Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.11

c13.11

The information gleaned from the Smṛtis is sometimes corroborated and supplemented by the Smṛti sections of the *Mahābhārata* and the Purāṇas. Hopkins holds that masses of didactic matter were intruded into the epic between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200.¹ This seems to be true of several verses of the *Śānti Parvan*, which are exactly similar to those in Manu. But variants in the *Śānti Parvan* and the *Anuśāsana Parvan* seem to be more in line with the Smṛti sections of the Purāṇas, which belong to a later period. Hopkins himself thinks that the swollen *Anuśāsana Parvan* was separated from the *Śānti* and recognised as a separate book in the period A.D. 200-400.² There is no reference to the Smṛti contents of the Purāṇas in the pre-Christian era.³ The chapters dealing with the duties of the varṇas in the *Viṣṇu*,⁴ the *Mārkaṇḍeya*,⁵ the *Bhaviṣya*,⁶ and the *Bhāgavata*⁷ Purāṇas may be roughly assigned to the Gupta period.