Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.450

c10.450

The veṇas were another aboriginal tribe, who lived by hunting and working in bamboo.⁷ A later Jātaka mentions a veṇukāra or velukāra who goes into the forest with his knife to collect a bundle of bamboos for his trade.⁸ The Dharmasūtras invent an origin for the veṇas as well. According to Baudhāyana a vaiṇa is the offspring of a vaidehaka father (born of a vaiśya father and a kṣatriya mother) and an ambaṣṭha mother (born of a brāhmaṇa and a vaiśya mother).¹ Thus, unlike the caṇḍāla and the pulkasa, the vaiṇa was not supposed to have śūdra blood. Although in a later Jātaka verse the term veṇi is bracketed with the caṇḍāla as a term of rebuke,² there is nothing to show that the veṇas were regarded as untouchables like the caṇḍālas. The commentary to the Vinaya Piṭaka clearly states that birth as a veṇa means birth as a carpenter (tacchaka 3 The veṇa and the takṣaka being identical, it appears strange that the latter, who enjoyed a high status in later Vedic society, was relegated to the position of a despised caste in the Buddhist texts.