History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c91.56.3

v7.c91.56.3

The Visṇupurāṇa emphasizes that each one must do one's duty in the society in which one is born or one's duty which one has undertaken, that, if a person does this, he reaches the same higher worlds, whether he be a brāhmaṇa or a śūdra. This doctrine is the same as taught in the Bhagavadgītā¹⁴⁸⁵ 18. 45 and 46 'a person secures the highest perfection (final emancipation) by being intent on carrying out the duties appropriate to him; man secures perfection (or bliss) by worshipping with the performance of his peculiar duties (not with flowers and the like or by words) Him from whom all beings proceed and by whom all this (world) is enveloped'. Ancient works like the Vedas, Jaimini's sūtras on Mīmāṁsā and the Vedāntasūtras did not consider or discuss how women or śūdras were to secure higher spiritual life and final Beatitude. The Vedāntasūtra (I. 3. 34–38) denies to the śūdra the right to study the Veda and the Upaniṣads. Buddha's teaching held out the same promise of liberation from suffering to all men irrespective of class or caste and was therefore most attractive to śūdras. The Bhagavadgītā and the Purāṇas changed the whole outlook of Indian society, high or low, and promised the same higher spiritual life or worlds to all who did their work under a sense of social duty, did not hanker after mundane rewards and brought all their actions, in whatever avocation they might be engaged, as an offering to God.