Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c8.33

c8.33

The first independent work on the śūdras was a short article by V. S. Śāstri (1922), who discussed the philosophical basis of the term śūdra.¹ In another article (1923) on this subject he tried to show that the śūdras could perform Vedic rituals.² In a paper published in 1947 Ghoshal dealt with the status of the śūdras in the Dharmaśūtras.³ A valuable article was by a Russian writer G. F. Ilyin (1950),⁴ who, on the basis of the Dharmaśāstra evidence,⁵ demonstrated that śūdras were not slaves. The only monograph on śūdras (1946) was published by a well-known Indian politician, who confined himself to the question of their origin.⁶ The author was entirely dependent for his source-material on translations,⁷ and, what is worse, he seems to have worked with the fixed purpose of proving a high origin for the śūdras, a tendency which has been very much in evidence among the educated sections of the lower caste people in recent times. A single passage of the Śānti Parvan, which states that the śūdra Paijavana performed sacrifice, is sufficient to establish the thesis that śūdras were originally kṣatriyas.⁸ The author did not bother himself about the complex of various circumstances which led to the formation of the labouring class known as the śūdras. A recent work⁹ (1957), allied to our subject, brings together scattered information on labourers in ancient India, but does not make any significant addition to our knowledge. The main object of this book is to explore the field of Labour Economics in ancient India, and in doing so the author notices in the past parallels to modern wage-boards, arbitrators, social security etc., with the result that this work suffers from much modernism. Moreover, the book mainly draws on the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya, is sketchy, and lacks historical sense.