Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c8.298

c8.298

If they were allied to the Indo-Aryans, when did they come to India? It has been suggested that they were an earlier wave of Aryan immigrants.³ But since they are not mentioned in the *Ṛg Veda*, it is likely that they represent a later thrust of foreign tribes into north-western India towards the close of the *Ṛg* Vedic period. On the basis of archaeological evidence it is possible that the movement of peoples into India was a continuous process lasting for nearly a millenium after 2000 B.C.,⁴ a hypothesis, which is also supported by linguistic evidence.⁵ It is, therefore, probable that the *Śūdras* came to India towards the end of the second millennium B.C., when they were defeated by the Vedic Āryans and were gradually absorbed into the later Vedic society as the fourth varṇa. Interestingly enough the area covered by the Sarasvatī, with which the Śūdra people are associated, is full of Painted Grey Ware sites which began around 1000 B.C.