The riddle of the Shudra, the Rajanya and the Kshatriya!

The scholars have been miserably misled, or it has been a deliberate act on their part, that they have tried to portray ancient India through Vedic glasses, without paying heed to the stark, open facts that are present, known, and yet neglected. Even the inferences they have tried to derive from the Vedic texts are only intended to prove their age-old notions, regardless of how incorrect they may be. This is why the picture of the ancient Indian society and the new entrant Vedic society, and the new recruits in that religion is distorted, for they did not consider them separate, independent entities. It is clear from the available evidence that the Shudra was a tribe, located in North-West India, and other tribes or people too were present across the country, known by their various tribal or regional names; still, they surprisingly did mix all while explaining the origin of the Shudras.

The most neglected fact that demands serious attention is that almost all the scholars have neglected the fact that the Vedic religion and the Hindu religion (Ancient folk religion) are not one and the same. 

It is also an agreed fact that the term Shudra nowhere appears in the Rig Veda except Purusha Sukta (RV 10.90) and that this hymn is a late interpolation in the Rig Veda. It never occurred to the scholars that why only Shudra tribe become part of a Vedic verse when there were many other tribes, too, those inhabited the vast regions of the country. They didn't bother to analyse the significance of the term Rajanya that is mentioned in the said Sukta in place of the Kshatriya and overlooked the fact that the Kshatriyas and Rajanyas are not the same but distinct entities.

When exactly this interpolation took place is open to speculation, but the fact is that the hymn in question also went through many modifications/additions in the course of time. It is believed that the hymn gave divine sanction to the permanent four-fold social order to seed the inequality and injustice amongst Hindu society. 

The Sukta has two verses that describe how the four Varna were originated. It is as under-

ब्राह्मणोऽस्य मुखमासीद् बाहू राजन्यः कृतः ।
ऊरू तदस्य यद्वैश्यः पद्भ्यां शूद्रो अजायत ॥१२॥

Here, we will just focus on the second-highest class or rank, which is named as “Rajanya”. This would mean that the Rajanya stood second in rank to the Brahmina. In the later Vedic literature, the term Rajanya gradually vanished and was replaced with Kshatriya. It is assumed by all the scholars and tradition that the Rajanya and Kshatriya are interchangeable or that Rajanya and Kshatriya are equivalent terms.

What are the facts?  Are Rajanya and Kshatriya equivalent or is the truth otherwise?

The ord Rajanya has been used in the Rig Veda and Atharvaveda as a generic class of the warriors. In the Aitareya Brahmana, it is said that the Rajanya requests a Kshatriya for a place at Devayajna (sacrifice for gods). There are rituals mentioned in the Brahmana literature where conflict appears between Rajanyas and Kshatriyas. The Kaushitaki Upanishad differentiates the Kshatriyas and Rajanyas. Rig Veda mentions several times of Rajanyas and Kshatras, and the terms are not interchangeable. The Rajanya term is used for the kins of the kings, nobles, and scions. Shatapatha Brahmana too mentions Rajputra, Rajanya, and Kshatraputra separately. From these instances, it would be clear that the Rajanyas and Kshatriyas were separate entities. In Avesta, too, a contemporary book to the Rig Veda, the word Kshatriya and Kshatra appear as xšāyaθiya ("emperor") and xšaθra ("realm"). The word Rajan also appears in the old Persian literature. (See Zamyad Yast 88-90) 

This would mean that the terms Kshatra and Rajanya existed simultaneously in those contemporary (Vedic and Zoroastrian) societies. The word Rajan would mean the King (elected or otherwise), and Rajanya meant, accordingly to different scholars, either kinsmen of the Rajan (King) or the ruling (even former ruling) families from whom Rajan would be appointed or chosen. In short, Rajanya is the ruling power, and Rajan is chosen from them to rule. In a tribal society, though social classification was loose, the class of the Rajanya was held equally important with priestly families or just lower than them. The mention of this term as a class in the Purushasukta would mean that the Rajanyas had emerged as a distinct social class by the time of its composition.

The term Kshatra appears in the Rig Veda about 9 times. The meaning of Kshatra is power. The power was based on the greater control over the Jana and its territory. It can be seen that the relationship between Vish and Kshatriyas was not always cordial, as Kshatriyas controlled the Vish (Vaishya). In short, the Kshatra were either a feudal class or a warrior class in general. 

