Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.532

c10.532

We have no precise idea about the extent of the lay following of the heretical sects among the people of the lower classes. Buddhism counted some followers in the artisan community.¹ The Ājīvika sect was in some way especially connected with the potter caste, and made a special appeal to its members.² But in any case the reforming religions did not make any fundamental change in the position of the lower orders. The proportion as well as the importance of such people in the Buddhist church seems to have been negligible. In spite of its theory of equality a marked leaning to aristocracy (of all the three varieties, birth, brain and bullion) lingered in ancient Buddhism as an inheritance from the past.³ It may be going too far to assert that the social organization in India was not in the least altered by Buddha’s appearance.⁴ But evidently the Buddhists rarely questioned the fundamentals of the varṇa system, which identified the śūdras with the serving class. Thus while refuting the brāhmaṇical claims to superiority over the three other varṇas, Gautama argues that as regards descent the kṣatriyas are higher and the brāhmaṇas are lower. But he does not question the superiority of either the brāhmaṇas or the kṣatriyas over the vaiśyas and the śūdras.⁵ Buddhism, therefore, merely tries to show that caste is of no value in the search for emancipation.⁶ Like Christianity, none of the religious reforming movements of this period ever attacked the basis of slavery; they never tried to abolish the economic and political disabilities of the śūdras.