Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c8.187

c8.187

The use of the word *dāsa* in the sense of slave is to be found mostly in the later portions of the *Ṛg Veda*. Two cases occur in the first book,⁷ one in the tenth book,⁸ and one in the supplementary hymns (called *vālakhilya*) inserted in the eighth book.¹ The only early reference of this type is found in the eighth book.² In the Ṛg Veda there seems to be no other word which could mean slave, and it is thus clear that men slaves hardly existed in the early Ṛg Vedic period.