THE SHUDRAS : THE STORY OF RECONCILIATION 201
This confusion has arisen because of the failure to realize that the meaning of the word ‘Shudras’ in the Indo-Aryan society is quite different from the meaning it has in the Hindu society. In the IndoAryans the word Shudra was proper name of one single people. It was the name of a people who belonged to a particular race. The word Shudra, as used in the Hindu society, is not a proper name at all. It is an epithet for a low uncultured class of people. It is a general cognomen of a miscellaneous and heterogeneous collection of tribes and groups, who have nothing in common except that they happen to be on a lower plane of culture. It is wrong to call them by the name Shudras. They have very little to do with their namesakes of the Aryan society, who had offended the Brahmins. It is a pity that these innocent and backward people of later days have been rolled up with the original Shudras and subjected to the same penalties for which they had given no cause.
That the Shudras of the Indo-Aryan and the Shudras of the Hindu Society are different and distinct is a fact which was present at one time to the minds of the Dharma Sutrakaras is quite clear. This is evident from the distinction they made between Sacchudra and Asac- chudra and between Aniravasita Shudras and Niravasita Shudras. Sachudra means a cultured Shudra and asac-chudra means an uncultured Shudra. Nirvasita Shudra means a Shudra living in the village community. Anirvasita Shudra means a Shudra living outside the village community. It is quite wrong to say as some [1] do that this division indicates that the condition of Shudras in the eyes of the lawgivers was improving, in that some were admitted to social intercourse when formerly none was. The correct interpretation is the Sacchudra and Nirvasita Shudra refer to the Shudras of the Aryan society and the asac-chudra and the Anirvasita Shudra refer to the Shudras by epithet who had begun to form part of the Hindu society. We are concerned with the Shudra of the Aryan society. They have no connection with the later-day Shudras of the Hindu society. That being so, the fact that the Shudras of the Hindu society form such a large number cannot be made the basis for an argument that the Shudras of the Indo-Aryans must have also been a very large body of people. We do not know exactly whether the Shudras were a tribe, a clan or a moiety or a group of families. But even if they were as
1 Sec Kane, II (I), p. 123. His view that this distinction implies that Shudras were being gradually raised from their low status is quite incorrect.