It will appear from the Vedic literature that the Kshatriyas (or Kshatras) and Rajanyas were contemporaneous and formed two distinct classes in the Vedic society. There were rivalries between these two classes. Rajanya would mean the kins of the ex or present kings who could only claim the throne. Kshatriya was a class that would control the territories and would act as a middleman between the Vish (agrarian society) and the King for collecting the tributes. Rajanyas, too, possibly sometimes acted as Kshatriyas, but their status was higher, as evidenced by Purushsukta itself. What is most important we have to note here that the Rajanya and the Kshatriya were not one and the same. 

However, the main question remains, and that is, why Purusha Sukta does not mention at all the Kshatriya class? Instead, it mentions Rajanya. It would mean that the Rajanya was a larger and important society than that of the Kshatriyas, and being insignificant in number or position, did not form a social class in the early Vedic society where the Rig Veda was composed. 

However, we must note here that the Kshatriya varna has no divine sanction as it is not mentioned in the Purushsukta and equivalent literature. Considering that the Kshatriya is second in the Vedic social order has been a gross mistake of the scholars. There is no explanation in the Vedic literature why Rajanyas were dropped and Kshatriyas were replaced in the so-called divine social order. 

Though in later course usage of the Rajanya term seems to be gradually vanishing, still Aitareya Brahmin frequently uses it. (e.g. AB 1.5.2) This would mean that till the time of composition of the early parts of the Brahmana literature, the Rajanya class was well in existence and enjoying the social status that was granted to them by the Rig Veda.

Now, the question arises as to why the Rajanya class disappeared from the Vedic society, and for all ritualistic purposes and authority, Kshatriyas were replaced when they did not have any divine sanction.

To understand this, we need to analyse the geographical shift of the Vedic people and the new societies they came across and their endeavour to adjust in the new social environmental circumstances while readjusting their religious rules without neglecting the local populace on whose mercy and cooperation their survival depended.

It is now a well-established fact that the geography of the Rig Veda and the Avesta was in the close vicinity. This does prove that the Vedic society was originally established in Afghanistan (most probably the southern part). The memory that Shatapatha Brahmana preserves goes like this :

“Videgh Mathava, residing on the banks of the Saraswati river, accompanied by his family priest Goutama Rahugana and Agni, symbol of Vedic culture, marched onwards. Through crossing the northern mountains (Uttaragiri), drying the rivers, and burning the forests, he reached the Sadanira river. The legend tells that when Videgh Mathava asked Agni, where he should make his abode, Agni told him to reside to the east of the river.” (SB 1.4.1, 14-17)

The myth, preserved by Brahmana, clearly indicates that from the banks of Saraswati, a group of the Vedic people had marched towards a river to find refuge. The group marched through the northern mountains, which could only be the Hindukush and the rivers flowing through that region, to reach an uninhabited place to settle.

Modern scholars normally try to equate this river with the Gandaki, which flows from Nepal through India, finally feeding the Ganga. However, from the Mahabharata’s accounts on this river, it could not be the Gandaki but some other river flowing through the Gandaki and Sarayu. Amarasinha of Amara Kosha asserts Sadanira to be a synonym of the Karatoya River, flowing through the north of Bengal. Anyway, Sadanira means ‘abounding in water’, which can be applied to any river that is full of abundant water. The myth also indicates that the area across the river was swampy and uninhabitable.

Thus, the theory of the invasionist scholars of those times from this myth had considered Aryan expansion from the west to the east, occupying the lands and regions towards the Gandaki River of Bihar (or Bengal), is not tenable. The Sarasvati River still flows in southern Afghanistan. Had it been a victorious march, as some scholars suggest, towards Sadanira, that located in the Gangetic region, they would not to resided in the uninhabitable area because those regions were already populated, as it is evidenced by the Archaeological findings. 

Videgh Mathava and his companions might have deserted their original homeland to find a new habitat because of the constant struggles with the Zoroastrian religion, or there might be political reasons. We get many instances of such struggles in the Vedic literature, recorded in the form of myths, where the Vedics were defeated many a time. Videgh Mathava and his companions abandoned their original habitat and, crossing Hindukush, entered the north-eastern parts of India to find a place to seek refuge. They found such a place near a river to which they named Sadanira, and on its banks, in a marshy and swampy region, they made their first settlement. This must have been the north-west part, Sindh, of India, as is evidenced by supportive proofs.

