Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.319

c10.319

The Dharmasūtras give the impression that generally the ideal brāhmaṇa avoided the food of a śūdra,⁷ especially if he was impure. But the penance and threats for enforcing this ban seem to be of later origin and were probably not effective during this period. It is clear that no such ban was imposed on the kṣatriya and the vaiśya. Thus at the vaiśvadeva ceremony the śūdra could be engaged in the preparation of the food under the superintendence of the men of the first three varṇas.⁸ While cooking he should remain absolutely neat and clean so that the food might not be contaminated. For this purpose he should cause the hair of his head, his beard, the hair on his body and his nails to be cut, preferably on the eighth day of each half of the month or on the days of full and the new moon. Besides he should take his bath with his clothes on.¹ Ordinarily it was provided that the śūdras living in the service of the āryas should trim their hair and nails every month; their mode of sipping water, according to Baudhāyana, being the same as that of the āryas.² The fact that a śūdra could be permitted to prepare food even at a religious ceremony, in which the greatest degree of purity was expected, shows that ordinarily his food was accepted by the members of the higher varṇas, perhaps excluding the brāhmaṇa in some cases. Even in a later Jātaka the occupation of a cook is described as one to be practised by slaves or hired labourers.³ In one case, however, the kṣatriya father avoids eating with his daughter by a slave wife. But this passage occurs in the present story of a later Jātaka,⁴ and hence may not apply to this period. Prescriptions which forbade contact with food touched by the impure, and especially with the leavings of their table, and punished transgressions of the rules, are found in the early Pāli texts,⁵ but there is nothing to show that they were particularly directed against the śūdras. This was probably due to the fact that the old Indo-European practice, according to which all the members of the clan could partake of the common meals provided on special occasions,⁶ continued to exercise influence for some time even when tribes and clans had broken up into varṇas. The practice of pollution became important only when the upper classes used it as an instrument to strengthen and perpetuate their socio-economic and other privileges.