Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c8.22

c8.22

But the attempt of the Indian scholars to present their early social institutions in a form more palatable to the modern mind did not always commend itself to western writers. Thus Senart (1896) pointed out that the castes are compared by Hindus of English upbringing with the social distinctions that exist among Europeans, but that they correspond only very remotely to western social classes.⁴ Similarly Hopkins (1881) stated that the position of the śūdra was not different from that of the American house slave before 1860.⁵ Reviewing Hopkins' generalizations, Hillebrandt (1896) held that the position of the śūdras should be judged in comparison with the slaves of the ancient world and not in the context of developments in later times.⁶