The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c18.29

c18.29

Such despised professional castes we have in the Veṇas and Rathakâras who are reckoned in the already-quoted passages of the Assalāyana Sutta and the Suttavibhaṅga among the low castes (hīnajāti) : these are the castes of the "bamboo-worker" and "carriage-builder." Precisely in the example of the Veṇas we can get, in my opinion, a view of the probable origin of the despised professional castes and a proof of the theory that originally they were nothing else than low races. For when the Aryans pushed to the Gangetic plains and found peoples unacquainted with agriculture or metal work occupied solely with bamboo work or similar things, nothing was more natural than that they should give them names after the material with which they worked. Thus they named those who worked with bamboo (veṇu) bamboo-workers (veṇa or vaiṇa). In a similar manner they must have named another race which possessed special skill in making carriages, carriage builders, after its principal industrial product.