The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s9.12

c9.s9.12

But the word Aryan in the text is not to be taken as equivalent to Ārya. The commentary renders it as equivalent to *svāmi* (master) or Vaiśya. In that case Śūdra cannot be taken as = *Non-Aryan*. The verse points to the social conditions under which the Vaiśya as well as Śūdra are likely to be dscriminated against by the privileged classes. But the reformist tendency of the hymn is evident all the same, and we understand that the privileged classes are making a clean breast of what they may have committed against the unprivileged. In any case, the verse embodies an ideal of societal reconstruction according to somewhat more democratic and humane lines. And that is a strand of Vedic thought to which the Śākyan ideology is the most akin.