The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s7.5

c9.s7.5

This interpretation, based as it is on Yāska's *Nirukta*, Aupamanyava and Sāyana (*Rig.* I, 7, 9) is evidently wrong, says Zimmer in *Altindisches Leben* (Berlin 1879, pp. 119-120). The five *janāsah*, *jātāh*, *kritayah*, *kriṣtayah*, *mānuṣāh* etc. of the *Rig Veda* refer, according to Zimmer, to the five leading Aryan races, Yadu, Anu, Druhyu, Turvaśa and Puru. But the reference to the complex of four castes *plus* Niṣāda is not without significance, for it indicates the orientations of scholars during the period of Yāska's *Nirukta* (c 500 B.C.).