Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.409

c13.409

Yājñavalkya prohibits certain kinds of food for the twice-born. The twice-born is not permitted to take wine. Penances are provided for the brāhmaṇa wife if she violates this rule,⁵ but according to Vijñāneśvara these are not necessary if a śūdra wife drinks wine.⁶ Drinking seems to have been a vice specially associated with the śūdras, for the list of words for spirituous liquor and various processes of its preparation and for intoxication are enumerated by Amara in the śūdra-varga;⁷ words for gambling are also listed in the same section.⁸ In the Pañcatantra a drunken weaver is represented as beating his wife.⁹ Yājñavalkya also forbids the use of the milk of a cow in heat, within ten days of the birth of her calf, and of one without a calf; as also of a camel, a single-hoofed animal, a woman, a wild animal or a sheep.¹⁰ An oblation intended for gods, sacrificial viands, śigru (a kind of horseradish), unhallowed meat, fungi, carnivorous animals, and a number of birds such as the parrot, the swan, the vaka, the cakravāka etc. are declared uneatable for the twice-born,¹¹ and penances are provided for the expiation of the sin arising out of the violation of the rule in some cases.¹ Yājñavalkya further states that, among the five-clawed animals, the twice-born should not take the porcupine, alligator, tortoise, hedgehog and the hare; he also specifies the four varieties of fish which a twice-born should take.² He prohibits the eating of roots, onion, garlic, village pig, mushroom and leek; those who violate this rule should perform the cāndrāyaṇa penance.³ Fa-hsien informs us that onion and garlic were taken only by the caṇḍālas.⁴ Yājñavalkya lays down that the person who compels a śūdra to partake of the prohibited food shall be subjected to half the punishment involved in the first amercement, which shall increase if the offence is committed against the members of the higher varṇas.⁵ This would suggest that certain items of food were tabooed even for the śūdras, but these are not specified by Yājñavalkya. On the other hand the list of food items prohibited for the twice-born clearly implies that they could be taken by the śūdras. The Bṛhaspati Smṛti states that in the Middle Kingdom labourers and artisans eat the meat of cows,⁶ which shows that even the strong brāhmaṇical propaganda against cow slaughter did not always succeed in stopping this old practice among the masses of the people. This can also be inferred from a didactic anecdote, probably inserted in the Vāyu Purāṇa during this period. It relates that Pṛṣadhra, son of Manu Vaivasvata, ate the flesh of his preceptor's cow, upon which the sage Cyavana cursed him to become a śūdra.⁷ Thus the above discussion would show that the food habits of śūdras were somewhat different from those of the members of the twice-born varṇas.