Here we get many historical as well as mythological proofs that the tribe Shudra was also located in the north-western part of India. Alexander's historian Diodoros, who accompanied Alexander in his expedition to India,  notes of a tribe named “Sodrai” (Greek corrupt form of the Shudra) which resided in the Sindh region. Alexander seems to have built a city named after himself, Alexandria, on the banks of a river. (The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great-As described by Arrian, Q Curtis, Diodoros, Plutarch, and Justin, edited by J. W. Mcrindle, page 354) Ram Saran Sharma confirms that “There is no doubt that Sudra existed as a tribe in the fourth century BC.” (Sudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order Down to Circa A.D. 600 by RS Sharma).

Mahabharata records that a Shudra tribe, along with the Abhira tribe from north-west, participated in the great war. (Mahabharata 6-10.65) Also, the same Shudra tribe finds independent mention in a list of peoples conquered by Nakula during his victorious march before the coronation of Yudhisthira. Gian Chand Chauhan states, “The plethora of references to the term Sudras along with the Abhiras show that the Sudras was an old tribe flourishing at the time of the Great War in the Sapta-Sindhava region.” (Some Aspects of Early Indian Society, by Gian Chand Chauhan, page 54) 

Now it should be clear that the Shudra was a tribe. It was located in the north-west regions of the country, and its immediate neighbours and allies were the Abhiras. Also, it should make clear that the Shudra was never a class but a tribe that dwelt in India along with several tribes like Surasenas, Sibis, Nishads, Panchals, Kurus, and so on. 

The Shudra tribe, inhabiting in north-west part of India,  in the Sindh region, in all probability, these were the people the Vedics came across first on friendly terms and decided to live within their territory. 

We know from the Rig Veda that the Vedic people’s known geography was limited. Earlier, they were aware of the major river Indus and a few western tributaries, but their knowledge of the vast regions and the people beyond the Indus was limited and was of the hearsay sort. They didn't know anything about the regions beyond the Vindhya mountain, as is evidenced by the Aitareya Brahmana and Manusmriti. It seems that, when they entered the Indus region, they came across a region they decided to settle was within the territory occupied by the Shudras, completely unknown to them before; hence, the term Shudra appears nowhere in the rest of the Rig Veda. 

Interestingly, terms like Das, dasyu, and Pani, etc., are disappearing from the Vedic texts of later times. The reason may be that they had left those communities far behind. 

How the Shudras (Sudda, original Prakrit term) accommodated the Vedics in their territory is a matter of speculation. However, the refugees could not have afforded to be hostile to the hosting countrymen. The number of the Vedics who found refuge here could not be very large. Had they waged war and acquired their territory, they would not have decided to reside in the marshy and swampy land. There is no mention of any war between the Shudras and the Vedics in any of the Vedic literature, so the Shudras might have accommodated them without any hassle. 

Here, let us conclude that the handful of the Vedics came to India and found refuge in the territories of the Shudra tribe. Looking at their limited knowledge of the geography, in sheer ignorance, they addressed all those beyond the region of Shudras with the same term, though later they came to know of many tribes or jana that were located elsewhere as well, with independent identities. (Hindustan's name too emerged from the River name Sindhu, as foreigners initially didn’t know the lands beyond that river. The name given to the limited geographical area became the name of the entire subcontinent.) 

Here, we come to the solution of our main issue as to why the term Rajanya instead of Kshatriya and why Shudra came to be an important part of the society. The process can be shown as follows. 

1.     Being small in number, residing in a separate village or two, a settlement, where they lived on the mercy or friendship of the Shudras who resided around in their independent settlements.

2.     Whatever portions of the Rig Veda and other literature they had brought with them were rearranged, classified, and then the later additions started in the same land. 

3.     Purushasukta clearly indicates, from its language and mention of the seasons, that this composition was made when they had set foot in India; as Max Muller suggests, it is entirely modern in its character and diction. (‘A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature’, by F. Max Muller, Pub.: Williams and Norgate, 1859, p. 557)

4.     In the Purushsukta, Rajanya appears in the second rank because, in all probabilities, besides priests, Rajanyas were larger in number than those who had joined this expedition. The Kshatras were completely absent or very meagre in number; hence, there was no need to assign them any position in the social order.

5.     Vedics gave Shudras the fourth place, not to demean them, but to make a cosmic social order without whose mention it would be incomplete, though they knew very well that these people are different, racially as well as by religious faith. Also, they didn't know other people (tribes) for lack of their limited contact and were completely at the mercy of the Shudra tribal people. 

