Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.666

c13.666

But the influence of the reforming sects should not be exaggerated. Vaiṣṇavism was utilised by the ruling classes to maintain the bases of the varṇa divided society. Vaiśyas, women and śūdras are condemned as people of low origin.² It is asserted that nothing offers salvation to the śūdra excepting the service of the twice-born and devotion to Viṣṇu.³ This is more or less a corollary of the theory of *karma*, and of the general belief in the imperative necessity of performing the duties of the order in which a person is born. It seems that members of the lower orders were made to believe in this doctrine by the brāhmaṇical ideologies.⁴ In the *Mṛcchakaṭika* a bullock-cart driver refuses to carry out his master’s orders to kill Vasantasenā on the ground that: “Destiny and sins made me a slave at birth; I do not wish to fall again into the same misfortune, and therefore I shall refuse to commit a crime”.⁵ Such a belief naturally prevented the masses of the people from looking for the causes of their miseries in the actions of human agencies.