Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c14.1

c14.1

The main phases in the history of the śūdras, from their earliest appearance to cir. A.D. 500, may be roughly indicated. The early Vedic society was primarily pastoral in which tribal elements predominated. Although we come across artisans, agriculturists, priests and warriors even in the earlier portions of the Rg Veda, the society of āryans in this period was basically tribal, pastoral and egalitarian. Spoils of war and cattle constituted the main forms of wealth and in the absence of a strong food-producing economy they could not generate such surplus as would fully support priests and warriors. It was possible to have high ranks based on age, seniority, experience and personal qualities, but not high social classes based on the exploitation of social surplus. It was therefore a pre-class society, and at this stage there was little scope for the formation of a serving order in the form of the śūdras. Princes and priests had women slaves for domestic service, but their number may not have been large. It seems that towards the end of the Rg Vedic period the defeated and dispossessed sections of the Āryan and non-Āryan tribes were reduced to the position of śūdras. Both inter-tribal and intra-tribal conflicts contributed to their numbers. But their ranks really swelled on account of the transformation of the pastoral society into an agricultural society in the upper Gangetic basin. For carrying on agricultural operations labourers were needed, and many of them were the poor cousins of "āryan" priests, princes and peasants. Since originally a considerable number of śūdras formed part of the Āryan community, they retained several tribal rights, especially religious, in later Vedic society. On the basis of the fiction of belonging to the same tribe these rights may also have been extended to non-Āryan śūdras. That the śūdras could participate in certain Vedic ceremonies had something to do with the nature of the later Vedic economy. Although it was food-producing and agricultural, agricultural technology was primitive. The use of iron was known, but confined mainly to war. Problems of clearance were very difficult, and large plots needing the help of numerous labourers could not be formed. The result was that the peasants did not produce much over and above the needs of their daily subsistence. Naturally taxes and tributes could not be collected regularly, and differentiation between those who laboured and produced on the one hand and those who lived as parasites and managers of production on the produce of peasants and labourers on the other could not be intensified. The beginnings of class society were still weak, and at such a stage the position of the śūdras tended to be ambiguous.