Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.258

c13.258

In the judicial administration the old discriminations generally continued. Bṛhaspati provides that witnesses should belong to respectable families and regularly perform religious rites as prescribed in the Vedas and the Smṛtis.⁴ This naturally excludes the śūdras. The provision that śūdras should appear as witnesses only for śūdras is repeated by the lawgivers of this period ⁵ Kātyāyana lays down that the case against the accused should be proved by witnesses who are similar to him in caste. A litigant of a lower caste should not establish his case by the evidence of witnesses of higher castes.⁶ Nārada's list of false witnesses includes jugglers, public dancers, sellers of spirituous liquors, oil pressers, elephant drivers, leather workers, caṇḍālas, śūdra peasants (*kināśas*), sons of śūdra women and outcastes (*patitas*).⁷ But Nārada also moderates the old provision regarding varṇa witnesses by providing that members of all the varṇas