Purushasukta indicates that though the Shudras are mentioned as a part of the cosmic society, they were not at all a part of the Vedic society by religious faith. This is evident from the verse 

ब्राह्मणोऽस्य मुखमासीद् बाहू राजन्यः कृतः
ऊरू तदस्य यद्वैश्यः पद्भ्यां शूद्रो अजायत 

 where it has made very clear that “The Brahmana was his [God’s] mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya made. His thighs became the Vaishya, from his feet, the Shudra was produced.” The feet didn’t become the Shudra, because the composer of the hymn knew very well that the Shudras were not part of the Vedic community, though an important society. The distinction was very clear to them, and they skillfully composed the verse.  

6.     The Yajurveda declares that “शूद्रार्यावसृज्येताम”  (Shudra and Arya were created) [Yajurveda 14/30]. Here also, there is a clear distinction between Arya (Vedic) and Shudra (non-Vedic). Here, we do not find any contemptuous view about the Shudras. The only probable reason is that at the time of composing these hymns, too, the Vedics were on good terms with the entire Shudra tribe.

7.     In fact, it does not appear that the purpose of the Purushasukta was to make permanent stratification of the social order. Even the term “varna” does not appear in this hymn. The hymn was just meant to show how a society came to an existence without assigning a rank to anyone. It is a fact that the same verse was used to stratify the Vedic social order in later times, but originally it was not intended. Had it been the case the Vedics wouldn't have mentioned Shudras at all because they were not part of the Vedic society. In fact, they were foreigners to them. 

8.     The Vedics, for they were few in number, must have needed servants and maids to assist them in farming, cattle tending, and household work. They naturally had to hire such people in need from the surrounding Shudra community. From Vedic literature, it appears the Vedics in India, too, preferred to dwell in the villages. They avoided cities. The menial force they hired, too, must have been living in the separate settlements, besides the Vedic Villages, as was the old practice in India. 

9.     Manusmruti, as mentioned in the last chapters, mentions the Shudra kings and their domains. Aitareya Brahmana mentions the Shudra kings who ruled beyond the Vindhya mountain. (AB 7.13-18) They termed other people also Shudra for their lack of knowledge of the lands and people of the country in the early times. However, the Mahabharata mentions the Shudra tribe together with the Abhiras and also the numerous tribes that dwelt in the country. This would mean that by the time of the early Manusmriti, the Vedics considered all other tribes as Shudras. By the time of Mahabharata, the Vedics could make a distinction between other tribal or jana names and the Shudra tribe.

10.                         During this vast period, the term Rajanya was gradually dropped because the original Rajanyas who had walked with the entrants lost their entity and purpose over time. The Kshatriya emerged as the second-ranking class, though it had no Vedic sanction. The Kshatriyas, it clearly seems, were converts to the Vedic faith or it became an epithet to address warriors of the local populace in later times. To them, the Vedics did not assign the Rajanya rank. They kept it deliberately vacant as the ruling class here belonged to different faiths and customs. It is quite possible that some Kings of those times could have converted to the Vedic faith and were happy with the assigned title.

11.                        From Shudra’s tribal kingdom, Vedic spread to promote their religion, gained royal patronage of the Kurus and Panchals to begin with, and converted some to their fold. (See “The Rigveda, trans. By Griffith, preface.) The first recension of the Manusmriti seems to have been composed in the Kuru-Panchal region to which they named “Aryavarta”.  By this time, Rajanya had lost all significance, and Kshatriya became a synonym of valour and authority.

12.                        The Vedics, till the Brahmana era, and new recruits to the Brahmin fold, continued with the same lifestyle; they preferred villages and took services from the poor folks of the surrounding regions. They, it clearly seems, habitually continued the practice of calling them Shudra. 

13.                         By this time, with the addition of the new recruits, the number of the Vedics and their needs had grown. To meet them, they naturally required more serving staff, which was met with the gifts of the slaves or hired workmen. They resided in the Vedic villages, though in independent colonies.    

14.                        As Vi. Ka. Rajvade (Preface, Radhamadhavavilasachampu) states that, because of the close contacts with the menial class, the cross-illicit relations also started creating social problems in the Vedic order. In the beginning, they accommodated the offspring in their fold, assigned them some castes, but later on, it was prohibited because it created a chaotic condition in Vedic society. They started enforcing many restrictions on them in order to maintain the purity of their religion and social order. However, they failed in such attempts. 

