprise Aryans belonging either to the Brâhmaṇa or the Kshatriya caste, did exist. A caste, in the sense of the Brahmanical theory, the Vaiśyas never became even in the western Brahmanical lands; originally, in the oldest Vedic age, a name for the class of cattle-breeding and land-cultivating Aryan settlers, it served later the purpose of the theorising Brâhmaṇas to bind together the unlimited number of social groups.