Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v2.c4.s7.338

v2.c4.s7.338

It is probably a fair deduction that the royal caste did not much concern itself with the sacred lore of the priests, though it is not unlikely that individual exceptions occurred. But that warriors became priests, that an actual change of caste took place, is quite unproved by a single genuine example. That it was impossible we cannot say, but it seems not to have taken place. To be distinguished from a caste change, as Fick¹³³ points out, is the fact that a member of any caste could, in the later period at least, become a Śramaṇa, as is recorded in effect of many kings in the Epic.¹³⁴ Whether the practice is Vedic is not clear: Yāska¹³⁵ records it of Devāpi, but this is not evidence for times much anterior to the rise of Buddhism.