The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s7.1

c9.s7.1

The *Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa* (III, 4, 2, 13) describes the artists, craftsmen and other professional groups, many of whom belonged to the "lower classes" and perhaps not only culturally but also racially non-Āryan communities. The professional classification of the *viṣ* is to be seen in the *Puruṣamedha*. In II, 4 hypnotising and mesmerising is described as the profession of the Nāgas, the Rākṣasas are known to be skilled in the art of harlequins, and unfair war methods described as the characteristics of Piśāchas. Among the "five newly created Vedas" mentioned in the *Gopatha Brāhmaṇa* (I, 10) of the *Atharva Veda* are to be found the following names: *Sarpa* (*Nāga*)*-veda*, *Asura-veda*, *Piśācha-veda*, *Itihāsa* and *Purāṇa*.²¹ Vedic literature in some of its branches is thus the literature dealing not only with the Aryans but with the non-Aryans as well and indicates at the same time different states of cultural *rapprochement* between the two. In this context the categories, Aryan and non-Aryan, are to be understood in both linguistic and racial senses, in case it is at all permissible to speak of non-Aryan "races" as ethnological groups.