Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c8.161

c8.161

Despite the paucity of information reasonable hypotheses may be made about the social adjustment between the Āryans and members of pre-Āryan chalcolithic societies and other peoples. In the first flush of the Āryan expansion the destruction of the settlements and the peoples such as the Dasyus seems to have been so complete that very few people in north-western India would remain to be absorbed into the new society. But this may not have been the case in the succeeding stages of their expansion. While the majority of the survivors and especially the comparatively backward peoples would be reduced to helotage, the natural tendency would be for the *vis* of the Āryan society to mix with the lower orders and for the Vedic priests and warriors to mix with the higher classes of earlier societies. That in some cases the enemies of the Āryans were given high status in the new composite society is clear from two references. At one place Indra is described as converting the Dāsas into Āryas.⁴ Sāyaṇa explains this as teaching them the Āryan way of life. At another place Indra is said to have deprived the Dasyus of the title of the *ārya*.⁵ May this suggest that some