Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c9.165

c9.165

The ready and uncritical acceptance of the false view that according to the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* the śūdra could be slain at the plesure of the master¹⁰ led to the natural corollary that in the Vedic period he had no wergeld, which he came to have in the period of the Dharmasūtras, when the relation of simple slavery was being abolished.¹¹ It is evident that such a view rests on a dubious interpretation of the term *yathākāmavadhyah*. Moreover, although the wergeld (called *vaira* or *vairadeya*) was probably fixed at a hundred cows,¹² there is neither any reference to the variation of this amount according to the varṇa nor to the denial of this right to any varṇa. There seems also to have been provision of penance for the expiation of the sin of manslaughter (*vairahatya*) through sacrifice,¹ but this is also kept free from considerations of varṇa. Therefore it would appear that in later Vedic society varṇa distinctions were not so sharp and wide as to degenerate into the acute civic discriminations of the Dharmasūtras, in which the śūdra was entitled to the lowest wergeld of ten cows.