Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c8.221

c8.221

On the basis of the foregoing discussion it would not be overbold to state that the Āryans came to India in large numbers. With some possible admixture from the enemy tribes, warriors and priests could account only for a small minority of the Āryan population. In course of time the majority of the Āryans could not escape the fate of being reduced to the position of commoners and semi-helots. But in the Rg Vedic period the process of economic and social differentiation was still in its very early stage. In a predominantly tribal, pastoral society the military leaders had hardly any fixed and regular source of surplus cereals or even cattle, on which they and their priestly supporters could live and flourish. Their most important source of income lay in the occasional exaction of tribute and spoils of war from the conquered peoples, which also, presumably, they had to share with the members of the tribe.³ Bali is the only term which indicates the practice of collecting or receiving some sort of surplus in the Rg Veda. Generally it means a tribute or offering made to a god,⁴ but it is also used in the sense of tribute paid to the king.⁵ Probably the payment of *bali* was voluntary¹ as there was neither any regular machinery collection nor any collector such as the *balisādhaka* of post-Vedic times to collect it from the people. Apparently the tribal kinsmen gave trust and voluntary presents to their chief, who in return led them from victory to victory and allowed them a share in the spoils of war. Only defeated hostile tribes may have been compelled to pay *bali* or tributes. At best, princes and priests could exploit the labour of women slaves for domestic purposes, or possibly for looking after their cattle. It seems that the *Ṛg Veda* families cultivated their lands themselves, there being no common word for wages in Indo-European languages. The *Ṛg Veda* does neither know of agricultural slaves nor of wage-earners and hired labourers (*karmakara*), who appear as an important element in agricultural operations in post-Vedic times.² We have no instance of the grant of land by the tribal chiefs to their warrior or priestly followers, presumably because the land belonged to the tribe as a whole. The near egalitarian character of *Ṛg Veda* society is further evident from the prescription of the same wergeld for everybody, man or woman,³ the compensation amounting to a hundred cows.⁴