Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c8.330

c8.330

The miserable or negligible status of the *śūdra* varṇa at the time of its origin is hardly borne out by the picture of society in the *Ṛg Veda* and the *Atharva Veda*. Nowhere in the collections is there any evidence of restrictions regarding food and marriage either between the Dāsa and the Āryan, or between the *śūdra* and the higher varṇas.⁵ The only early reference, which implies such social distance between the varṇas, is to be found in the *Atharva Veda*, where it is claimed that the brāhmaṇa enjoys the right to become the first husband of a woman as against the rājanya and vaiśya.⁶ The *śūdra* does not come in for notice, probably because his varṇa did not exist at that stage. There is nothing to show that dāsas or *śūdras* were considered impure, or that their touch imparted pollution to the food or the body of the members of the higher varṇas.¹