The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c14.s1.9

c14.s1.9

It is interesting that the scheme of the four varṇas, though at first sight an obvious principle of classification, does not enter the picture of the ratnins. Only the *Śatapatha* half-heartedly tries to introduce the four varṇa scheme. Nor does it play a significant role elsewhere in the rājasūya, except in the dicing ceremony, where, according to some texts, the four players represent the four varṇas; but other texts mention, instead of them, kinsmen or sūtagrāmaṇī and kṣattṛ-saṃgrahītṛ as participants in the game.¹⁷ The fourfold scheme here would seem to be a different, earlier conception of the four classical varṇas. The four parties are not varṇas in the classical sense of rigidly separated “castes” shunning intermarriage, but on the contrary, marriage classes, whose essential unity is expressed by a circulative marriage system. It is interesting that the *sūta*, the *kṣattṛ*, and the *ugra* are in the dharma literature considered as the offspring of "mixed" marriages, and as the texts state, after a number of such marriages, the fifth generation returns to the original varṇa.¹⁸