Caste and Race in India c11.12

c11.12

With the progressive assimilation of the Vaiśyas with the Śūdras the Brahmins enacted rules to keep their group free from admixture with them by assigning different status to the issue of the union of a Brahmin male and a Vaiśya female. And with the march of time and particularly after the overthrow of Buddhism they stopped taking food at the hands of the Vaiśyas. Owing to the peculiar position of the Kshatriyas, the king having belonged to that group, in theory at least the Brahmins did not prohibit food being taken at their hands. Yet they tried to preserve their racial purity by treating the offspring of a Brahmin male and a Kshatriya female as belonging to a separate group.