[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Reference works](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference) › [Vedic Index of Names and Subjects](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912) › v2.c4.s7.354 # Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v2.c4.s7.354 Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v2.c4.s7.354 - **Language:** English ### [v2.c4.s7.354](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.354) Fick¹⁴⁵ denies also that the Śūdras ever formed a single caste: he regards the term as covering the numerous inferior races and tribes defeated by the Āryan invaders, but originally as denoting only one special tribe. It is reasonable to suppose that Śūdra was the name given by the Vedic Indians to the nations opposing them, and that these ranked as slaves beside the three castes—nobles, priests, and people—just as in the Anglo-Saxon and early German constitution beside the priests, the nobiles or eorls, and the ingenui, ordinary freemen or ceorls, there was a distinct class of slaves proper; the use of a generic expression to cover them seems natural, whatever its origin (see Śūdra). In the Āryan view a marriage of Śūdras could hardly be regulated by rules; any Śūdra could wed another, if such a marriage could be called a marriage at all, for a slave cannot in early law be deemed to be capable of marriage proper. But what applied in the early Vedic period became no doubt less and less applicable later when many aboriginal tribes and princes must have come into the Āryan community by peaceful means, or by conquest, without loss of personal liberty, and when the term Śūdra would cover many sorts of people who were not really slaves, but were freemen of a humble character occupied in such functions as supplying the numerous needs of the village, like the Caṇḍālas, or tribes living under Āryan control, or independent, such as the Niṣādas. - [Previous: v2.c4.s7.353](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.353) - [Next: v2.c4.s7.355](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.355) - [Up: v2.c4.s7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.354](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.354) · Pramāṇa