Education in Ancient India c4.59

c4.59

**Caste System once Flexible**: The caste system has got a long history and has undergone many changes and vicissitudes during the last three thousand years. It was formerly much less rigid than now. Interdining is an anathema to an orthodox Hindu today. Dharmaśāstra writers like Manu (IV. 253) and Āpastamba (II. 1.3-4) however permit a Brahmana to take his meals in the house of a barber, a milkman and a tenant and employ a Śhudra cook even for preparing the sacred sacrificial food. Inter-caste marriages, which are still not permissible under the Hindu law, were allowed by the majority of Smṛitis, provided the bridegroom belonged to a higher caste. In the realm of educational theory and practice also, we should therefore not be surprised if we find that some of the later theories were not subscribed to or followed in earlier times.