Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c9.174

c9.174

Ritual literature can be also made to yield some information on the social conditions of the śūdra. A passage of the Yajus collections states that the vaiśyās and the śūdras were created together.¹ This runs counter to the Puruṣasūkta version, in which the vaiśya precedes the śūdra in the order of creation, with the result that the latter is assigned the lowest place in society. But the tendency to put the vaiśya and the śūdra in the same social category is noticeable in some rites, which show that a vaiśya can be the husband of a śūdra woman and vice versa.² It is ironically stated that the arya husband of a śūdra woman does not seek prosperity, the idea being that such a marriage condemns him to a life of prolonged penury.³ The commentators take the term arya (with short initial vowel) in the sense of vaiśya,⁴ which provides evidence of marriage between the vaiśya and tne śūdra woman; but the authors of the Vedic Index regard these references as instances of illicit union between the ārya and the śūdra.⁵ In most cases the reading is arya, and therefore the interpretation of the commentators seems to be right. The reading arya is also accepted by J. Eggeling in his translation of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa,⁶ where he rightly renders it as vaiśya. But it is not beyond all possibility that the texts may have been tampered with to suit new situations, when marriage between the members of the higher varṇas and the śūdra was looked upon with disfavour. On the basis of such an assumption it is possible to think of free marital relations between the Āryan and the Śūdra tribes or the people who came to be included in the śūdra varṇa. Later such relations came to be confined to the two lower varṇas.