Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c12.344

c12.344

Whether the untouchables and the mixed castes were regarded as śūdras by Manu is not clear. Manu categorically states that there are only four varṇas,² which may imply that the mixed castes were included in the śūdra varṇa. The myths of their origin show that they were supposed to have śūdra blood in their veins. At one place in Manu the antyaja is explained as a śūdra by Kullūka.³ But the term antyaja is also used by Manu in the sense of a caṇḍāla.⁴ The mixed castes such as the sūta, the vaidehaka, the caṇḍāla, the māgadha, the kṣattṛ and the āyogava are known as bāhyas, who are regarded by the commentators as people outside the fourfold varṇa system.⁵ Manu distinguishes an antyaja from a śūdra in connection with his penalties for the crime of adultery,⁶ and an antyāvasāyin from a śūdra in his law of evidence. But Patañjali defines niravasita śūdras as caṇḍālas and mṛtapas, whose food vessels could not be used by the people of the higher varṇas;⁷ this suggests that these untouchables were considered śūdras. Manu also uses the term apapātra (i.e. those whose vessels could not be used) for such śūdras.⁸ Thus it seems that the mixed castes and the untouchables were being absorbed as inferior śūdras, who were distinguished from the ordinary śūdras by their separate habitations, backward culture and primitive religious beliefs.