Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c16.46

c16.46

The decline of crafts and commerce lessened the importance of traders and craftsmen and hardened the attitude of landed classes—brāhmaṇas and kṣatriyas—towards them. Craftsmen working in bamboo and leather were placed in the category of untouchable castes. But the basic factor that explains the increase in the number of mixed, śūdra castes also operated in the case of the conversion of the tribal peoples and in the fossilization of craft occupations. It was the expansion of land grant economy, and the introduction of feudal localism in which everybody had to stick to his land, village, master or client. Clients and masters might change, but not their artisans and peasants. This changelessness, which was the result of a society which practically stopped petty commodity production, prepared the climate for the perpetuation and proliferation of castes.