Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c9.181

c9.181

In the Brāhmaṇas priests and nobles seem to have been free to intermarry with the lower classes, including the śūdra, as the cases of Vatsa and Kavaṣa indicate.¹ Vatsa was called a śūdra-putra by his brother Medhātithi, which shows that this was probably not used as a term of abuse.² It is said that Vatsa proved his brāhmaṇahood by walking through the fire unscathed and thus wiped out this reproach. This case shows that the social rank of a person was not determined by his birth but by his worth.³ The case of Kavaṣa Ailūṣa being born of a dāsī seems to be doubtful. The epithet dāsyāḥ putraḥ applied to him is regarded by Sāyaṇa as a term of abuse.⁴ The Pañcaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa⁵ provides an instance of the legal marriage of the slave girl Uśij, the mother of ṛsi Dīrghatamas, if we may adopt her description given in the Bṛhaddevatā.⁶ The Purāṇic traditions inform us that Kakṣīvat, a brahmavādin, was the son of Dīrghatamas by a śūdra maid-servant of King Bali,⁷ and in the epic he is mentioned as being of śūdra birth (śūdra-yoni).⁸ It has been pointed out that Mahīdāsa, the author of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, was a śūdra.⁹ There is nothing to support this view unless his surname Aitareya be interpreted as his being the son of Itarā¹⁰, which means vile, low or rejected, but this seems to be too far-fetched. In a late Brāhmaṇa Sudākṣiṇa Kṣaimi, a seer and priest, is addressed as a śūdra,¹¹ but there are no particulars about his parentage, except that he was a descendant of Kṣema, and possibly in his case this epithet is used as a term of abuse. About a dozen ṛṣis, whose mothers belonged to what may be regarded as the one or the other section of the śūdra varṇa, are enumerated in the *Bhaviṣya Purāṇa*.¹ With minor modifications the list recurs in several other Purāṇas and the *Mahābhārata*.² It informs us that Vyāsa was born of a fisherwoman, Parāśara of a śvapāka woman. Kapiñjalāda of a caṇḍāla woman, Vasiṣṭha of a prostitute (*gaṇikā*), and the best of sages (*muniśreṣṭha*) Madanapāla was the child of a boatwoman. As a justification for this kind of list, it is said at the end that the origins of the ṛṣis, rivers, pious people, great souls and of the bad character of woman cannot be discovered.³ Nothing definite can be said about the chronological position of these ṛṣis or of their actual existence, but such a list testifies to the practice of priests and ṛṣis marrying śūdra or slave women probably during the later Vedic period. It seems that kings and chiefs too married śūdra women. The *pālāgali*, who was the fourth and the least respected wife of the king, was a śūdra.⁴