Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c14.30

c14.30

There is no doubt that among the śūdras domestic servants, sharecroppers, herdsmen and barbers were regarded as higher in the social scale than most other types of śūdras, for their food could be taken even by the brāhmaṇa master.² Greater weakness of the lower orders lay in their division into śūdras and untouchables, which appeared in the time of Pāṇini, was perpetuated in later times and accentuated in the Gupta period. The śūdras gained in status not only through their levelling up with the higher varṇas but also through their exaltation above the untouchables, so that, with a class of people lower than they, they might satisfy their sense of vanity in the brāhmaṇical hierarchy.