Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c9.243

c9.243

It seems, then, that in the beginning the *upanayana* was an affair of the whole tribe and its every member had to undergo initiation; but as the tribe disintegrated into classes, it became a prerogative, a honorofic distinction to be attained by means of wealth and high social position, which gave the initiated access to more or less exclusive, often secret societies.⁴ Just as in Iran it was denied to the Hūiti class,⁵ so also in India it was denied to the śūdra varṇa. Following Senart's view that clan exogamy and tribe endogamy later developed into the features of the caste system, it may well be argued that tribal initiation was transformed into the *upanayana* of the three higher varṇas, with the result that it helped to bring about the social degradation of the śūdra.