Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.673

c13.673

But there is no doubt that during the Gupta period the religious rights of the śūdras were enlarged, and in respect of several ceremonies they were placed on a level with the members of the three higher varṇas. It is argued that moved by selfish interests the brāhmaṇas wanted that a large section of people should observe brāhmaṇical rites,¹ which consequently led to the spiritual betterment of the śūdras. But the same selfish interest of the brāhmaṇas may equally well have existed in earlier periods, when there is not much evidence for such a development. Perhaps the reasons for the broadening of the religious rights of the śūdras lay in the improvement of their material conditions, which enabled them to perform sacraments and sacrifices by paying for priests. For the ability to sacrifice was rightly believed to be intimately connected with the ability to pay.¹ Roughly speaking, the developments in the religious position of the śūdras during the Gupta period may be compared to what happened in Egypt at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, when certain funerary rites, hitherto confined to the Pharaohs and nobles, were extended to the masses of the people.² But this was accompanied by improvements in their economic conditions,³ a fact which seems to be also true of the position of the śūdras in the Gupta period.