Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.213

c10.213

Āpastamba also lays down that the king's court should be adorned by pure and truthful āryas, who were to act as the councillors and judges of the king.¹ In these references the term ārya is rightly interpreted as the member of the first three varṇas.² No śūdra was ever regarded as an ārya, any more than he could be ‘reborn’.³ But it is wrong to think that even during this period the use of the term ārya indicates racial distinction.⁴ Thus the term ārya-kṛta in Pāṇini⁵ evidently means one who is made free.⁶ It is stated in a Buddhist text that among the Kāmbojas and Yavanas the āryas become dāsas and the dāsas become āryas,⁷ which clearly shows that the āryas were free, in contrast to the dāsas who were unfree. Therefore the political distinction between the ārya and the śūdra seems to have been of the same type as that between the citizen and the non-citizen in Greece and Rome. Since the śūdra was considered unfree, it was not thought proper to associate him with the work of administration. It would thus appear that the lower classes had no influence in the affairs of the states of the time. Thus a Jain source mentions various categories of kṣatriyas and brāhmaṇas attending the assembly of the king, but does not speak of the gahapatis (i.e. vaiśyas) or the śūdras.⁸ It seems that normally even the vaiśyas could not be appointed as councillors, although according to the Pāli texts the seṭṭhis, who received the seṭṭhichatta (the canopy of a seṭṭhi) from the king,⁹ may have been given some administrative functions. A Jātaka informs us that a tailor's son was made treasurer (bhāṇḍāgārika),¹⁰ but such instances are rare.