[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928) › c19.4 # The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c19.4 The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c19.4 - **Language:** English ### [c19.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c19.4) As the Râjatarangiṇî and later accounts prove, caste in Kashmir assumed a form different from those which prevailed elsewhere in North India. The fourfold division was certainly known but it lacked rigidity. There was a sharp division between Brâhmaṇas and Śûdras and a still sharper one between Brâhmaṇas and untouchables. The number of Kṣatriyas and Vaiśyas was small. There are, indeed, some clans of Râjaputras, redoubtable warriors,¹ but there is a passage which shows that these were not native to Kashmir.² The number of Brâhmaṇas was so large that the priests practically separated themselves from the ordinary Brâhmaṇas. They organised themselves into corporations in numerous places, became a power in the land and threatened or carried out hunger-strikes.³ Many Brâhmaṇas took service under the government and, as petty officials and clerks, were included in the generic term Kâyastha.⁴ There is a record that all Brâhmaṇas were once exempted from capital punishment⁵ but the subsequent narrative does not show that the privilege was universally respected. In marriage the restrictions of caste were disregarded more frequently than in the plains of the north. For instance, in the early years of the eleventh century A.D., King Saṃgrâmarâja married his daughter to a Brâhmaṇa state officer.⁶ The mother of King Jayâpīḍa was the daughter of a petty liquor-trader.⁷ In the tenth century king Cakravarman made a ḍom, a woman of the very lowest class, his chief queen.⁸ High office was within the reach of men of low birth. In the ninth century A.D., one of the chief officers, an engineer of Avantivarman, was a foundling.⁹ The son of a Vaiśya who was a watchman in a temple, rose to be the chief minister of another king.¹⁰ - [Previous: c19.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c19.3) - [Next: c19.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c19.5) - [Up: c19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c19) ## Linked texts (1) - [Rājataraṅgiṇī](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.historical.kashmir.rajatarangini) — Kalhaṇa, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c19.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c19.4) · Pramāṇa