Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c11.126

c11.126

Unlike the Dharmasūtras, Kauṭilya does not make any explicit statement excluding the śūdras from high administrative posts. But his list of requisite qualifications for kingship and high governmental posts shows that these were looked upon as the special preserve of the members of the three higher varṇas. He states that, in preference to a strong and base-born king, people will naturally obey a king of noble birth, even if he be weak,¹ and therefore in his opinion the king should be born of a higher family.² He says that just as the reservoir of water belonging to the caṇḍālas serves only their purpose, so also the king of low birth confers patronage only on low-born people and not on the āryas. Incidentally Kauṭilya’s dislike of a low-born king shows that he could not have agreed to serve under a king born of a śūdra mother. Hence it is not possible to make much of the śūdra origin of the Mauryas, as has been done in some cases.³ It is practically certain that Candragupta belonged to the Moriya clan of the kṣatriya community.⁴