Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c8.10

c8.10

But there is no doubt that many age-old social practices continued into the 19th century. The glaring contrast between the rising industrial society of England and the old decaying society of India³ attracted the attention of the educated intelligentsia, who were being permeated with the spirit of nationalism. They realised that the practices of sati, lifelong widowhood, child marriage, and caste endogamy were great obstacles to national progress. Since these practices were supposed to derive sanction from the Dharmaśāstras, it was felt that necessary reforms could be effected easily if they could be proved to be in consonance with the sacred texts. Thus in 1818 Rammohan Roy published his first tract against sati, in which he tried to show that, according to the śāstras, it was not the best way for the salvation of a woman.⁴ In the fifties of the same century Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar ransacked Smṛti literature in order to make out a case for widow remarriage.⁵ In 1879 Swami Dayanand, the founder of the Ārya Samāj, brought out a collection of original Sanskrit texts called the Satyārthaprakāśa to support widow remarriage, rejection of caste based on birth,⁶ and the śūdras’ right to Vedic education.⁷ We do not know how far the early social reformers drew inspiration from the contemporary works of the British scholar Muir,⁸ who tried to prove that the belief in the origin of the four varṇas from the primeaval man did not exist in ancient times,⁹ and from those of the German scholar Weber, who presented the first important critical study of the caste system on the basis of the Brāhmaṇas and the Sūtras.¹