Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.397

c10.397

Of the three higher varṇas, the brāhmaṇa was expected to carry out his religious duties most scrupulously. Thus Baudhāyana lays down that a brāhmaṇa who does not perform the saṃdhyā morning and evening should be made by the king to do the work of a śūdra.⁹ The brāhmaṇa also fell from status if he took to manual occupations. Baudhāyana states that the brāhmaṇas who tend cattle, live by trade, work as artisans, actors, servants or usurers should be treated like śūdras.¹ Gautama goes a step further and states that, if an ārya adopts the occupations of a non-ārya, (i.e. a śūdra), he is reduced to his status.² Commenting on this passage, Haradatta thinks that even a brāhmaṇa who performs the occupation of a non-ārya need not be served by a śūdra. He curiously adds that a śūdra who does the work of an ārya must not be despised by others following non-āryan occupations. Evidently there seems to be no point in such a contempt, for the āryas were higher in status. Such rules suggest that the members of the higher varṇas, especially the brāhmaṇas, felt contempt for manual occupations, which reduced them to the position of śūdras when they were forced to earn their living with their hands.³ In the Vinaya Piṭaka agriculture, trade and tending of cattle are regarded as a high type of work.⁴ This obviously refers to the functions of the vaiśya. On the other hand the work of a carpenter and a sweeper is regarded as of low type.⁵ The same text enumerates five low occupations (hinasippāni) of the nalakāra (bamboo worker), the kumbhakāra (potter), the pesakāra (weaver), the chammakāra (leather worker) and the nahāpita (barber).⁶ At one place, however, the occupations of the weaver, the bamboo worker, the potter and the barber are put in the list of ordinary crafts,⁷ which shows that generally the fifth craft, that of the leather worker, was universally looked upon with contempt.