Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c12.455

c12.455

The literary evidence for the rise of new crafts and guilds can be linked up with the numismatic evidence and the testimony of foreign writers regarding trade between Rome and India, which was at its height during the first two centuries of the Christian era,⁵ especially in the Sātavāhana territory. This remarkable increase in the volume of trade must have softened the rigours of the caste system at least in the trading-ports⁶ and some other inland towns, and thus may have improved the social position of the lower orders.