The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s2.23

c2.s2.23

We must remember, again, that if there is any truth at all in the legend of this war and the history of the combatants, then the long-established and noble house of Kurus represented in a modified form a higher degree of civilization than these *nouveaux riches*, these vulgar and modern Pāndus, who not till much later became an established house and men of mark in the civilized community into which they had intruded. Thus it may well have been that the Kurus had really a more developed conscience in the ceremony of right than had the Pāndus, albeit that of both stood far below the plane represented by the priestly poets of subsequent days. The social development of the Kurus was higher, as they had a longer civilization to fall back upon; and we shall perhaps be able to admit that the Kurus’ wrath in the above scene was not wholly *ex parte*, but embodied one of their earlier rules than led afterward to the full code of the completed ethic. Yet we cannot assert for them or their acts any great moral superiority over the Pāndus. Their peculiar sins, however, do seem to smack of a more cultivated wickedness. The Pāndus sin in a very ungentlemanly way. The Kurus sin likewise, but after the manner of adroit and polite rascals. They do not break their smaller laws of propriety. They do not play tricks openly and then exult in them. But they secretly seek to burn the Pāndus alive; they skillfully deceive the Pāndu king at dice and pretend it was fair play; they form a conspiracy and send ten men at once to kill Arjuna; they slay Arjuna's son in order first to weaken the father's heart (later imitated by the Pāndus); they are, in a word, cunning and sly, while the Pāndus are brutal and fierce. But in most cases the crimes of each must have appeared in their nakedness equally shocking to the codified morality of a later era.