History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c19.9.6

v2.c19.9.6

In this verse brāhmaṇas are expressly said to be getting 'brahma' ready. 'May Agni who devours everything make that (dead body) free from disease and (may) soma also (do the same) who entered into the brāhmaṇas' (Ṛg. X. 16. 6). 'When the brāhmaṇas worship together as friends in hymns (lit. speed of the mind) that are fabricated from their hearts' (Ṛg. X. 71. 8). In Ṛg. VI. 75. 10 brāhmaṇas are invoked for welfare along with pitṛs. This shows that the brāhmaṇas were highly venerated. The other verses establish that they were the reciters of hymns (brahma) and drank soma. In Ṛg. VIII. 35. 16-18 we read 'You (Aśvins) urge on (or inspire) brahma, you urge on our thoughts (or actions), you kill the evil spirits and subdue diseases; (17) you urge kṣatra (valour) and also men, you kill evil spirits (same as 16); (18) you urge on the cows and also the Viś (the rest is same as 16).' Here it seems that the groups of people (viz. those who think and make songs, those who show valour and lead men, and those common people who tend cattle) are clearly meant. These verses may be conceded as pointing to the existence of three groups (brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas and viśaḥ) but there is nothing in them to show that these three had crystallised into somewhat like the castes of later times. In Ṛg. VII. 33. 11 Vasiṣṭha is addressed as brahman, but that does not mean that he was a brāhmaṇa (by birth), as he is said to have been born of Urvaśī from Mitra and Varuṇa. Similarly, in Ṛg. IX. 96.