Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c12.s5.4

c12.s5.4

Then we meet a number of low races in our stories. The *Pānas*, also known as *Cāṇḍālas*, were employed to carry corpses.⁴⁴ We read in the *Antagaḍa* that Kanha Vāsudeva asked the *Pānas* to drag the dead body out and throw it⁴⁵ away. They also attended the burial ground; they had no houses of their own and lived outside the villages under the open sky.⁴⁶ Then there were the *Dombas*, who sang songs and sold winnowing basket and such other articles. Then there were the *Kiṃkas* who prepared the leather-fittings around the musical instruments and blew them before the criminals carried for execution. To the same category of despised classes belonged the *Sovāgas*, who cooked the flesh of dogs and sold bow-string (*tanti*). The *Varuḍas* earned their bread by making ropes.⁴⁷