Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.3

c10.3

For the study of the position of the śūdras in post-Vedic times, the brāhmaṇical sources, which mainly comprise the Dharmasūtras (law-books), the Gṛhyasūtras (books dealing with domestic rites) and the grammar of Pāṇini, can be supplemented by the early Buddhist and Jain texts. The chronological position of these sources can be fixed only roughly. In the scholarly study of the subject made by Kane the principal Dharmasūtras have been assigned to the period 600-300 B.C.¹ The sūtras show a grammatical freedom which is hardly conceivable after the period of the full influence of Pāṇini,² whose grammar has been assigned to the middle of the 5th century B.C.³ The law-book of Gautama, which contains most information relating to the śūdras, is believed to be the oldest of the Dharmasūtras.⁴ But its mention of Yavanas as born of śūdra women and kṣatriya men,⁵ more examples of the joint notices of the vaiśya and the śūdra⁶ as found in the later Dharmaśāstras, the attempt to introduce uniform laws for the whole of India,⁷ the provision of punishment for cow-killing,⁸ the enumeration of nearly twenty mixed castes⁹ — all these features show that its contents underwent great revision in later times.¹ Therefore all its laws relating to society may not reflect conditions in the pre-Mauryan period.