15.                        Smritis are evidence of this fact that all the restrictions, those that sound humiliating and cruel sometimes, were meant for the class that was employed (or the people gifted by the patrons) in their service. Except in the Sindh region, there was never any other Shudra tribe. Though Vedic habitually addressed their servants as Shudras, it wasn’t and couldn’t be the case. People from other tribes, too, must have joined their services, or people from any tribe could have been gifted to them by the patrons, to all for the sake of convenience, collectively, they called Shudras. The fact was always otherwise and is evident from the Vedic scriptures too! 

16.                        The Vedics assigned Kshatriya and the Vaishya status to those who were indigenous warriors or trading/farming people, who had officially entered their fold. Those who had not embraced the Vedic faith, followed their ancient folk-religion,  were Shudras in their eyes. By this time, it seems Shudra had become a derogatory term to them to use against those who despised or avoided their religion. We can understand how this could have happened. The Shudras (their working class that included people from many tribes) daily association had caused tremendous harm to their social structure and hence had became despicable and yet unavoidable!

17.                          It seems from the Manusmriti, some Vedics conducted sacrifices for the Shudras (non-Vedic tribes/janas) and received the fees. Such Vedics were also avoided by the Vedics who thought they were loyal to the tradition. Calling such a host who performed a sacrifice for his benefit, too, was despised by addressing him with the term Shudra. 

18.                        The so-called Shudras, though not belonging to the Shudra tribe at all, enjoyed their titles and traditional ways of life with the faiths they had nourished for ages. It was the Vedics who termed all those who were non-Vedics, hostile to the Vedic religion, as Shudras. They offered their respects to only those who were sympathetic towards their religion but had not embraced their faith. Stories enumerated by the Mahabharata of Vena, Nahusha, etc., tell us the fact that they were not ready to accept the Vedic faith and hence were killed by the Vedic Brahmins. These may be fabricated stories, created in order to establish their superiority, but they suggest their hostilities towards the kings, too, who did not accept or patronise their religion. To even Gautam Buddha, Vedic tradition calls “Vratya Kshatriya”, a kshatriya who has not undergone any Vedic ritualistic custom. 

19.                        The term Kshatriya was offered to only those who either had become Vedic or patronised their religion. This way, we can find that neither the Solar nor the Lunar race was Kshatriya in origin. Either the title Kshatriya was used for them suo- motto, to please them or to those who had converted to their religion. Whatsoever the case may be, we find several stories of Kshatriya-Brahmin rivalries because the new recruits to that fold, especially kings, desired an upper hand in the socio-religious order. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishada goes to the extent of declaring the Kshatriya born first and hence superior over the Brahmin. It declares that the Brahmin should take a lower seat in the Rajasuya sacrifice. (BU 1.4) 

From above, it will be clear how Rajanya finds a place in the Purushsukta because then there didn’t exist any Kshatriya in the early Vedic community that travelled to India. They had Rajanyas and a Rajan (in the form of the Videgh Mathav), hence Rajanya became a part of the divine body. They made the Shudras a part of the social order but did not consider them as part of the Vedic order, because they were not Vedics, but the Vedics depended on their mercy and assistance they tendered for their survival. It is very much possible that the Vedics lived in the Shudra kingdom for 4-5 generations to reorganize themselves before they marched out in the eastern regions to spread their faith. 

They applied the term Kshatriya, a rare term used in Rig Veda, to the new converts (or patrons) hailing from the royal families and warriors and glorified the term so much so that even today Indian populace is crazy about it, though the term was unimportant to the early Vedics for the term had no place in the divine order that was proclaimed by much-hyped Rig Veda. 

As we have seen, it should not be forgotten that the term Kshatriya is not equivalent to Rajanya at all. Both were distinct classes in the original Vedic society when located at their original homeland. The Shudra were never meant to be a varna in the Purusha Sukta because it was merely a tribe among which the Vedics had to live. Hence, the term Shudra should be dropped while writing the social history of India. Mixing the term with other tribal or jana identities will not yield any satisfactory analysis. The journey of the Vedic religion to India has to be closely analysed to know the facts, which were avoided or neglected by the earlier scholars. Unless the entry of Vedism in India and its methodological spread is understood, the riddles of our present social structure, which is largely based on the self-nourished myths and sheer misunderstandings, cannot be solved. We shall discuss in the next chapter why the Kshatriya (and Vaishya) class came to be eliminated in the later course of time.