Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.484

c13.484

There is some information about the manners, customs and religious beliefs of the mixed castes, especially of the caṇḍālas. Iron objects were the chief ornaments of the mixed castes,² who lived outside village settlements. A caṇḍāla is represented as besmeared with the dust raised by dogs and asses.³ Fa-hsien informs us that only the caṇḍālas drink intoxicating liquor and eat onions or garlic,⁴ which shows that they were particularly addicted to these practices. Being hunters and fowlers, they were naturally habitual meat-eaters.⁵ A Buddhist source declares that those who eat meat are born again and again in the families of the caṇḍālas, pukkasas and ḍombas.⁶ It adds that, when a dog sees even from a distance the persons who desire to take meat, he is terrified with fear, thinking “they are death-dealers, they will even kill me”.⁷